Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A podcast for women doing a lot and craving more soul alignment — motherhood, business, healing, relationships, growth — trying to do it without running themselves into the ground.
We talk about:
* intuition & energy
* nervous system regulation
* trauma healing
* self-compassion
* emotional processing
* entrepreneurship
* motherhood
* creating routines that actually support you
* staying connected to yourself while juggling real life
This is about learning how to feel energized, grounded, cared for, emotionally honest, and fully alive.
Your soul called - are you ready to answer?
To Your Soul Called. More joy. I'm Nicole your host and in this podcast we're going to talk about what it takes to create a life that feels deeply aligned from the inside out because so many of us women especially have become disconnected and just drowning in the pressure of everyday life. I'd like to help you get reconnected with your intuition remember your value learn how to love yourself deeply from the inside out and realign with your soul with the deeper calling inside of you. I'm so happy you're here let's dive in!
Nicole:Hey everyone! Today is episode two and it's titled the truth about being strong. I wanted this to be kind of my first episode because it's something that I have really really struggled with and I think a lot of overachieving high achieving women struggle with this feeling like you need to be strong no matter what through everything you need to handle it all you need to do it all you need to carry everything and everyone constantly like you can't rest like if you relax then that's bad so let's talk and dig a little bit into what being strong really means and how maybe that belief is actually hurting you and creating a less effective, less loving, less beautiful life than you are deserving to have. So for me, my I'm gonna tell you first a little bit about my story and what being strong looked like for me because I think that a lot of you guys can relate. I hope but my like beliefs for my entire life were that I needed to do more I needed to achieve more I needed more success.
Nicole:I needed to handle it all. I needed to do it all. I couldn't ask for help. Just had to carry it and I didn't know any different and I learned that from my mom who told me depending on men was not safe and that I had to create safety by handling it all. And then there was also this part of me that felt like I needed to do it all to take on more to achieve more in order to prove somehow that I was worthy because I didn't feel internally worthy without all that stuff.
Nicole:However, I didn't realize that was going on inside of me until, you know, my thirties, forties. So for a long time, I thought doing it all was being strong. It it meant that I was enough. It meant that I was worthy. And that looked like, you know, having multiple businesses.
Nicole:I had two businesses that I was running from home with three small children. I had three kids in three years. That was a lot. But I was also handling the house and the housework and the bills and the groceries. And, you know, the taxes.
Nicole:I was doing everything for everyone. I was caring for my grandparents who were nearing the end of their life, which meant meant in addition to wiping the butts of my three little babies, I was also wiping the butt of my grandpa. So it it was a lot, and I felt like I just had to do it. And it never occurred to me that I needed help. Even though I wanted help and I was dying for help and I was drowning because there was just so much on my shoulders that I would get you know, I'd hurt myself like I had to have knee surgery.
Nicole:Had because I was carrying all of this emotional burden of feeling like I had to handle it all. And although from the outside, looking my life looked magical. I had three beautiful children, a handsome, you know, studly husband. I have a beautiful home. I have a pool in my backyard.
Nicole:I have a golden retriever. Okay? If that doesn't scream perfection, I don't know what does. But inside, I was drowning. I was drowning.
Nicole:I was exhausted. I was overwhelmed. I was tired. I was so fucking tired all the time because I didn't know how to nourish myself. I didn't think that it was okay for me to do anything for myself ever.
Nicole:I didn't ever want to spend money on myself. I would spend money on everyone else. I earn the money. I would push push push the shit out of myself to earn, you know, a certain amount of money so I could take care of everyone else. But I wouldn't go get my nails done because that was wasting money.
Nicole:I couldn't waste money on myself yet I had no problem spending it on everyone else. Know? And that was what I was taught. Take care of everyone else. Put your needs last.
Nicole:My self care levels were complete shit. I never felt comfortable, you know, doing things for myself, and it wasn't my husband. He would encourage me to do things for myself, but I just didn't know how. I would feel guilty. I felt guilty all the time about everything.
Nicole:I felt guilty about going to work out because I had to leave him with the children, which at the time, having three small kids, it didn't feel fair to him, but I didn't. You know, I had to be with those three small kids every single day. I I felt guilty about waking him up at night while I was getting up to nurse baby number one or baby number two. Like, that is the level of guilt that I felt and burden and, you know, feeling like I had to do it all without ever relying on or depending on anybody else. The amount of time that I prioritized myself was, like, zero.
Nicole:I didn't even know where to start with that, and I was totally unaware that that was even important because I was just surviving. That's how my life felt from the inside. Like, I was barely surviving. Even though from the outside, I had picture perfect Christmas cards, and, you know, my businesses were thriving, and my kids were fucking adorable little beautiful children that were happy because I was a good mom. I was a good wife.
Nicole:I was a good friend. I was a great business owner. I was a great entrepreneur. I was good at all these things, but I was shit at taking care of myself. So that's where I started here.
Nicole:And that was my life for, like, the first, I don't know, thirty plus years. And I thought that was normal because I saw my mom do it. I saw all the other women around me do it, and I thought that women were just strong. We just handled it. So just curiously, I looked up on, you know, chat GBT.
Nicole:What are some of the core beliefs that women have about being strong? And I'm gonna read you the list because I can relate to so many of these. It I mean, this is I felt all of these. So here's one. If I don't do it all or if I stop holding it all together, it will all fall apart.
Nicole:I believe this so strongly that if I let go of any one piece of my life, shit would fall apart. So I had to just handle it. Here's another one. My value comes from what I do for others. I'm only valuable when I'm caring for others.
Nicole:Or what about this one? Rest has to be earned. How many of you guys feel comfortable resting? I couldn't rest. I couldn't sit down.
Nicole:Like, I couldn't even talk on the phone. I actually still kinda have this with me. I can't talk on the phone without also cleaning the house. I have to be, like, moving and doing stuff because rest isn't comfortable for me. Being needed means being loved.
Nicole:I can handle it. I'll just handle it. I don't need to ask anyone else because I'll just handle it. I don't want to burden anyone. I just need to keep going.
Nicole:Was a big one for me. I just need to keep going. If I keep going, I'll just I'll get through it it doesn't matter how I feel or what about this one my emotions are inconvenient being emotional means that you're unstable and not allowed to be emotional strong women don't fall apart I should be grateful. I shouldn't complain. If I slow down, I'll lose momentum.
Nicole:Success. Money. I can't slow down. Gotta keep going. Gotta keep going.
Nicole:If I'm not productive, then I'm wasting time. My needs come last. How often are you putting your needs first? You know I was never putting my needs first. How about this one?
Nicole:I have to be the calm one. Everyone else gets to fall apart and be crazy and whatever but I gotta be calm. I gotta keep it together. I have to hold space for everyone else. I have to be dependable.
Nicole:Being dependable means never breaking. People expect me to be the strong one. That's my role. That's what I do. I'm the strong one.
Nicole:I have to keep it together. If I don't, everything's gonna fall apart. I don't feel safe letting go. I can't let go. Look.
Nicole:I have to handle it all. I have to control everything in order to feel safe. If I rest, then I'm lazy. Love has to be earned through sacrifice. I have to prove my value, my worth before I can rest, before I get acknowledgement, before I can prove that I'm lovable.
Nicole:All of these are, you know, common beliefs that women have about being strong and they are complete bullshit. And I have had to untangle so many of these. So where do all of these beliefs start from? Where do we learn this? Well, obviously, we we learn this from our parents.
Nicole:Right? From our mothers, from our families, from childhood conditioning Because girls are rewarded for being easy, for being helpful, for caretaking, for being emotionally mature, for staying calm, for not needing much, for not causing problems. And so as women, we learn that you earn love by being needed. You have to be good, useful, helpful, responsible in order to be loved. You are not supposed to make life harder for others.
Nicole:Your job is to make things easier. Your emotions are too much. You need to be mature. You need to keep it together. So instead of getting to be little girls, getting to be free and have fun and relax and play, were little adults who felt responsible for everyone's emotions and well-being around us.
Nicole:Okay. Let me preface this by saying that maybe not all women grew up this way. Maybe a lot of you guys got to be free and, you know, be little kids and have fun and live your life and, you know, enjoy being a child. But a lot of us women, me, and a lot of the women that I have worked with have experienced the pressure of having to handle it all, of having to be responsible way too young. And this also comes through society and our culture.
Nicole:Right? We are taught that women are self sacrificing. Women should be over giving. Women should be doing it all. Women should be pushing through exhaustion.
Nicole:Women should be endlessly available to handle and take care of everyone and everything around them. Women should carry the emotional labor invisibly. Right? Meanwhile, softness, rest, slowing down, or needing support are weak, indulgent, you know, emotions that we shouldn't have. We're supposed to be ambitious, but not too much.
Nicole:We're supposed to be nurturing, but not too much where you start to be selfish. Right? We're supposed to be or, you know, you can strive to be successful, but you must also carry everything in the house, all the cleaning, all the groceries, all the childcare. You're encouraged to heal yourself, but you gotta keep producing. You can't slow down.
Nicole:They tell you prioritize self care, but don't inconvenience anyone. So all these things are so, like, ridiculous and unfair, and this is are the things that are keeping us stuck, and it creates absolutely impossible standards. And it's it's not the way that we need to be cared for and loved and honored and cherished and, you know, like, none of those things are working in our favor. And it's unfortunate that we've carried this for so long. This idea of being strong completely works against us.
Nicole:And it's generational. It it came from our grandparents, from our grandmothers who had to deal with hardship, who had to deal with emotional suppression, who had to deal with, you know, instability and impossible expectations. Women have had especially, you know, our grandmother's eras. They have had to carry so much. And it was unfortunate, but we don't need to keep carrying all of that with us.
Nicole:And strength in women has become synonymous with endurance, with self sacrifice, with emotional suppression, with surviving silently, quietly, without ever doing anything for yourself. And so our nervous systems, you know, subconsciously, are ingrained with this survival, with this need to carry it all, to do it all, to handle it all without complaint, without rest, without ever questioning it. And that is fucking bullshit and not helping us at all. I want to dismantle this a little bit and help you understand how there can be a different way. How we can support ourselves and nourish ourselves and love ourselves and prioritize ourselves before taking care of the rest of the world before we do it all And why that is actually the most important thing for everyone else?
Nicole:Because if we don't fill our own bucket first, we are not going to have enough to give, and they are not going to get the best from us. So it not only benefits us, it benefits everyone around us. It benefits everything. So let me, like, make this make a little more sense. Hopefully, I wanna talk switch switch over switch paths a little bit and talk about energy.
Nicole:How does energy work and how being strong is connected to energy? Okay. So the world, our world, our earth is an earth filled with energy. Right? We can get behind that.
Nicole:There is like, our bodies are literal literally made up of energy. Everything is energy. That is what creates physical beings, physical, you know, trees. It's made up of energy. We are all connected through energy, and our earth is a world of balance and energy.
Nicole:The energy that we put out, we can create energy. So the energy that we put out into the world, it comes back to us. There is a literal electric, you know, electromagnetic field of energy around our body. It is radiating from our body and it's called your creator field. Stay with me here.
Nicole:Okay? It's made up your creator field, which is the energy around your body. It's made up of your thoughts, your feelings, your beliefs, your actions, and your emotions. And this combination of your thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions, all of it gives out scripts to the universe, telling it what to do and what to give back to you. So you've probably heard of the law of attraction.
Nicole:This is on the same, you know, same wavelength. It's like the law of attraction. Like attracts like vibrational frequency materializes. You know? So that your creator field, which is all the energy around you that you've created, is going to bring back in what you put out.
Nicole:So how does this impact a belief that has been embedded in us since we were little girls about being strong? When we put this in our energetic field that we need to be strong. What does this do for our life and what does this create in our life experience? What are the impacts of holding the belief that we need to be strong no matter what? Well let's look underneath that belief.
Nicole:One of the things that is connected with the belief of being strong is that we have to put ourselves last. Right? We have to take care of everyone else and everything else before we can do something for ourselves because that is the noble thing to do. So if we are putting into our creator field, me last. I put myself last.
Nicole:The energy around us, everything else, everybody else, all situations, all people, all experiences, can only give us back experiences, people, situations that put us last too. Another thing connected with being strong is that you you feel like you need to handle it all, and you do handle it all. You just do. Right? But then I'm putting that into my creator field, into my energy around me.
Nicole:I'm creating energy that says, I handle it all. So life will also expect me to handle it all. People will expect me to handle it all because I'm teaching them that. I am literally putting it out there. I cannot get anything else because what I put out in my energetic field must come back.
Nicole:That is law. So if I'm handling it all, I'm putting out in my energy, I handle it all. I handle it all. I handle it all. Only thing that come back can come back to me is experiences where I am expected to handle it all.
Nicole:If I am feeling believing acting out that I cannot slow down I can't rest because that's wasting time. I am going to get experiences that don't allow me to rest. I'm going to fill up my time with stuff that makes it so that I can't slow down. I'm not going to be able to rest because I'm putting out in my creative field, my energetic field that I literally am expecting back more shit that I have to carry and it becomes this endless cycle of more and more and more and more. You know?
Nicole:And that is why you get so exhausted. You're so tired. Like, of course, you're handling way too much. You're carrying way too much, and it's too much pressure, and it's it's unnecessary. And I know you don't want to hear this, but you're doing it to yourself.
Nicole:I was doing it to myself. I was telling everyone and literally putting it into my energetic field that I can handle it all, that I am not allowed to rest, that I I am this, you know, the last on the priority list, that I am the least important, and that everyone else is more important than me. I believed that. I was putting it out into the world. I was putting it into my creator field, into my energetic field, and so I was getting it back.
Nicole:Now that's a tough pill to swallow. To know that this heavy pressure is created by me and that I I manifested it. But that means that you also have the power to change it. That means that you have the power to turn this around. If you're creating all of this, you have the power to create something else.
Nicole:And that is pretty incredible. Right? So if we're creating this cycle where we're not prioritizing ourselves, where we're not putting ourselves first, where we are handling it all, we need to cut that shit out. And here's why. Because when you're prioritizing yourself, when you put yourself first, you have more.
Nicole:This is the way I rationalize it and the way that has helped helped me so significantly because I used to struggle a lot with guilt and being selfish, the idea of being selfish. But when you put yourself first, when you prioritize yourself first, when you make yourself feel special and important, when you take care of your needs, your bucket fills. When your bucket is filled up and you feel full, you have a thousand gazillion million times more energy, more love, more capacity to give to the people around you, to the situations, the circumstances, the people, to the children, to the husband, to the house, to the business, to all of it. You can give a million times more when you give to yourself first. And if you're not giving to yourself first, you are running on empty, and you you just can't put out what you don't have to give.
Nicole:So there is no feeling guilty about giving to yourself first if it means that you can give more. It means you can be a better wife. You can be a better mother. You can be a better employee, better business owner. You can do everything better, and you can feel better.
Nicole:And if you are giving more, I mean, that is a win win. You cannot, like, possibly tell me that is not worth it. That's not valuable. But here's what else it does it puts in your creator field prioritize me. I am prioritizing myself.
Nicole:So because remember the law of attraction, the creator field, the energetic field, if I'm prioritizing myself other people must also prioritize me. Situations, circumstances, events, jobs must prioritize me. If I am putting into my creator field that I am important, that I come first, other people will treat me as though I am important. They will help me. I won't have to carry it all on my own.
Nicole:I will feel supported. If I am putting into my creator field, into my energetic field, I am supported because I am supporting myself. So I create this belief that I am supported, that I deserve to be supported, that then it puts into my energetic field, my creator field, support. People support me. Circumstances support me.
Nicole:Teachers support me. Babysitters support me. You know? A whole slew of peep people will pop out of the woodworks to help you, to support you, so you're not carrying it all by yourself anymore. And that is because you are now shifting the energetic field, your creator field, for your benefit.
Nicole:So I'm going to give you a really kind of simple way to implement this this week. Because I think that if you can do this, it will make the most amazing difference in your life. So first, I want you to notice all of the times you do something that you don't want to do. You pick up all the clothes off the floor and you don't want to do it. But you do it anyway.
Nicole:Or you make breakfast for the kids before you feed yourself and even though you're starving and you would really really love a sip of hot coffee you don't do that because you have to take care them first. Just want you to notice it. Don't do anything just notice it. Be like oh there it is again. There it is again.
Nicole:And then what I want you to do that's what I want you to do starting today or tomorrow. Give yourself a day or two of just noticing this. And then what I want you to do once a day, okay? Just one time a day. I want you to prioritize yourself.
Nicole:I want you to put yourself first. I want you to do something really simple, easy, small for yourself before you do anything for anyone else. So let's say it's okay. This is like my life. I wake up in the morning, and I have three kids, so I need to, like, make them all breakfast, get their lunches prepared, get them ready for school, all of that.
Nicole:Now before I make them breakfast, I get up a little bit early, and I do some energy work. I meditate. I connect with source, I do that for myself before I take care of them. So I feel full before I have to make seven egg sandwiches. But here's another simple thing you could do if you don't want to get up early.
Nicole:You could just get yourself a cup of water, and you could tell yourself, I'm doing this for me. I'm drinking this water for me. I'm doing this for me. I'm doing it for me before I take care of you. When your husband's like, oh, honey, can you get that for me?
Nicole:I want you to remember, nope. I'm prioritizing myself first. Get yourself a cup of water. Or maybe you wanna be ambitious and make yourself that, you know, shot of espresso or coffee. Then fucking do that.
Nicole:Whatever it takes to do something small, and it doesn't need to be big. It could just be, I'm going to turn, put my hand on my heart, I'm going to take a deep breath and I'm going to say I am proud of you today. You're so special. Do that for yourself. Do something small for yourself to prioritize yourself, to put into your energetic field I am a priority.
Nicole:Do this every single day. Do it one time a day. Just one time. Start there. If you can start with one time and create a consistent practice of doing this every morning, shit will change.
Nicole:Now if you can do it every time you remember before you do that thing you don't want to do, like that load of laundry that you didn't feel like doing, that's not even your laundry, that you know you're gonna have to do again tomorrow. Before you do that, you took a minute to have some lunch. Maybe. You took ten minutes to have some lunch and watch some secret lives of mormon wives or whatever, you know, feels fun to you, did something for you. How many times can you implement that throughout the day?
Nicole:That's gonna be a practice I want you to try out. Try it out for a week. Do it consistently, do it every day. You can start off with just doing it once a day but do it consistently. Once you got the once a day thing down try to do it twice a day try to do it three times a day.
Nicole:You're gonna find that the more you do it the better you feel the better you feel the more love you feel inside the more cared for you feel The less burnt out you're gonna feel, the less overwhelmed you're gonna feel, the less you're going to need acknowledgement externally. So one of the things that used to be, like, the bane of my existence was that it felt like nobody noticed all the things that I did. And I expected other people to acknowledge me. Like, oh, the house is clean. Did somebody clean the house?
Nicole:Look at this beautiful clean house. Somebody must have spent two hours cleaning the house. It looks so incredible. Who the fuck cleaned the house? But nobody noticed when I cleaned the house.
Nicole:Nobody cared, and the truth is that I never acknowledged myself. Good job, Nicole. I'm so proud of you for cleaning the house. Looks so good. It's gonna make you so happy.
Nicole:You know? Like, doing running scripts like that in my day made it so that I was starting to feel the acknowledgement, the care, the love, the support that I was craving externally. I started to give it to myself. When you start to give it to yourself consistently, you're also the energetics here. We're gonna put that into our creative field, and other people are going to give it to us too.
Nicole:Once I started giving it to myself on a consistent base, you know, level, my husband started acknowledging me, like, a thousand times more. People, like, came out of the woodworks to be like, good job, Nicole. I'm so proud that you're so special. People tell me all the time now, like, you're such a gift. You're such a gift.
Nicole:You're so special. And that's because I take the time to make sure that I feel special, that I feel cared for. And if you are not gonna do it for yourself, you are never gonna get it externally. Also, you're never going to be able to feel what you need to feel, what you're craving, what you're dying for people to say to you, to acknowledge about you. You're never going to feel it from someone else until you feel it from yourself.
Nicole:And you're never gonna feel it to the level of fullness where you have that, like, bubbling over warm, you know, loving feeling. Like, you're never gonna feel that from any anywhere until you learn how to give it to yourself. And I am telling you, it is going to feel weird in the beginning. It's gonna feel so uncomfortable, so weird, so unnatural. I can remember a time when this was new to me and I was just starting to really be aware of the fact that I didn't know how to like care for myself.
Nicole:I was going to the gym and I had three little kids, maybe a one year old, a 2.5 and a four year old. My kids are three years apart so they were all little at the same time. And I was escaping it. I was escaping to the gym to go do a workout, and I felt guilty about it. So what I would do is I would drive super fast.
Nicole:Like, I was in a rush. Like, if I save ten minutes off this drive, it'll be easier for my husband. I won't be burdening him. That's, like, that's a level of, like, crazy that I had at that time. And I remember driving there so fast, getting there, doing the workout, loving it, and then I stayed for like ten extra minutes chatting with some of the women there and I felt guilty afterwards.
Nicole:So I was driving home, you know, my husband. I was like, sorry. You know, there's traffic, and I'm on my way back, and I'm I'm coming. And I was lying. There was no traffic.
Nicole:Like, fucking no traffic on Sunday. Totally made that up. But the reason why I said that was because I felt guilty for chatting with some of the girls for ten minutes. I felt like that was bad or wrong or, you know, some kind of meant something negative about me as a mother, as a wife. And my you know what my husband said to me?
Nicole:He was like, why are you rushing? You can stay out. Why don't you go surfing or something? I got them. And I was like, really?
Nicole:And he was like, yeah. I was like, I don't have my board. I'm not going surfing. He was like, well, go shopping. Go do something for yourself.
Nicole:And I remember getting off the phone and thinking, I can do something for myself and why am I rushing and why am I feeling so guilty about this? About taking time for myself. That was sort of like the catalyst for me of starting to realize that I don't need to put myself last. I can prioritize myself. But I want you to remember that it's a practice.
Nicole:It's something that we need to first notice notice that we're doing it and second be you know kind and loving and have so much love for that part of you that is just trying to make everyone else happy and that's just what she learned since she was a little girl and she doesn't know any better and she's just trying her best and she just wants so badly to to make sure everyone's okay. But she cannot do that if she is not prioritizing herself and it is time that somebody you started taking care of her, started putting her first, started prioritizing her, started making a weekly plan for her to do something that she loves that does not involve taking care of everyone else. It's time that you started noticing her when she didn't feel like doing that laundry and gave her a minute to have a coffee. Gave her a minute to sit down without feeling guilty. It's your job to take care of that little girl that got abandoned, that got left behind, that is feeling not enough, that feels not important.
Nicole:So take all of this in and please try for a week to take care of yourself. To put yourself first even if it's in the smallest way. To prioritize yourself because the truth about being strong is that the strength is within us and we need to use our strength as women to care for our soul, to care for our self, to prioritize our self. That is our strength. If we don't care for our self, we can't give to everyone else and everyone else needs us.
Nicole:So if you want to give to everyone else and take care of the world and handle all the shit and run the business and take care of the house and make 10 egg sandwiches every morning, you need to take care of yourself first. And it'll be so much easier, so much more fun. You'll feel so much more joy and loved and cared for when you make an effort to put yourself first. That is where we draw our strength from. Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed that!
Nicole:Please leave me a review and please do this seriously it will make a world of difference it will change your life but it needs to be consistent it needs to be a practice. Alright have a great week