Brenda Winkle 00:01:25 Hello and welcome to your yes filled life. I'm your host, Brenda Winkle. I want to ask you a question. The question is, what are you waiting for? I'm not asking what you're working toward or what you're planning, what you're researching, what you're dreaming about. I'm asking, what are you waiting for? Because I have a suspicion. I think a lot of us already know. We know the decision that we've made. We know the right next step. We know the boundary. We know the conversation that we need to have. We know what our dream really is. We know what the change that is most beneficial to us would be. We know the truth, but we're waiting. So my question is, what are you waiting for? And there's a few different answers for this. And I have lived through many of those myself. I remember when I was a music teacher, and I've talked about this before. My friend Molly and I used to attend these workshops. We called them October Days, and they were two specific days that were designed to be teacher professional development.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:51 And every year my friend Molly and I would go to the same workshop. And it really was a good workshop. But one thing that you may not know about music educators is that we are all pretty competitive overachievers, and this particular professional development meeting was no exception. So the requirements for these state funded, state mandated professional development days were that we be in session in our professional development for contract hours, which usually for teachers, is somewhere between 7 and 8 hours a day between depending on the district. And that can vary a little bit whether your lunch is included in that or not. And okay. So the requirements by the state would dictate that you put forth your normal workday contract hours in your professional development. Sounds reasonable right? Well, music teachers again, coming back to the high performing overachievers. If the normal workday was eight hours, then the music teachers would plan their event to be eight and a half or nine, or maybe even ten. And this went on for years, and by the end of that day, everyone was tired and no shade to the organization.
Brenda Winkle 00:04:19 It was a it was a really fun event, a great workshop, but it was a long day. At the beginning of every day they would hand you a ticket and you would write your name on the back of one matching side of the ticket that had a similar number, and then you would keep one ticket, and then at the very end of the day, they would draw for door prizes. And every year I would wait, even though I wanted to get home, even though I knew I had to drive because they were all over the valley where I lived. And so there was usually a drive, a commute that was involved, and I was tired and we didn't have students and we were in session longer than any other educator. And so there was a part of me that was really ready to go. But there I sat. Year after year after year, waiting to win the door prize. And I've told this part of the story before, so maybe you've heard it on different episodes. One year I actually did win the door prize.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:24 You want to know what it was? It was a five little pumpkins board book that was worth about $5. Knew I waited for years to win that book. That $5 book. Now, that isn't the whole part of the story I wanted to share. The reason this is relevant is because one time I was in a romantic relationship that was clearly not aligned. It was one of those relationships where every time I got together with my friend Molly. Poor Molly. And thank you, Molly, I would rehash this relationship. Is it aligned? Is it going the direction I want it to? And in both cases, the answer was always no. But I was waiting. I was waiting until this event, or I was waiting until this milestone, or I was waiting until maybe if I try it this way, it will magically resolve and be the relationship I really wanted it to be. And one time my friend Molly said to me in the kindest, most loving way possible. She said, Brenda, you know how we wait for the door prize at the end of our workshop every year in October? And I was like, yes, I do like viscerally.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:45 I know what that waiting is like. She's like, you're waiting to win the door prize in this relationship. And she looked at me and she said, it's not going to happen. It will never happen. And she was right. I was waiting to win the door prize in my relationship that one day, this relationship that was completely misaligned, completely not of the highest and best for either one of us would someday, like, magically turn into something different. It's like pouring yourself a glass of water and expecting it to turn into, I don't know, Diet Coke or something. It's not going to happen. And so when she brought that to my awareness that I was waiting to win the door prize in my relationship, I was realizing how many other places I've done that. And my guess is, there's a part of you that relates to this story in some way, where you're waiting for something that is probably never going to happen, or it's cousin, which is the thing that actually is going to happen.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:51 You're waiting for a stage in life. You're waiting for an event, you're waiting for a specific age or a specific milestone. And there's love for that too. Sometimes it sounds like I'm going to wait until the kids are out of high school, or sometimes it's going to be I'm going to wait until x, y, z. So what are you waiting for? Are you consciously aware of what you're waiting for? And is the thing that you're waiting for going to actually happen? You know, in the case of a milestone or a kid leaving the house, there's probably chances that that could happen. And then there's other cases like my relationship where it was never going to happen. So the women and the men that I work with are not usually confused. Oftentimes if I interview them before I start working with them. One of the things people say is I really want clarity. And that's true. They do. They do want clarity. But the truth is they actually already know. They know the conversation that they need to have with a partner, or with a parent or with a grown child.
Brenda Winkle 00:09:12 They know the next move that they really want to make that they've been dreaming about living, let's say, on the Oregon coast. And they know that they want that to happen. They know. They know that they want to start a coaching business, or they know they want to close their coaching business. They know they actually don't want to be an entrepreneur. And that's why the business hasn't worked. They know what shifts they want in their partnerships and in their friendships. They know the boundaries that they want to set for themselves. We wait because somebody might have called us selfish or greedy for wanting what we wanted. And as an empath, if somebody calls you selfish is like one of the worst things that we can experience. And if you're not an empath and you're listening to this podcast because somebody shared it with you, then invitation to know this is the path of the empath. For us to be called selfish means that we haven't done what we know we're able to do in a way. And the truth is, a lot of the work we have to do as empaths to step into our fullest, most radiant, most aligned versions of ourselves is to let go of being called selfish, meaning something because it doesn't.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:46 And I'm just going to give you a little tidbit right now before we move on from this. The people that are calling you selfish have noticed that you're doing something that prioritizes you, and what they want you to do instead is something that prioritizes them. So this whole selfishness thing is kind of a circular argument. But if we were called selfish as a child and it meant that that was kind of a bad thing, that could have really left a mark and that might be part of what you're waiting for. The other thing is, as empaths, it's probably challenging for you to deal with conflict because you're tracking the feelings of the people that you're talking with as well as experiencing your own. And so when we have conflict arise in our lives, a lot of times we avoid it. We don't want to create conflict, In fact, so many times when I first meet an empath and this doesn't happen once they become clients, by the way. But once I meet an empath, I will hear them say things like, well, I was sick for three days because I didn't tell my mother in law that I can't eat dairy.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:03 That does not happen once you start working with me, because you being sick for three days does not serve anyone. If you can't eat dairy, don't eat dairy. And a lot of times we make other people's feelings matter more than our own experience, this being one of them. Sometimes we wait because we disappointed one of our parental impactors when we were little, and we never want to feel that sense of disappointment again. And so even though we're fully grown adults, we're autonomous beings. We have sovereignty. We still have this little child part inside of us that desperately wants validation, approval and love and wants to avoid disappointing someone. And that's real. And until we tend to those parts and regulate our nervous systems, they'll keep running the show. Another common reason we wait is we either have been misunderstood at some point in our life, or we deeply fear being misunderstood now. And no matter what your particular flavor was, whether it was because somebody called you selfish or you don't enjoy conflict or you disappointed somebody, or maybe you were misunderstood, there was a subtle learning that happened.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:27 And that is my knowing something isn't enough. And so the work that I do inside power, inside my master classes, inside my membership, and here on the podcast is to help you trust that you actually do know what you know. You do know what to do. So there's a cost to waiting, as you know. But the cost isn't just delaying your happiness or your peace. The cost is self trust. The cost is your own self-concept. Because every single time that you override yourself, you teach yourself. My knowing isn't trustworthy. And eventually you stop bringing your own knowing to the table. And so when I meet somebody who tells me they don't know what they like to do, they don't know their preferences. They don't even know their favorite foods. I know that that's not actually true. It's not that they don't know. It's that they have practiced making everyone else's experiences matter so much that they have forgotten their own. They've forgotten to bring their own knowing to the table. And when we're outsourcing our knowing to other people, to other groups, to other authority figures, there's a little part of us inside that usually is absolutely fighting to get out, fighting to be seen.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:09 One of the biggest things for me personally that has happened is I've learned to trust myself, is I feel peace. I don't enjoy conflict, but I'm willing to engage in it if I need to. I'm trusting myself so completely that I've been able to do things that everybody told me not to. An example is I took my business online in 2017 for three years before the pandemic, three years before online businesses were really catching on. I took mine online because I knew that I wanted to make a bigger impact. I knew that I wanted to have a global brand. I knew I wanted to serve people internationally. It was really important to me, and I knew that if I limited myself to the number of people I could fit around my dining room table. True story that I would only be able to serve four people at a time. And so I took my brand very clumsily online in 2017. Everyone told me not to. Everyone said no one will buy from an energy healer online. At the time, I was really, leading with my Reiki and my theta healing, and when I chose my breathwork certification and my somatic healing certification, I deliberately and intentionally chose companies that would support online education so that I could really learn how to hone my craft.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:49 And then also, I chose experiences that led me to in-person experiences so that I can understand what it's like to hold space in person and to feel the differences so that I could create the most dynamic transformation for my clients possible. This started in 2017 when everybody said, don't do it, that's dumb. Don't do it. And now I've owned this, this business, a version of this business for almost 12 years. I changed names when I moved states. But the point is, everyone said not to. And I knew that was what I wanted to do. Everyone said not to give up my teaching job in Boise. I just had air quotes there. Just had seven years to go before retirement. That was four years ago. Five years ago. I have changed my life so many times over in the last five years. I am so grateful that I trusted myself enough to allow myself to start over in a new state. Even though it went against conventional wisdom. I wouldn't be here today talking to you on this podcast if I wouldn't have had an immense amount of self trust.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:08 And the same thing goes for when I let go of my full time teaching job in 2022, everyone said not to do it. I did have some coaches I was working with. That said, I they believed in me and I, they thought I could do it, but a lot of people were like, yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. You're not ready. Well, you know what? You're never ready. If I would have waited, I would not be where I am now. I can tell you that for absolute certain, because I feel like I'm still getting ready. I'm still getting ready to be a really good podcaster. I'm still getting ready to be the best coach I can be. I'm still getting ready to really have a handle on my social media accounts, and by all outside measures, it's working. So a lot of this is an inside job and it comes back to that identity. Who are you willing to become as part of the process of learning to trust yourself? So in addition to everything we've already talked about, there's one more piece.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:16 And it's what I call the permission problem. A lot of us are waiting for permission. We want validation. We want support. We want agreement. We definitely like certainty. So many of us like certainty. But the truth is. The most impactful and meaningful decisions often arrive before any of those things, before the validation, before the support, before the certainty. It's just a knowing. It's a trust. So when I was in a conversation recently with somebody, she was wondering if power self trust for empaths, the semi-private coaching experience that I'm offering that's now enrolling. She wanted to know if it was for her and asked if we could jump on a call. And so we did. And one of the things that she said literally in a sentence sums up the work that I do. She said, I want my experience to matter as much as everyone else's. That's literally a mic drop moment. I want my experience to matter as much as everyone else's. And so many times as empaths. That has not been our go to because we always shone our spotlight outward first.
Brenda Winkle 00:20:49 We're scanning the room. We're taking the temperature. We're checking in with the emotions. And now, when we decide that our experience matters as much as other people's, we can turn that spotlight in and start checking in with ourselves internally. So when it comes to waiting, maybe the question isn't what do I need to know? Maybe the question is what if I already know? And then a follow up question would be what do I already know? So we're shifting. What do I need to know? To what if I already know To what do I already know? And then the next question that'll really move the needle is what would what would change in my life if I trusted it? And here's the thing. I have found that most people aren't actually afraid of making the wrong decision. It feels like that. And when we talk about it, it sounds like that. But I'm learning that's not actually the thing. The thing is, what happens if it's the right decision? What happens if what you already know is the right decision and whence you know it? I was having a conversation this morning on my walk with a friend.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:25 Once you know it, it's like trying to climb back into a cocoon. It just won't fit anymore. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. So I don't think the fear is making a mistake. I think the fear is that it's not a mistake, and that it's going to require you to change that. It's going to require you to step into a bigger identity. That's the fear. And that's the work we do inside power. We do nervous system regulation. We talk about it. We understand our patterns. We understand the unique needs of an empath. I am an empath. I'm a lifelong empath. And so I have five reflection questions that I love to offer you. You can either push pause between each question, and I'll also put them in the show notes so they can be helpful for you. So question number one is what do you already know. Question number two what decision have you already made that you're still asking other people to approve? Question number three. What are you waiting for? Question number four.
Brenda Winkle 00:23:51 What if permission never comes externally? And question number five. What if your experience mattered too? What would you do different? So I'll give those to you one more time. And then you can find him in the show notes or in the YouTube description, or whether you're on Amazon Music or iHeartRadio or Apple or Spotify, it'll be in the description. So the five reflection questions are what do you already know? What decision have you already made that you're still asking other people to approve. What are you waiting for? What if permission never comes externally? And number five. What if your experience mattered to. So the alarm that you just heard go off the little bells. That was my appreciation practice alarm. So I invite you to pause for just a moment and think of three things you really appreciate about wherever you are, whatever you're doing right now. What are three things you really appreciate? I appreciate that you're listening. I appreciate getting to share this experience with you, and I appreciate the ways that you're so thoughtfully showing up in your life.
Brenda Winkle 00:25:19 I am so appreciative that I get a chance to do this work. So all of this that I've talked about today, The waiting and the positioning and the validation and you getting to matter again. All of this is exactly what we're going to explore in my free masterclass. It's called Trust Yourself Again. Why? You already know more than you trust because as an empath, you probably don't need more information. You just need support. Trusting yourself so you can go register at the link in the show notes or the description or register at Brenda Winkle. Level. And I think that it would be really interesting for you to say out loud, I already know. In fact, say it with me. I already know. And if that feels true, you're probably not waiting for more information. You're probably not waiting for more life events to unfold. You're probably waiting for yourself. And if that's true, then maybe the next step isn't learning something new. Perhaps it's trusting what you already know. Thank you so much for being here.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:42 Bye for now. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. Please hit subscribe wherever you're listening. There's some really cool episodes coming up in the coming weeks. We have Judith Orloff, the godmother of the empath movement, coming up soon. I have case studies and clients coming on and some really incredible interviews, so be sure you're subscribed. And if this episode meant something to you, if it made you think about things differently, if it made you feel seen, would you please consider sharing it with a friend? And if you haven't left the podcast, a comment, rating or review, it would mean so much if you did. Thanks for being here. Bye for now. Until next time.
