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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?
Welcome to Your Soul Called. A podcast for those feeling like there's something more. More alignment, more purpose, more peace, more connection, more joy. I'm Nicole your host. Each week we explore the invisible things that shape our lives, our intuition, our energy, our emotions and the lessons we came here to learn.
Nicole:Through personal stories, meaningful conversations and practical tools my hope is that every episode helps you trust yourself a little bit more, love yourself a little deeper and remember something your soul has always known. So without further ado let's dive in! Hi everyone welcome back to episode 22 the difference between making yourself feel better and actually supporting yourself this week I was scrolling on social media and I stumbled upon this post it was this young girl she looked young but she said she was in her 40s and she looked hurt and sad and upset and there was this long ass video about her talking about going through stage four cancer and I watched the whole thing which was gosh it was like five minutes long I watched the whole thing and it was so sad because she was trying to be so positive. She even caught herself in a moment where she was like I know I shouldn't feel sad. You could see the emotion then she kind of shut it down as though she was putting on a speech to keep people inspired and hopeful.
Nicole:I just wanted to hug her so bad and tell her it was okay. It was okay to feel sad, to feel pissed off, to feel angry, to feel whatever she was feeling. And I wanted to show her that that side of her was just as lovable as the part of her that was trying to be so positive. She kept saying that she was trying to be honest. But there was a part of her that was so sad and for good reason.
Nicole:I mean, having stage four cancer is... I don't know. I don't know what that's like, but she knows. And, I guess this is what inspired me to do this podcast. Because I think sometimes we get so caught up in trying to feel better and to show that, you know side of ourselves to the world that we forget to actually care for ourselves and we think we need to look on the bright side we need to be grateful we need to stay positive We need to shift our energy, change our thoughts, or find a way to get out of whatever it is that we're feeling.
Nicole:But here's the thing, however you're feeling is however you're feeling. It exists. It's happening right now in your body and you can't think your way out of it and you don't have to. What we really need is to stop trying to change how we feel and acknowledge it and actually be there for ourselves, care for ourselves, love ourselves, acknowledge ourselves in that feeling in that moment that that feeling of whatever perceived negative it is that feeling needs the care the same care that you would give yourself if you were feeling immense joy and a lot of times that negative mode those negative moments need more from you and you haven't been giving that to yourself I know I wasn't Emotions they're not good or bad. I didn't always understand this.
Nicole:Emotions are just feelings. We get sad, mad, angry and we get happy, joyful, worried. We have all the things. We have all the emotions and you aren't bad if you're feeling sad. You're not being negative if you're feeling an emotion on the negative end.
Nicole:You're not doing anything wrong because you're having a hard time. Every part of you is lovable. Every part of you is more than enough. Every part of you deserves acknowledgment, care, and to be seen. It needs it.
Nicole:And you're not needing to get rid of those parts of you. I didn't used to understand this at all. When I felt bad, I would beat myself up and I would tell myself that I needed to look on the bright side, that I need to feel better, that I need to just get over it. And I knew I was capable of that. That's the thing is like I knew that I could feel better.
Nicole:I just didn't know how to do it. And I would try to force myself in to changing how I was feeling without ever really acknowledging how I was feeling. But here's the thing like you can never force yourself out of it and sometimes I would end up in this low hole. I felt like I would dig myself into this hole, this down and out place where I was just... You know, the more I tried to force myself out, the deeper I would go.
Nicole:And I was telling myself that it was wrong, that I was wrong for feeling this way, that I shouldn't feel this way, that something was wrong with me, I needed to just let it go. And I couldn't let it go. And the more I pushed myself, the worse I felt. And then on top of that, I would guilt myself and I would make myself... Make it mean something bad about me, that there was something wrong with me.
Nicole:I would judge myself, criticize myself, beat up on myself often subconsciously. And I would spend so much time thinking about what other people were thinking. Like, it would be embarrassing to be in this space. And I I would judge myself for it. Like, what is he thinking about me?
Nicole:What does she think about me? Why am I like this? What's wrong with me? Instead of caring for myself in those moments where I was. I think a lot of us do this.
Nicole:We feel something uncomfortable, something that we perceive to be bad and our first instinct is to just make it go away. We don't want to feel sad. We don't want to feel disappointment. We don't want to feel angry. We don't want to feel scared or hurt.
Nicole:So we try to talk ourselves out of it. We tell ourselves it could be worse. Stop being a fucking baby. We tell ourselves we shouldn't feel this way. You know?
Nicole:Get over it. Be grateful. You have so much to be grateful for. Stop being so sensitive. But what we're really doing in those moments is telling ourselves that whatever we're feeling is not okay.
Nicole:And think about it. Like, think about how you feel when you're already hurting and someone's telling you that you're bad, that that's not okay that you're hurting. You're already sad, and then you're telling yourself that you shouldn't be sad. You're already disappointed, and now you're disappointed in yourself for feeling disappointed. You're already hurting, and now you're making yourself wrong for hurting.
Nicole:You're already taking something hard and making it even harder by telling yourself that it shouldn't feel hard. And here's the part that I didn't used to understand. Feeling hurt, angry, scared, disappointed, sad is just a normal part of being human. We all feel these things. Every single human being feels both joy and pain, both love and heartbreak, both excitement and disappointment, and you couldn't have one without the other.
Nicole:These emotions, the sadness, the hurt, those are not bad or wrong. And even the thoughts that come before those feelings are not something that we need to judge ourselves for. In fact, we never need to judge ourselves. That's the thing. What matters is really how we treat ourselves when those feelings come up.
Nicole:How we care for ourselves when we're feeling hurt. Because how you treat yourself when you're hurting is one of the most important pieces of life. It's one of the most foundational things in learning how to love yourself. And this is the part that I didn't understand for like a really really long time. And I used to say like how do you even love yourself?
Nicole:Well this is how. It's how we treat ourselves when we're hurting. And I think a lot of us end up treating ourselves the way we were treated as kids. If you were ignored, then you ignore yourself. If you are told to just get over it, then you tell yourself to just get over it.
Nicole:If you were yelled at, then you yell at yourself. If you are criticized, you criticize yourself. If nobody acknowledged how you were feeling, you don't acknowledge how you're feeling. If you were abandoned when you needed love the most, you abandon yourself when you need love the most. You see the pattern?
Nicole:And maybe you're doing it subconsciously. Maybe you don't even know that you're doing it. I know I didn't. I just knew that when I was upset, would be really, really, really, really hard on myself. I would try to get myself out of it as quickly as possible.
Nicole:And sometimes I could and sometimes I couldn't. And when I couldn't get myself out of it, would make myself feel worse because I wasn't able to feel better. And I didn't understand that what I actually needed was care. I needed someone to sit with me in the hurt. Someone to tell me that it was okay to feel exactly the way I was feeling.
Nicole:I needed someone to reassure me that I was good enough even when I didn't feel good enough and for the longest time I thought I needed this reassurance this care externally and I was searching for it craving it from outside of me from the person who hurt me from my family from my husband from someone who wasn't me and eventually I learned that I was the one who needed to give it to myself that I could be that person for me I could sit with the parts of me that were hurting instead of trying to fix them, ignore them, or push them away. The reason it needed to be me and it couldn't be anyone else was because nobody else knew exactly what I needed or understood the depth that I needed it to be said like the way I needed it to be said. They didn't know how bad I was hurting. They didn't know exactly what I needed to hear. They didn't know how to care for me in the way that I knew how to care for me and I was so good at caring for everyone else.
Nicole:I just was never you know doing it for myself And then I started doing it for myself. I started staying with myself during the hard times, supporting myself, caring for myself, loving on myself, and everything changed. Because making yourself feel better, it isn't necessarily about changing how you feel. It's not about making those feelings go away. It's not about convincing yourself that what you're feeling is bad or wrong or that you need to get to a better place as quick as possible.
Nicole:In fact, it's the opposite. It's about letting those feelings stay and caring for them. It's about supporting yourself in the moments when it hurts no matter what. And if you're listening to this thinking, okay, great. But, like, how do I actually do that?
Nicole:I hear you I didn't know how to do it either nobody taught me how to do this stuff so I'm going give you an example of what this looks like in my own life in real life so this is something that happened to me recently I was at CrossFit I do CrossFit for workout one of the coaches who I noticed is a little bit judgy. He came up to me after the workout and he says something like After the workout now, after it's done, he comes and he says oh, by the way, Nicole, you need to start paying more attention to your form. You're not locking out at the top of the kettlebell swings and the burpees, you need to clap behind your head and jump higher off the ground. And I was like, okay. And steeply annoyed.
Nicole:And I was like, why the fuck are you telling me this now after the workout's done? Like, why not go over it before the workout? And were you, like, secretly watching me the whole time? And why are you taking all the fun out of it? Like, I thought that I did a good job, and it's just a for fun workout.
Nicole:Like, nobody's judging. Like, I just try to get my heart rate up. You know? And I felt proud of what I did, like, five seconds ago, and now I'm feeling shitty. And you're making me feel like I can't even, you know, count it as a workout because you're telling me I did it...
Nicole:Didn't do it right. And my brain, of course, goes straight to I suck. I suck. Yeah. That's where my mind goes.
Nicole:And I know that I'm incredibly harsh on myself. Go figure. My mom was harsh on me and still is. So I think that's my default but in the past I would have let that feeling sit inside me without really acknowledging it. I would have told myself fine I'm not going to that guy's class anymore Underneath that subconsciously I'd be telling myself other things.
Nicole:Other things like you should have known better, you should have reviewed the movements before class you know he's going to be judgy. You should have asked him ahead of time so that he couldn't judge you. You should have done better. You should have known better. You're not good enough.
Nicole:You suck. And I probably wouldn't have realized that I was doing it because I was doing it subconsciously. And I would have just felt shitty because subconsciously I was telling myself I suck and I should have known better I should have done better and I would have carried that feeling around for who knows weeks but now I've had some practice on this self support thing and this time I did something different. First of all I felt the feeling inside of me immediately like when he said it I was like oh I feel it almost like like a feeling just takes over my body and I just let it stay there without judging it. I knew it was there.
Nicole:I didn't try to make it go away. I didn't tell myself I shouldn't be upset. I didn't try to convince myself that it wasn't a big deal that I was you know getting upset over nothing I just allowed myself to feel it and noticed where it was and it was in my stomach, my throat, in my face, in my heart and I gave it a name. The feeling was disappointment. So I let the disappointment stay there.
Nicole:I didn't do anything with it. I didn't need to fix it. I need to figure out how to make myself feel better. I just needed to acknowledge that I felt disappointed. And then I did something else.
Nicole:I sat with the little girl inside of me who was sitting in a ball beating up on herself feeling all, you know, down and I told her it was okay. I told her that I loved her. I sat there with her, I held her hand and I stayed. I loved every part of that little girl that was trying so hard to be perfect to get everything right all the time to make everyone happy to be the best and I told her I saw how hard she was trying. I told her that I was going to stay with her no matter what.
Nicole:That I was going to be there for her no matter what. And I told her that it was okay, that she didn't do the things the way that he wanted her to and that I was proud of her anyway. And I was more proud of her than I'd ever been. And that I really saw her. I really, really saw her.
Nicole:I acknowledged her. I stayed with her. I sat with her. And boy did she need me because that feeling, it kept coming back up. It would come up random times.
Nicole:I think about it again and then I was like, oh, that little girl, she needs me again. She's feeling like she didn't do good enough and I'm going to stay and tell her that it didn't matter she did do enough she is enough she is more than enough and each time that I cared for myself when the feeling came up over and over and over again I didn't try to make it go away. Didn't try to make myself feel better by talking myself out of it. I didn't ignore what was happening. I didn't shove it down.
Nicole:I let myself feel it and I cared for it. I cared for the feeling that was coming up. I cared for the little girl that was feeling it deeply. I think that's the difference and this is something I didn't used to know how to do. You don't have to change how you're feeling in order to care for yourself.
Nicole:I think sometimes we think that self love it means being really positive all the time. It means that we should you know, not take things personally. We should be able to handle criticism because our self love levels are so high. We shouldn't be bothered by it. But, you know, fuck that.
Nicole:You're bothered by it. Like, that's okay. You can feel disappointment. You can feel hurt. And all of that's okay.
Nicole:You know? It's... That's not what it's about. Like, it's about allowing yourself to have whatever feeling comes up and loving yourself through it always no matter what. The goal isn't to never feel bad.
Nicole:It's to become someone who knows how to care for herself when she does feel bad. How do you love the little girl inside? How do you acknowledge her? Can you see her? Can you be there for her?
Nicole:And think about it. If you're constantly trying to change how you feel, you can end up spending your whole life in this fight with yourself secretly judging yourself you know beating up on yourself being extra hard on yourself telling yourself you're never good enough even if you're only doing it subconsciously You're sad so you try to be happy you're angry so you try to calm down you're disappointed so you try to find the positive you're scared so you tell yourself there's nothing to be scared of it's fine stop being a baby very frequently underneath all of that there's just a part of you that needs to be acknowledged a part of you that needs to know that she's not alone a part of you that needs someone to say I love you. I see you. I'm here for you. You're not alone and I'm not going anywhere.
Nicole:And imagine what that would be like if you got that kind of love and care and support when you needed it most what would that do for you how would that change your life and I wanted to end this with looking back through my old journal like years and years ago because I remembered what it was like to not be able to do this for myself so I wanted to read you one of my old journal entries about how you know where I used to be with self care which was not very good. So here's a journal entry that I wrote It says today is Mother's Day Husband thinks I'm stupid. I can't do anything right. I'm not worthy of anything He talks to me like I'm stupid. I feel small not enough.
Nicole:I feel sad also mad mad at myself for taking things too personally mad at him for his tone mad at me for believing the worst about myself for not loving and trusting and honoring myself mad at how easy it is for me to turn against myself to shut down to fall into a hole and for how hard it is for me to get back out. I don't deserve to be scared. We're not doing this anymore. We're not going to be so hard on ourselves. We're not going to automatically assume the worst about ourselves I will decide that I can still believe that I am enough, that I'm smart enough, that I am deserving of respect, that I am enough, that I'm allowed to make mistakes and it doesn't mean that I'm stupid.
Nicole:So I remember trying to talk myself out of situations like this when I was feeling so hurt and I was like no you're not feeling this way. You're better than this you're bigger than this you matter and I would tell myself these things as though I was like lecturing my way out and here's the thing like I didn't need to be lectured I didn't need to change the way I was thinking and what I really needed was to be acknowledged, be cared for, to be loved and when I think about that version of myself you know she just needed someone to be there with her to say I know you're hurt I know this is hard I know you're doing so much and you're feeling so little like you're just feeling like a smaller version of yourself and I love you anyway I love the mother that you are I love the wife that you are I love how hard you're trying I see you It's okay to feel this way. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you. You don't need to change.
Nicole:You don't need to be anyone else. You don't need to be better. You are perfect the way you are and you are more than enough. And it hurts. And I'm sorry that it hurts.
Nicole:And I'm sorry that you feel this way. But I'm not abandoning you. I'm not leaving you. EVER. I'm never leaving you because I love you so much.
Nicole:I see you I see how hard you're trying and I love you so much I'm so fucking proud of you so proud of the woman you've become I'm so proud of the woman you're becoming I love you so much and I'm never leaving you again and I think some of us really need that speech not the I'm going to talk you out of this speech, you're going to feel better now speech, but the I love you here right now exactly the way you are and I love you no matter what and I'm never leaving you. So if you haven't ever tried being there for yourself in this way, I want you to try doing it this week. When you feel the emotions come up and they take over your body, you catch yourself being harsh, you catch yourself talking to yourself in the way that maybe your parents did. I want you to instead notice the feeling and let it be there. And then see if it's possible for you to stay.
Nicole:To stay with yourself. To not judge, to not push, to not try to force yourself to be anything different than what you are right now. To really love yourself in that moment exactly where you are. See if you can support yourself through it, love yourself through it without judging yourself. And if you can do that, my friends, your life will literally change.
Nicole:I know mine has. So I hope you guys found that helpful. That's a little bit vulnerable for me, but I think that I'm hoping that this will help some of you guys. Alright, have a great weekend. I will see you next week.