Episode 40: How to Tell the Difference Between Intuition & Fear with Chelsea Horton

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There is no question that trauma is stored in the body. We know this from the work of people like Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk and Stephen Porges. So many of us live in our heads all the time because being in our bodies is too uncomfortable. But something else besides trauma also lives in our bodies…

Intuition! Developing the self-trust to hear and follow our intuition also requires connection to our bodies. So, doesn’t it make sense that if you re disconnected from your body because of trauma that you are also disconnected from your intuition?

Healing trauma requires being able to be in the body. Not surprisingly, developing and listening to intuition also requires being in the body.

Links

• Follow Chelsea on Instagram
• Work with Chelsea on relationship anxiety & relationship OCD, embodiment, dance and movement, and feeling safe in your body
• Episode 6: Help for Relationship Anxiety, Embodiment of Emotion Through Dance & Movement, & Pole Dancing with Chelsea Horton

Show Notes

Relationship anxiety expert and therapist Chelsea Horton is back on the podcast to…

• discuss what intuition feels like in the body
• talk about emotional neutrality vs. emotional attachment when discerning between intuition and fear
• share wisdom on building self-trust with gentleness and curiosity
• discuss why living in a baseline of chaos and dysregulation interferes with being able to develop and listen to intuition
• share why feeling safety in our bodies is integral to developing and listening to intuition
• talk about how, as entrepreneurs, we have to focus our energy on how we want to feel outside of what we produce in business
• talk about how binary belief systems and cult-like ideologies silence our intuition
• discuss the role of curiosity in personal development, healing, and intuition
• talk about how the body will still react in survival energy around decision-making even when we intellectually understand our decisions aren’t “life or death”
• share the importance of acknowledging how our ability to listen to and trust ourselves has been taken from us by systems such as government, religion, patriarchy, and institutionalized schools

Transcript

Hello, everyone happy Sunday. If you’re not listening to this on Sunday, when this episode is released, just happy, whatever day it is for you. Um, I want to give you a little update on my family and our lives. So. This episode is publishing on Sunday, May 30th. And on Tuesday, June 1st. We are putting our 14 year old dog, Betsy.

To sleep. She gets to cross the rainbow bridge. Betsy has been with us for 11 years. We got her when she was three, we adopted her from the SPCA. And her adoption story is so sweet. Every time I tell it, I light up. So I want to tell it to you today. So in 2010, we got a bearded Collie. I’ve talked about this spirit of Kali before her name was Layla and she was a rescue. We rescued her through the bearded Collie club of America. We had to apply.

To adopt her. We just send in pictures of our home and our yard and our fence, and they had a really rigorous screening process. Before they would allow these rescues to be adopted and requalified to adopt. A beer to Collie. And she was two years old. When we got heard her name was Layla and Layla had been kept in a crate her entire life. She came from a puppy mill.

And so when she was rescued from the puppy mill, she had been eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping in the same, like. You know, six or eight cubic foot space, her entire life. She didn’t know what to do when they put her on grass. For the first time she had had to have a lot of veterinary care. And a lot of rehabilitative care.

So when we got her, um, I personally don’t think that Layla was ever going to be ready to be adopted out. I think that she was one of those dogs that really needed the special one-on-one TLC that dogs with special needs have. And so when we brought her home, she never fully adopted to being our family’s dog. Like I had these two little kids who were super excited to have a dog for the first time and to play with her and.

Make her a part of our lives. And Layla just was not in a place where she could handle that. And of course, now that I understand what I know about the nervous system, I know that normal for her was a cage normal for her was not being part of a family. Normal for her was not playing with little kids.

And so when she was introduced to this environment that offered her so much love, freedom space. Joy. She didn’t know what to do with it because normal for her was closed up dysfunctional. Unloved. Untouched. And it was very sad. And so one of the recommendations that we got from the people who had fostered her before we adopted her, was that she had always been around other dogs, even when she was in the puppy mill.

That her sisters were also in crates. Around her. And so she had been used to being cooped up with other dogs. And so they suggested that we get another dog to see if that would help her. Adjust and alleviate some of her anxiety. And so we did, we went to the local SPCA and we were looking for a dog to adopt.

To bring home to give Layla a companion. And to try to help her. And my whole family, my two kids, my husband and me, we went to the SPCA one afternoon and we walked all over. We looked at every single dog. We pet every single dog and none of them were really. Speaking to me, like I didn’t have that connected feeling with any of them. And that’s how I know intuitively, which is something that Chelsea and I are talking about in this episode, intuitively does that sense of like connection and feeling at home and safe and comfortable?

With another being, whether that being is a human being or an other than human being. That is how I know that that being is supposed to be in my life. And I just didn’t get that feeling with any of these other dogs. So, of course my children were disappointed as we’re walking out of the SPCA and we don’t have a dog with us and we go back through the lobby of the SPCA and we put our hands on the door knob to open the door, to leave. And we’re telling everyone in the lobby like, thank you, sorry, waiting from what we were looking for today.

And all of a sudden. From around behind the desk at the SPCA. This black and white dog. Comes out from behind the desk, jumps up onto the chair. That’s next to the door. Where we’re about to leave and puts her paws up on me. And just looks at me with her tail, wagging a million miles an hour. And I had this instant connection with her and my husband also had this instant connection with her. And so we asked the SPCA, is she available? Can we adopt her? And sure enough, she was. And we adopted her that day. We took her home that day and.

That was Betsy and she’s been in our home ever since. And so I truly believe with like literally every part of my being, I believe that Betsy chose us as her family. Um, and so she’s a very special, special doc to us. And so she was three when we got her and she’s 14 now. And she has congestive heart failure.

The worst heart murmur our vet has ever heard. And she also has thyroid cancer. So she’s been on hospice care with our family, um, for a little over a year. Now we’ve known for over a year. That her time with us was limited. And we’ve been keeping a close eye on her and just, you know, watching her as she becomes less interested in food, as she becomes less interested in going for walks.

We brought another puppy into our home back in November. He’s also a bearded Collie. And his name is Laughlin. And we really wanted to bring Laughlin home before Betsy passed away, because we knew that she would help him transition into our family’s life. And that she would mother him and sure enough, she did. It was like when we brought Laughlin home.

Right, right before Thanksgiving, 2020. It was like Betsy perked up and she suddenly had a new purpose in life. And for about the first six weeks Laughlin was with us, she really did a good job of raising him and socializing him. Sort of setting boundaries of him and letting him know how things worked in our house.

And then it was like the energy of doing that caught up with her. And so she’s become much less interested in Laughlin. And now even whenever he gets close to her, she sort of like pulls away from him or. You know, growls at him or whatever you can just tell. She’s just doesn’t feel her best. And so, um, Betsy is really, um, he’s really, she’s really all of our dog, but she and our son have a very special connection and.

What we’ve been waiting for is for our son to come to a place of acceptance, that it is time for Betsy to go and, you know, being able to let her go with. With grace and with more ease rather than fighting it. And so this last week, We took Betsy back to the vet for one more. That’s it. My son went with me and.

Sure enough that that said, yeah, she, I don’t even know how she’s still alive now, but it’s definitely time for her to go. And, you know, she may only have a month left. But how great is that month going to be, you know, she’s just declining so quickly. She’s lost so much weight. She chokes a lot. She has difficulty breathing.

And the quality of her life is just gone way down. And so my son finally acquiesced that like, okay, I heard what I needed to hear from the vet and he was ready to accept it. And so we scheduled. For euthanasia to be on Tuesday, June 1st. And so that is what. My life has been focused around this week. I have been off of social media for a lot of the week.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to town and we. Had we looked all over the internet for one of those kids that you can put your dogs, pop Brinson, and nowhere on the internet. Could we get it before Tuesday? So we drove to town, made a special trip to town and went to hobby lobby, which I never go to hobby lobby, but.

We went there and sure enough, they had those kids. So we have preserved Betsy’s Palm prints and some clay. And. I have a little Memorial service plan for her on Tuesday. I have a good friend of mine who is an amazing photographer is going to come and take pictures. Just all of Tuesday evening and while we’re putting her down and those photos, I don’t know if I’m going to share those photos yet with anyone. I’m mostly just want them for us to have.

And. Thankfully because the COVID restrictions are lifting and people are getting vaccinated and all of that. , our vet is able to actually come to our home to do the euthanasia in our home. Which was a huge relief for me, especially, I couldn’t imagine driving over an hour to the vet and having her euthanized and then driving home with her.

Like dead body in the car because we are going to bury her in our yard with her favorite spot picked at the top of our hill. So it’s just been a really emotional week and it’s a week of, um, you know, letting go and. Of course, I’m sad, but I’ve known this was coming for a long time. So I feel like I was a little bit prepared, a little bit more prepared for the sadness.

But what has been so overwhelming to me and I’m going to cry right now telling you what’s been so overwhelming to me this week is. And in the weeks leading up to this, I’ve definitely felt this too. But like now that we have a date and we know what’s happening on Tuesday, it’s sort of like, It’s here.

It’s just how much gratitude. I have for my dog. I’m so grateful that that day in the SPCA. When she could have chosen any other, I mean, they probably have hundreds of people a day walk. Walk through their doors to adopt dogs and she could have chosen anyone. And she chose us. And she has helped.

Our family, like she has been such a companion she’s helped us regulate our nervous systems. She has been a constant for my children. She’s helped me raise my children. She’s just been the best, best dog. And I’m so full of gratitude.

And. How precious all life is not just human life, but our animals, no one will ever convince me that our animals don’t have souls. I can look in that dog’s eyes and I can see when she’s feeling happy and when she’s feeling sad and when she’s feeling excited, And lately when she’s just feeling tired and ready to go.

And. Our vet has assured us. It’s very, very rare for a dog like the, in this sort of state. To just pass naturally. That they know how much we rely on them and how much comfort we get from them. And they also have a sense of obligation. Like they still have a job to do to take care of their people.

And so they don’t make the decision. To go on their own so. Tuesday, if you’re thinking about us on June 1st, please just send love and light and healing. To our family, um, at 7:00 PM central time on Tuesday is specifically when Betsy will be crossing the rainbow bridge and our family will be holding her and surrounding her and sending her.

Away. With love and gratitude and peace. And so our family would very, very much appreciate that. Um, Now to today’s episode, I am bringing you Chelsea Horton. Chelsea, if you have listened to all the episodes of the podcast, if you are a holistic trauma healing podcast bender, then you have heard Chelsea before. She was the first guest I ever interviewed back on episode six. And she is just one of those people that I’m always following what she does on the internet, because she puts out such wonderful healing truth filled.

Build stuff. And she is truly a Lightworker and a healer at this time on this planet. And it is an honor to share. The internet space with her.

 

So here is Chelsea’s official bio. Chelsea Horton is the CEO and founder of the healing embodied. She is a relationship anxiety specialist and a body-mind integration expert with her masters in dance, movement, therapy and counseling. She is a board certified dance movement therapist who has facilitated hundreds of sessions with those who are experiencing intense anxiety. So in this episode, Chelsea and I are having a conversation about something that is so near and dear to my heart. And that is how do you tell the difference between intuition and ego slash fear?

You know, how do you know when, you know, when you know, and how do you know that you’re making a decision out of fear or ego or urgency or anything like that? And so that is what this conversation is about. So we’re talking about intuition and what it feels like in the body. We’re talking about emotional neutrality versus emotional attachment to the outcome of whatever it is we’re trying to decide and how we can gauge what we’re feeling, whether it’s emotional neutrality or emotional attachment to, are we operating out of intuition or fear?

 

We’re also discussing why living in a baseline of chaos and dysregulation interferes with intuition. We share why feeling safe in our bodies is integral to developing and listening to our intuition. Chelsea. And I talk about how we as entrepreneurs have to focus our energy on. How we want to feel and align with that versus being in this space of like urgently and chaotically, trying to decide, okay, should I do this? Should I do that? Will this work, will this sell? Will they buy.

You know, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Like, because being an entrepreneur is a risk. You never know what people are going to want and what they like will buy or won’t buy. And so we have to say, okay, what is it that I want to feel? I want to feel joy. I want to feel aligned. I want to feel.

Abundant. Okay. How can I cultivate that feeling within myself without having to rely on something outside of myself, which is other people and what I’m putting into the world. To have that feeling. So then I get the feeling from myself. I don’t get it based on whether or not someone listens to my podcast or joins my membership or buys my course.

You’ll hear what I’m talking about in episode. We also talk about how binary belief systems and cult-like ideologies silence, our intuition and Chelsea, and I both have histories in fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. So we have lots to say about that. We discussed the role of curiosity in personal development, healing, and intuition. We talk about how the body will still react in survival energy around decision-making. Even when we intellectually understand that our decisions aren’t.

Life or death. So decision-making is something that is very difficult for you because you’re so afraid you’re going to make a wrong choice. You’re definitely going to want to listen to that part of this episode. And then finally we share the importance of acknowledging that our ability to listen to ourselves has really been taken us from us.

, from a young age. By the government, by school systems, by religion, by patriarchy, by consumerism, by, living in comparing ourselves to others, like in so many different ways, we have really lost the ability to trust ourselves and to listen to ourselves. In how we show up in the world. And a lot of that is the result of the sort of institutions and systems that want us to fit into these neat little boxes and comply and follow the rules of those boxes.

And that doesn’t work very well. If you’re trying to develop self-trust and listen to your intuition. So. I would say that this is probably in, this is 40 episodes of this podcast so far. And I would say that this episode is probably in my personal top five. I love this episode that much. And the actual interview with Chelsea only lasted 30 minutes and you will not believe.

How much goodness. Is packed into that 30 minutes. I mean, when that 30 minutes was over and we finished that conversation, both of us were like, what, how was that? Only 30 minutes? Like. There was so much flow and so much alignment between chelsea and me and it is an honor as always to have chelsea on the podcast so i hope that you would join this episode and more than anything i hope it supports you

Chelsea, my very first guest I ever interviewed on the podcast. You are back. Thank you for being here. Wait. Really? I was the first person you were the first guest. Yeah. What are not know that. You were the first guest episode six? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I feel now extra special. I don’t know how, I didn’t know that, but thank you.

You’re a very special thank you for coming back. And Chelsea was on episode six to talk about dance and movement therapy and embodiment. And we also discussed a little bit about your swanky pole dancing practice that you have, which I say your pole in the video right behind you. It’s lovely.

Yeah. I finally have my indoor pole installed. It’s truly my home now. Yeah. Is it in your living room? So this is my office. Oh, okay. Cool. I’ll give a big, yes. The office is like a second living room. Like we have a downstairs living area that I have adopted as my office slash pole studio slash right.

Like goddess cave. Yeah. Yes. Yes. My husband doesn’t well, he has his own office. That’s like his man cave, but I have my goddess cave. Yeah. Nice. So it’s beautiful. Congratulations on your new home. Okay, so we. Are going to attempt to answer the question. How do I know the difference between my intuition and my ego slash fear slash the knot in my stomach?

That makes me want to turn around and run away. How do I know what I’m, what voice am I listening to? Are you ready to have this conversation? Let’s dig into it. Okay. I have personally, I think everyone listening, I’m just going to emphasize everyone. I have felt this exact same thing. I still probably on a weekly basis.

I’m like, okay is this voice that’s telling me to do this or to not do this? Is it me? Is it my higher self or is it the part of me that is like afraid to take risks? Is it a part of me that is afraid of looking stupid? Is it the part of me that is, like limiting myself? What part of me is this?

And I was recently on Holly, Toronto, his podcast returned to wholeness podcast and she asked me, what does intuition feel like for you? So my answer was intuition feels like stillness. So for me, I’m a person who has been very hyper aroused. My whole life. I tend toward anxiety not depression so much.

So I’ve been very like activated and hyper aroused and I get overstimulated very easily and I’m like, A Dewar and my mind is constantly racing. And sometimes I feel like my body is trying really hard to keep up with the speed of my mind. So when I have a rare moment of inner stillness, it’s oh, hello, I’m paying attention now.

And that’s how I know what intuition feels like for me, but then if I nor it. Then it comes back more frequently and it comes back louder and it’s not, it doesn’t come back as stillness. So I’ve had to discern like the first time she shows up it’s stillness, it’s this like deep, inner peace, this inner knowing this stillness that is rare, this piece that I’d never really get to experience except during these moments, that’s what intuition feels like for me.

But I ignore her. And when I ignore her, she comes back as she gets louder and she’s like this niggling voice back here, you know that won’t shut up. So what is intuition feel like for you? I think the first thing I want to say is that we have to get comfortable with actually not having a certain answer.

Like we, I don’t think we will ever come to a place of a hundred percent certainty and this very okay, this is the formula. This is what it feels like. And anything else is not that addressing that specific question. What does it feel like for me it feels. Empowered. It feels grounded. It feels like it’s based in presence versus a repetition of the past or fear of the future.

It has this very, like non-attached. Feeling to it, like more of Hey, I think this could be really good for you. Or, I just, I don’t think that this is the best choice here. It’s not judgmental or critical. For me, I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced my intuition as like loud or nagging. It’s more like when you’re not connected to your intuition.

You just continually hearing the loudness of your anxious thoughts. So like for me regularly practicing that stillness that grounded-ness, that being in my body. Is how I’ve been able to discern what is fear and what is not, and making a decision from fear or making a decision from trust. Yeah.

Intuition feels a lot like trust as well. Like I trust in myself and I trust in the unknown and I trust in the process of life. I trust that if I make this decision and I get hurt, that I’ll be able to. Cope and that I’m resilient. So that’s what it feels like for me. I want to back up to, you said if I’m making a decision in this present moment and it’s grounded in this present moment versus in the past or in the future, can you expand on that please?

Yeah, fear, the fear, mind, the ego, anxiety, whatever you want to call it, it’s either a regurgitation of what we’ve experienced in the past. And so we’re seeing everything in the present through this lens, this tinted lens of what we’ve experienced in the past. Oh, the last time I did this, I got hurt or, oh, this is all I’ve known about money or all I’ve known about love or all I’ve known about friendship.

Therefore everything is going to continue being that way. And so we’re going to see. The now through this lens of the pain of the past or the limitations of the past or fear ego anxiety can be very future-focused oh my gosh, I do this thing. And know what about, it sounds like it’s very frantic. It’s very urgent.

It’s very if you don’t make the right decision, you will experience misery for the rest of your life. You can’t make, you can’t choose the wrong thing or else it means all these things about you. It’s going to mean all these things about your life. So would it be fair to say that if we’re operating from a place of ego or fear or anxiety, that there’s a lot of emotional attachment to the outcome, whereas if we’re operating from a place of intuition, there might be more emotional neutrality.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s an emotional reactivity that’s disproportionate to the actual decision. It’s like the anxiety and fear makes everything feel like life or death. So your body going to go into that survival state, you know that, that hypervigilant. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. The panic, the urgency, the, this is do or die when most decisions in life are not do or die.

Of course, sometimes we are in situations that are truly. A threat and that our body is going to say, get out of there. Let’s go. But most decisions in life are not literal do or die. So if your body’s having a survival, like energy around it, that’s probably fear. Yeah. So I think we’re talking to a lot of people listening who have been in a survival state for such a long time, that state has become their normal baseline.

The chaos is the baseline. Dysfunction is the baseline. Dysregulation is the baseline. So like those people, obviously they found a podcast called holistic trauma healing, and they maybe recognize about that about themselves. And so they’re like, I want to do something about this. I don’t want my baseline to be chaos or dysfunction or dysregulation.

So for someone who is like really new to this and they really haven’t. Been able to discern the voice of their intuition over the voice of the anxious, fearful ego. What advice would you give them to maybe start feeling into that a little bit and trusting themselves more? Yeah. First of all, I want to say have grace with yourself because I think there’s this pressure in society.

We have this like thing we’d throw around, like trust your gut, your you’ve got doesn’t lie. And if you don’t follow your gut, then you’re like, you’re a terrible person and you’re settling or you’re whatever we like assign meaning to those who follow their intuition and those who don’t when really like when we are stuck in these survival trauma patterns.

We have no other choice, but to operate from that way until we change that pattern, like our body’s protective mechanism is going to take over and that’s not your fault. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong or bad, or that the direction of your life is hopeless. So have grace with yourself. First of all, as you’re navigating the complexity of this, because this is not an overnight process going from, familiarity with chaos and trauma and fear to now I know how to access safety in my body.

But really the path is knowing how to feel safe in your body. And that is a process that takes time and consistency and often co-regulation if we only know chaos, we might need a supportive practitioner or space to help us learn. What does it feel like to feel safe? To have someone else help us get there if we don’t know how to get there ourselves.

So that’s one piece. So knowing that this process of. Finding your quote, unquote intuition is really about knowing how to access, feeling safe and grounded in your body. And that this isn’t an overnight thing. It’s going to take consistency and practice, and we actually have to learn how to feel safe first, before we can make these distinctions, we have to be very familiar with what it feels like to feel safe in our body. Before we can have this visceral. Discernment of what is fear and what is intuition or inner wisdom or whatever you want to call it. Okay. We’re both entrepreneurs. This happens to me pretty often and where I.

Can find myself feeling stuck or procrastinating or getting caught up in too many details. Being afraid to take a step forward because I have this deep longing for something that I want to do, but I don’t know how it’s going to look. I don’t know what the finished product is going to be. Like. I don’t know how I’m going to get my audience to be interested and excited about it.

I don’t know, if it’s going to be well received. And so how can you like. Get over that about yourself and be like, you know what, even if nobody shows up for this, I’m going to do it anyway, because it’s what the inner voice is telling me to do. Have you ever experienced that?

I know you have. I know. Yeah. It’s probably one of the scariest. Things I’ve ever done and the riskiest things I’ve ever done. So yes that is has been my own inner work as being an entrepreneur is showing up from this place of aligned energy versus attachment to the outcome. Because that’s the fear attachment to the outcome.

What if no one shows up? What if no one buys would’ve known this? What if knowing that? That’s what I’m noticing that I’m in my fear mind, and then I’m in my anxiety. And what I try to do is. It’s turn inward and cultivate. What is the energy I want to feel in this decision, in this choice, in this step?

Oh, I want to feel expansion and excitement and growth and abundance and wealth and whatever it is. And I daily will focus my energy on that. Trusting that even if I don’t see the physical manifestation right away, that it’s coming. And then as long as I’m aligned with the energy that I want to be in that’s all that matters, right?

We make decisions because we want to actually feel something fierce as I want to get something and I want to have something and I want to look a specific way, but really we want to feel a certain way. We want to feel freedom. We want to feel joy. We want to feel lightness. We want to feel abundance.

So if we can actually in the, now in the present moment, right before it’s even happened, we’re not focusing on future. If we can in the present moment. Cultivate those feelings within us, then we’ve already won. We’ve already got the thing. And then we’re therefore not as attached to the thing happening in a certain way.

Okay. I just want to make sure I’m clear on what you’re saying, because I feel it, I feel like you’re being my coach a little bit right now okay. So what you’re saying is that. I have an idea. I want to do something. I’m going into it with like fear, procrastination, all the, what is the ego thing?

Anxiety. What I want to feel is excited, abundant, happy energetic about it. That’s what I want to feel. So I’m going to start working on it in this present moment with. Those feelings? Yes. Do I fake it until I make it me? It’s a cultivation, right? Because we’ve been taught in our society that I feel a certain way because of an external thing.

I will feel this way when that thing goes successfully or the way that I’m seeing it in my head. And if it doesn’t go that way, I won’t feel that way. I’ll feel. Terrible. I’ll feel sad. I’ll feel disappointed. So if we can actually learn, and this is why bodywork is so essential, if we can actually learn how to cultivate emotions within us without an external because without an external influence, there’s really nothing stopping us.

Okay. I’m I have this thing I want to do, I want to decide to do it. We go, okay. How, if this thing were to happen, how would I feel? Oh my gosh. I feel so excited. I feel so expansive. I feel so confident. Okay. How can I actually begin to cultivate those feelings within myself? And this is where embodiment comes in.

What would the emotion of confidence and expansion look like in my body? How can I actually practice being in those feelings before the thing has even happened? And therefore I’ve already, I already have the thing that I want. And therefore I’m not as attached of what attached to what happens because what I want is the feeling, not the things.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Yes. Okay. So let’s talk more about the embodiment, because I know this is one of your specialties. What does embodying confidence and wealth and abundance and excitement look like for you personally? So for me I always start with the foundation of emotion. All emotion is really just breath, sound and body movements.

So what, how would I breathe if I felt abundant? I probably wouldn’t be like, I probably be deep, luscious breaths. What might it sound like? Oh, maybe I’d be singing. Maybe I would like, my boys wouldn’t be like this and all shaky and wavery, like I do when I’m anxious, like what does it sound like?

And then what does it move like? So sometimes I’ll put on music and that reflects and helps me tune into that emotion. Or sometimes I’ll just say, okay, What does abundance feel like in my body? Is it contracted and tight, intense and shaky? No, it’s very open. My muscles are relaxed. I’m actually going to do things with my body to relax my muscles, to open up my chest, to open up my arms, to send more air into my gut, instead of everything being all clenched and tight.

So actually beginning to practice it does. Okay. What would this emotion breathe? Sound feel like move, I love that. Holy shit. I love that. I’m going to make one of those pastel colored squares with that on it. And I’m going to post it on Instagram. No, watch out world, right? Oh my gosh. That’s so beautiful.

So maybe I should have asked this earlier, but let’s talk about what role religion played in silencing intuition. What role didn’t it play fair. First of all, it just disembodiment of don’t trust anything, any choose from your body. I remember going to seminars and then being like, I wish my body, I beat my body into submission to Christ.

So just like your body is your enemy. So first of all, you’re just becoming so disconnected from its cues. And literally being taught, not to trust your body, not to be connected with your emotional body, not to trust in the wisdom and the intelligence of the body. So for me, since intuition comes from connection to my body and feeling safe in my body I had no sense of intuition when I was deepen in fundamentalist, religion, because I learned that my body was evil.

My body was bad, so I shouldn’t listen to my body. So where does that bring us? It brings us up into our head. It brings us up into the mind. It brings us up into the overthinking over analyzing self-criticism self-doubt self judgment. And then of course your body responds to those thoughts. So you’re just constantly in this feedback loop of fear and self-doubt like, you never really know.

And then of course you’re taught to outsource your decision-making to anything in anyone put yourself. To God, to a higher power to the leaders in the church, any decision I used to make, I had to consult like so many people. I pray to God for signs. God, please help me make sure that this is the right decision.

And if it’s not that I’m just disobeying you. And again, that life or death, if I make the wrong decision, I’m disappointing. God, I’m going to be sent to hell. That is life or death. And that’s how our body perceives it. Did you ever randomly opened the Bible and close your finger? 100%. I feel so called out.

I totally did that. So I’m calling us both out. Oh my God. Oh, because you didn’t trust him yourself to make your own decision and you’re praying. But my what I know now hindsight is 2020. So when I look back now and I’m like, oh my gosh, even my prayer was from such a desperate, anxious, constricted place that even if God or Jesus or the holy spirit, or whoever would have liked dropped in an answer.

I wouldn’t have been able to receive it because I was so constricted in the way that I prayed even. Yeah. So that, yeah. Then it was like, using the Bible, like a Terrick card deck where I would just randomly open it and put my finger on a scripture, and it would be something like, and Jonathan and David killed all the Philistines.

And I’m like, what are you saying, God? Are you saying I’m going to die? Honestly it’s bonkers, but it actually happened. Yeah. I love that point of like prayer being from this place of desperation and urgency. And I would even go to these Prayer meetings. My dad is very into like contemplative prayer.

He’s very religious, but he would take me into a contemplative prayer meeting, which is about being in silence and being in like stillness and the whole time I’m still in quiet, but I’m going okay. What’s the answer was, yeah. Okay. Okay. Is this feeling, does this feeling mean this, but does this, or does this feeling, was this feeling like the constant over analysis?

Yes, that just never ends. I would be like what does this mean? What does this mean? Oh, my, my footages, what does this mean? What does this mean? Oh my oh, I feel it, my back hurts all of a sudden, just like I would get all squiggly and like squirmy, because it was so uncomfortable. And then of course you’re interpreting everything through this lens of fear and meeting to get it right.

Make the right decision. And so there is that like black and white catastrophic thinking life or death, you’re interpreting every sensation, every thought, every feeling, every thing you see outside of you through this lens of, oh my gosh, is this the right decision? This is the wrong decision. And of course, it’s just, you’re going to keep seeing everything as evidence of something bad is going to happen.

Yeah. If you make the wrong decision, God’s going to punish you. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Or you’re going to miss out on his blessing. Oh fuck. I’m going to make out like sacrifice one of my super abusive pastors. It was like sacrifice good at the alter of great. So just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s, God’s best for you.

So then I have a good lot something good happening in my life. What could it be better? Oh my God. Oh my God, dude. No wonder you had relationship anxiety. Yeah, exactly. Like here I am having the healthiest relationship of my life, but does God have something better? Is there someone better for me?

Could I have someone that’s more blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So yeah. Ooh, ouch. Okay. They’re obviously like evangelical Christianity is not the only fundamentalist cult like ideology. How do you see that these very extreme cult-like ideologies, whether it’s like woke, leftist, cancel culture, or if it’s like super strict like dietary stuff, like people who are like really strict to vegans are really strict keto or whatever.

Or people who are like, yeah, Only conventional medicine or on the opposite only alternative medicine. Like they’re very like, this is my box. This is where I’m going to sit. Can we expand on the cult-like ideology and how that silences our intuition and has us living from this place of like fear and constriction and urgency and everything is a big deal and all of that.

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Oh yeah. I think all, any kind of. Ideology like that is teaching us to outsource our own inner wisdom to the ideology and needing to get it right. And if you’re deviating from the ideology, it means something about you. It means that you’re bad. You’re wrong. You’re just so bang. You’re doing the wrong thing.

You’re unworthy. If you don’t perfectly follow the ideology and. Again, it’s it just creates this sense of fear around decision-making cause I have to get it right. And we, when we have these very constrictive ideologies, it’s like we’re given this formula. We have to follow instead of tuning inward to our own inner wisdom and our own unique path.

We’re like, this is the formula I have to follow. And anything else? That deviates from that means it’s wrong. And so even if we were getting this pull to do something outside of the box, we then silence that and say no. That’s bad. And beat ourselves on the hand and say no, it has to follow this formula in order for it to be right and good and worthy in order for me to be right and good and worthy.

And so it just doesn’t allow any space for nuance or exploration or curiosity or. Trusting in your unique path and in your unique decisions. And it says here’s this box, you have to be in this box. And if you’re not in the box, you’re bad, you’re wrong. You’re like, you’ve messed up and you’re redeemable.

And it’s now your responsibility to call out anyone who’s not in the box too. Yeah. So everyone else’s decisions also have to reflect your decisions. And this is, I think, why we’re seeing so much. Finger pointing because we forget about nuance and we forget about everyone following their own unique path.

And we think that there’s one right way, one, decision one, right path. And we feel this like righteousness to make sure that everyone else. Is following the righteous one way that we believe is the only way. And it’s just it’s a tale as old as time. Like we’ve been doing this as a human race for forever.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. For sure. God, it’s so old though. It’s so old. Okay. I want to talk you mentioned the word curiosity and and I’m curious what role has curiosity played in. Your own personal development and your healing and also in your intuitive knowings? Yeah, for me, curiosity means freedom because before in these very like cult-like ideologies, there is no room for questioning and questioning means.

You’re being pulled in the wrong direction. You’re being deceived. So curiosity is finally like this freedom, this openness to explore who I am, my life decisions, what things mean for me in this moment. And for me, curiosity releases the pressure to get things right. There is no right and wrong.

Let’s actually just be curious about this. Let’s explore, let’s play. It’s a much playful, much more playful energy instead of this like hammer, like you have to get it right. This like very black and white thinking of like I wonder, let’s explore the nuance. I wonder what it would feel like if I made this decision, instead of I have to make the right decision and know it’s the right decision before I make it, it gives us that permission gives me that permission and freedom to just make a decision.

And be curious about who I wonder what would happen if I did this, or I tried that, or if this happened, instead of I have to make sure it’s the right decision before I do it. And then it aligns up with all these things before I do it. It’s curiosity is this freedom to actually just live your life and be okay with.

Things being messy or quote unquote wrong. So yeah. Curiosity is freedom. Yeah. That’s beautiful. So we were talking about all this nuance and complexity and non-polarized thinking, would you say that when it comes to following our intuition, there really is no wrong answer. Yeah. Yeah. And even as I say that, I’m like there’s still nuance to that.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, I think that’s one of the biggest realizations that I’ve had in my own personal life is coming out of this background of Christianity where everything was either absolutely. Or it was absolutely wrong. It was either for God or against God. It was either aligned with the Bible or it wasn’t.

And, first of all, like that’s a very. Constricted place to be in. It allows absolutely no room for curiosity, but it was always, my decisions are either right or they’re wrong. And if they’re right, I’m going to be blessed by God. If they’re wrong, I’m going to be punished by God. And so even when I like intellectually knew, okay, I don’t believe that anymore.

I don’t, that’s a bunch of bullshit. Like I’m not going to live my life like that anymore. That’s no. That feeling of what if I made the wrong decision was still in my body long after I knew intellectually that I wasn’t there anymore. So when we’re like intellectually passed something, How do we tap into that safety inside of our bodies of I don’t want to feel this constriction every time I have to make a decision.

If I’m not in alignment with that ideology anymore, then why am I, why is my body’s still reacting? Like I am. Yeah it’s working through that survival energy because usually it needs ideologies. It is like life or death, heaven or hell disappointing God or pleasing God. And so like our bodies register that as survival.

And first being aware of like how that survival energy is manifesting, being aware of the sensations of the visceral experience. Okay. When it comes to decision-making, my heart starts racing, my pits start sweating. I start tensing up and tightening up and then beginning to practice shifting your body’s response every time slowly, consistently, gently okay, my body has this habitual automatic reaction.

To decision-making first. Let’s be aware. Now let’s make some shifts to it. How about before I make a decision? Let me just try deeper breathing. Let me try, like shaking out some of the tension. Let me try. Just like finding some grounding. Let me try coming back into the present moment. Let me try moving in a different way.

And as we begin to move and respond. Physiologically our mind begins to reflect that new nervous system state. So instead of making decision from this automatic fear response in the body, which then creates these types of thoughts, black and white thinking catastrophic, oh my God, urgency. We can begin to like, okay, what are the few little shifts I can make when it comes to decision-making and how can I actually practice that regularly to retrain my body?

And then sometimes going deeper, what is it that I’m so afraid of? Oh my gosh. I’m afraid that if I make the wrong decision, that it’ll mean this. And that means I’m unworthy. Oh. Who taught you that you were unworthy? If you made the wrong decision? Oh my God. I learned this here. How do you feel about that?

I feel sad and pissed and angry and processing the deeper emotions underneath them can also free up some space and energy to feel more confident making decisions because we’ve processed the deeper. Emotional wounds underneath decision-making. Yeah. I feel like it’s important to like to tell people that most of us have had our ability to listen to our intuition taken away from us from such an early age, that when you step back into this awareness of okay, I haven’t been living from a place of intuitive knowing I’ve been living from this place of egoic, anxiety and fear.

It’s really important to grieve the time that you lost that intuitive knowing, because that is your connection to self and not just fundamentalist ideologies, but really our culture in general school system, the school system, the capitalistic society that we live in, the patriarchy, the materialism and consumerism, like all of it, you chose us.

To disconnect himself. So Let’s grieve that we, this is the water that we’re swimming in. And I don’t know how I personally can make a huge dent in that and those systems. But I do know that like coming back to myself, if all I’m doing is thinking for myself and making my own choices from a place of intuitive knowing and inner peace, then I’ve made a tiny little dent in the system.

And if everyone can start doing that for themselves, that’s how we change. The system. Yeah. That’s everyone waking up to their own inner wisdom because the school system teaches children. This is what a good student looks like. This is what good behavior looks like. Sit still stop moving. So stop listening to the impulses of your body as a child like children are, you’re not allowed to go to the bathroom right now.

Like you’re bad. If you’re feeling this emotion, if you’re moving in this way. And then of course, capitalism, okay. To be a good employee, become this machine. So don’t listen to your body. Don’t listen to your needs, push through work. And if you don’t, you’re going to not make any money, which means you’re not going to survive in this society, which means you’re going to survival, right?

Like we’re just constantly being fit into these boxes of. What it means to be worthy and nothing else. Silence is our own intuition and inner wisdom. More than that. That’s amazing. Ooh. So what’s new at healing and bodied. We’re still doing the same old. You have a healing and body t-shirt on.

It’s so cute. I love it. Thank you. Yeah. We’re growing and expanding. I have a team which is so amazing. It’s allowing me to listen to my body and my needs of like how much energy. Can I expend and still feel like I’m my fullest self, how do I want to structure my time? And being able to like, have people support me in that?

So that’s been incredible and it’s nothing has taught me more about listening to my own needs and my own inner wisdom, more than having a conscious business that allows me to do that and go what do I need? How can I actually allow those needs to be met instead of pushing through following the very like masculine paradigm of what work is.

Yeah, that’s tough. So tough. One of these days, I’m going to have a personal assistant. I just know it one of these days I will. So you have, let’s see you have your courses safe in your body. That’s what your course is called safety within safety it and that’s right. Sorry. I was combining your course safety within.

Arenas chorus home on your body. And I got safe in your body. It all works. All right. So your course is safety with it and that’s right. And then you have your Facebook group and you’ve been doing a lot of like live workshops lately. I’ve noticed. Yeah, I did a webinar last month. And it just, breaks down the neuroscience and the brain science of anxiety, and really teaching people about their nervous system and how you really have to involve your body to truly overcome anxiety.

And I’m doing a kind of an experiential workshop this week. So yeah, just trying to open people up to. This work and holistic integrative approaches. When our westernized society we’re taught, like it’s all cognitive change your thoughts and challenge your thoughts. And that all has value, but that’s not the whole picture is I’m always just I’m just so passionate about the work that we do.

And I know that it like. Changes lives. And so I’m always like sharing it everywhere. Oh my gosh. I love it. I love it. And I love you, girl. You’re awesome. You’re like so awesome. I’m so proud of the work that you’ve done and how you’ve grown in your business. It’s just been, I’ve been watching for. Two years now.

And it’s just been really cool to watch. So thanks for being here and we will have links to all of your stuff in the show notes of this episode. And again, I’m just really grateful for you. I’m grateful for you.

Do you see what I mean? Like there was so much flow in that conversation that when we finished that last part of like me asking her what was new at healing and bodied. And then we were done. I stopped the recording and we were both like, holy shit. Was that really? Only 30 minutes? Like, how did we pack that much into half an hour? I mean, the time just, it went by so quickly, but it was like everything that needed to be said got said, and this is one of my favorite episodes to date. So, um,

I’m going to go back and listen to it again, myself, and I’m going to take even more notes. So I hope that this episode was enjoyable for you. And more than anything, I know I speak for Chelsea and I both, whenever I say that, We hope this episode supports you in your healing in rediscovering yourself and coming back home.

To your body and in regaining trust with yourself so that you can listen to that inner knowing that intuition inside of you and just know that no matter what happens, you can take care of yourself and you can trust yourself and believe yourself. So thank you so much for being here and i will see you next week.

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