Appogiae Production. Welcome to the Grow and Glow Podcast. I'm actually Bynes. This is a podcast where we learn, laugh, and level up together. Let's go deep, let the emotions flow, find the lessons to grow and glow. Nothing is off the table with Grow and Glow, and I'm here to be your expander. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to Growing Glow. I'm your host. If you're new here, welcome. If you're an od, welcome back. Today's a bit of
a life update. Lots has been going on and we're just about to wrap up twenty twenty four, which is so crazy.
My life lately, it's been a little.
Bit chaotic, and I don't love celebrating or looking like pushing the hustle culture. I have been hustling for the last fifteen years, and as you guys know, this year, when I found out about my brain aneurysm, I put a halt and I changed a lot of things. I close down one business, I am spending more time with my kids. I'm having a lot more slow and flexibility, and yeah, it's been really really nice to adjust to a new lifestyle of just more peace, more emotional peace,
and focusing on my health. I have just finished up working with a coach. Her name is Connie Chapman. You can find her on Instagram. She has a podcast, Beautiful Episodes. If you are someone who is running in the masculine a lot, if you have a lot of wounded masculine energy, if you are just feeling really out of touch with your feminine energy, you're wanting to really get back to.
Your body and out of your head.
Her podcast is amazing, Like, just by listening to her episodes, I've learned so much. But I decided to work with her one on one for three months, so I had a session every fortnight, and then in between I had whatever support I needed, and then I had access to like a private portal which had meditations and like feminine embodiment sessions, and yeah, it was really really beautiful. If you guys heard the episode with Ryan, I was telling him that I've always he's been a lot more drawn
to male coaches. So I've worked with Taylor Cecil, Brian Reeves, Brad Fennel. They're my three main coaches I've worked with over the years, and I just like being in the energy of a really safe masculine Steve before my coaches has been the only safe masculine that I've really had in my life. Levi as well, actually, but yeah, I
really love having a male coach. But it's very logical, it's very this is the problem, let's understand it, let's implement things to quote unquote fix it or work through it. And it's very in my head. But I've loved it so so much. But working with a female feminine coach, it's the total opposite. It's not as much talking and it's more feeling and I could even feel myself in some of the sessions. I would start talking and she's like,
let's just drop in. I want you to close your eyes and we would just get back into my body. In every single session, I bored my eyes out. So I finished up with her now. But yeah, we did a lot of inner child work and a lot of
things around my father, around my wounds. Sisterhood wounds come up really strongly for me, abandonment and rejection wounds from when I was a little girl, and we had to really go back to when I was younger, to the moments where I felt abandoned or rejected or not good enough, not seen, not her, and I had to go back there and like actually fully sit with her.
It's been really nice.
Because I had a big realization, I think in the second or third session, of just how much I don't fully allow myself to feel like I've got awareness to allow my emotions to come up. But I would still distract when it got too much, or tell myself that I was too busy, I didn't have the time and space. So by distract you could even word it in a way of like numbing out. I would eat more, I would work more, I would scrawl on my phone, I would be busy with the kids.
I would just kind of park it to the side.
But when I sign up with a coach, like, I'm not going in there to be half are so I'm going in there to be completely vulnerable and really like be cracked open in the most beautiful way. And I feel like there's no way they can fully help me heal and work through things that I want to work through unless I be one hundred percent real with what's coming up for me. So yeah, it was a really emotional journey. But my main goal in tension for working with her was to come out at the end of
twenty twenty four, a lot softer. I've been running in my masculine for so long because I never had a healthy masculine growing up, and I've always been one to just get shit done. I've worked since I was thirteen years old. I've just got this hard protective shield in front of me to make sure that I suppose no one really can hurt me and that I always have my own back. But in your true feminine essence, you're a soft You surrender, You're opened up.
You're really open to.
Receiving and allowing people to take care of you and look after you. And I wanted to learn how to be out of balance and blend both energies because one is not good or bad, but it's really important for both male and females to be able to honor both energies because they're both within ourselves. But at our core, we're going to be one or the other. More so my core, I'm more feminine, but over the years, I have trained myself to be more masculine to keep myself safe.
So yeah, my main goal was to come out the other side just being a lot more softer and open, and.
I really do feel it. It's been so nice.
It's been really hard every session to cry so much and to release.
Yeah.
I also did say this in Ryan's episode, just in case you missed it. In my second session, when I first went back into a visualization of meeting my little girl, I just was boiling my eyes up and she's like, what's coming up for you? And I was like, I'm just so scared that I can't show up consistently for her. This inner child and your little person inside you, it's not separate from you, it's just you, but a younger version.
They're always going to be there. But I just said, I just feel like I can't show up for her consistently, which means that I can't show up for myself consistently even as an adult woman. Now, that was a really big light bulb moment for me of like, wow, I really do abandon myself a lot. So when I get too much or too emotional, I'm feeling a lot like I abandon myself. And every time you abandon yourself as
your adult self, you're actually abandoning your younger self. And it's really cool when you visualize and can see you're inner child, especially being a mum of a daughter and
a son. Now, when I was going back to meet my little girl, I almost pictured my kids as well, and how much I cannot abandon them, and how much I'm there for them, and how much space I hold for them, and I want to attend to every single one of their emotional needs because I never want them feeling like they're too much Mummy and Daddy aren't going to be there for them.
So I'm really good at doing that.
With my own kids. But why was I not doing it for myself? So I felt like in that moment, there was just this switch that flicked inside me of like I am going to make this like invisible, emotional, like energetic connected contract with myself to never abandon myself ever again. Every time I need to feel something and I'm experiencing something, I'm going to have my own back and I'm going to show up for myself just the
way I would with my children. And this is something that I want to teach my kids how to do as well. And it's been really nice to not be distracting with my phone or with food or being busy. I actually just stop, and it can look as small as if I start to feel overwhelmed or something's coming up for me. I literally can just like put my hands on my belly and on my heart and just take some big breaths. And I love doing like a little gentle sway and just asking myself, what do I
need in this moment, what's coming up for me? And sometimes I'll just need to say to Steve it's seen to stay outside for a few moments, or I'll literally just goneto my wardrobe where it's quiet and I can just get recentered, see what's coming up for me and say I were in the middle of bath and bedtime or whatever, might even just quickly drop down some notes in my journal and then when they go to bed,
I spend that time with myself. Over the three months as well, I've really learned different ways to bring myself back to my center. It's a lot more in your body as well, like somatically moving through my emotions. But one thing I've been doing, I want to talk about these new ways that I've been implementing to help regulate my nervous system and bring me back to my center and get me grounded again and also allow my feelings to come up and I feel like to heal things.
We really have to feel things. Yeah, So I've been doing a lot of mirror work, and when I feel something coming up and I feel emotion, I literally sit in front of the mirror and stare at myself and watch myself cry and fully allow it, and I just stare so much love into my own eyes.
I do a lot of havening. I do a lot of like.
Cuddling and swaying, and I just fully be there for myself. And when I'm staring at myself, like, I just feel like I'm really holding myself through that and I'm soothing myself. In the past past actually would go outside for soothing, whether it's through Steve or through friends. My mom and I still do that, like they're still there for me. However, I think it's so important for you to be able to soothe your own emotions. So I really felt that's
helped me a lot. And then another thing, I think anger is something I've really suppressed over the years, and it's a really unhealthy thing to not let it come up. Anger, guilt, and shame, I think are three vibrations that we kind of bury and suppress because we think that we won't be lovable if we allow that to come up, and I know I've definitely felt like that, So I really had to learn a way for my anger to come up and for it to be seen and to still
love myself regardless of how that looks for me. Allowing my anger to come up is and it sounds crazy probably listening and be like, I'm not going to do that. And I felt uncomfortable at the start too, but then when I started to feel how good it felt to let it out. It's just literally moving stuck energy, and I feel like moving it somatically is so powerful. So I'd put on really angry music, like really hardcore crazy music, and just like literally dance and move around and like
just shake the energy out. And then sometimes I would punch a pillow. I would scream into a pillow and just get that rage out. And this is something I encourage.
My little boy to do.
Obviously, they have like big spouts of testosterone into their bodies and they get a lot of rage, and it's so important to be able to teach them to get that out in a really healthy way because if they don't, then they can have big outbursts or like hit and punch someone else or hurt themselves. Like, it's very important life skill that I'm trying to allow him to find healthy ways to express and welcome all of his emotions because they are just emotions. They're not who we are.
They're part of our human experience. So we need to allow all of them to come up and know that we're still loved and accepted regardless of all those feelings. We can feel something and it doesn't have to mean anything, but we need to allow it to come up. So, yeah, dancing to hard music, screaming to a pillow, punching a pillow, and just getting the energy out of my body. But after that, I then like to soften, So then put on a soft song, a song I'm really liking at
the moment. I'm gonna actually play it for you guys. This is a song I've been dancing to. So I'll do like a hard crazy song, and then I'll put this on and just sway and just allow my body to move it a certain way. And then I'll finish off either sitting on the ground in front of the mirror or laying down, and then I'll finish off with a meditation or just some breath and just be with myself with this song. It's called Camp Trails over the Country Club by Lana del Ray Laura with.
The Camtrails over the.
Oh, it literally makes me cry even hearing that song, I think because I've been leaning on that song so much lately and like allowing everything to come up.
And these are not sad tears.
These are tears of just like, oh, it's been a massive year with my health and all the changes that have happened in my work life, my life in general, and I've really had to shed so much and let go of so much and embrace the.
Change and welcome it in.
But it's been so beautiful, Like I could not have had this coach at a more perfect time to help me learn really beautiful ways to support myself and soothe myself and allow it all to come up. Because I just feel so energetically and emotionally so much lighter. I kind of worded this to a girlfriend the other day that like, if you don't do this kind of work
and allow things to come up, picture it. As I've said on the podcast before, I actually but referring to Taj, put you it like you've got a backpack on your back, and every time you go through something hard, or you feel these heavy emotions, you're adding another rock into your bag and you're walking around with this massive weight on your shoulders. I feel like every session I did with my coach, I got to like take a rock out.
And I'm not even carrying a backpack anymore. I don't feel like I'm carrying any of that heavy emotion, any guilt, any shame, anything that's not serving me anymore. I can like peacefully unplug. I'm not attached to how things were
or how I thought they were going to be. I'm fully in such a place of trust and surrender that life is happening exactly how it's meant to for me, and I am fully allowing all of it to flow into my life and pan out just how it's meant to be, and I will accept it all and I will receive all, and I just, yeah, I feel so much better. So that's been a really beautiful time. So that's finish up with her. I'm not sure who I'll
work with next year. I just I suppose I want to take time off over the Christmas period and just see how I feel and see where I want to work and see what I want.
To improve on. But it's been really beautiful three months. I was in.
Sydney last week, which by the time you guys listen to this, it will be a couple of weeks ago for a Snapchat event, which is really really cool. I've done a lot of panels over the years, and I really love speaking on panels. I just feel it's very authentic and organic conversations about topics that I'm passionate about.
And Snapchat is one of my favorite apps. I just feel like it's so unfiltered and I can get on there and just talk and talk and talk, and I don't get caught off after a minute, and I feel like it's where my original community has come from, and I just feel a very strong connection with everyone on there.
I just really love it. So that was really fun.
But the morning of I woke up and I started to lose my sight again, which was absolutely terrifying. You guys would have seen online that I've been going through some stuff emotionally with the little changes of the podcast, and I had an MRI. I've got my neurology appointment on Monday. I have to have another surgery and I have a healing brain aneurysm, and I have another bulging aneurysm, and stress is the worst thing for anyone with aneurism. It is the one thing that the surgical teams say
you need to avoid keep your stress levels low. And it's been a really stressful couple of weeks emotionally just navigating it all. And yeah, I started to lose my sight for the first time since March. Sarah was like, you're really really I was like, I am calm because I can stay regulated, but I'm so scared. I had neuropein there, so I took that straight away and it did ease off. But yeah, when I called Steve, I was just like, this is so scary when you have
these aneurysms. My aneurism was to rupture. It could literally kill me or I could stroke really badly and just not be the same person. And I just have such a big, full life to live. It's just always in the back of my mind. And I have a new surgery date, which is the end of January, so I'm really excited to do that, which sounds weird because I'm actually petrified of the surgery and the recovery time is
not a good time. But I am so grateful that they've found these aneurysms, and we have such an incredible healthcare system here in Australia. The nurses are amazing. I've got such great support around me. My body is healthy and fit and strong, you know. Ever since it's happened, I've made really positive changes in my life to keep my stress levels low and to be more in flow, and I feel so much more aligned in everything that I'm doing.
So yeah, it's all good.
I just had that moment in Sydney where I was like, oh my gosh, this is so scary, like you can't help but have intrusive thoughts of like this is my aneurism and this is going to be my first symptom, and oh yeah, it was scary. Anyways, it went away and we're all good, and I've got a neurology appointment on Monday, which I'm excited to sit down and talk with them. And then Andrew January, I'll go back into surgery to have the second aneurism a stent put into that.
So yes, that's what's been happening.
And then another life update is I was talking about and exploring about homeschooling Taj. I have decided not to His school is really beautiful and he really does love it. There's a couple of classes he doesn't love, but overall we are really happy.
With him there.
And I'm working less, but I still am working. And I feel like most of the moms I know that are homeschooling, they aren't working, and nive partner is the sole income provider, and I could do that if I like, But I really really love having other passions and purpose and working on my mission to work with beautiful women and help inspire them to live a beautiful, healthy, authentic,
passion filled life. And there's just so much that I want to do, particularly around this beautiful podcast and working with all of yous. So yeah, when we spoke about it, I kind of said, if I do homeschool, I think I would need to stop everything else I'm doing so I can really put everything into it and just for us right now. It didn't feel right when we really spoke about it, and his school is really amazing, and I'll be scared we wouldn't be able to get him
back in as well. I have decided to keep Tala home for another year. We were going to put her on daycare next year, but I decided to keep her home another year. I really love the flexibility of just being able to see her as much as I want when I've got a quiet a week with work, and still take her to all that activities. She's absolutely thriving at home. Our beautiful nanny is leaving though. Tash has been with us for five years now, and she is honestly like a sister to me.
I love her so much. It's actually really hard to talk.
Oh God, I'm emotional today, but yeah, it's really really sad that she's leaving us. She's moving up the coast kind of near Bunderberg, So she's leaving December twentieth. That will be her last day working for us, and it's just gonna be really odd because I love her so much, and she literally is like a sister from another mister.
We're literally the same person. And my kids absolutely love her, especially Taler because Taj's at school so he doesn't really see Tash as much, but Tyla is with Tash whenever I'm working, and they are actually best friends. Like when Tash walks in the door, you should see Tyler's face. It's just so lit up. So we're in the interviewing process of trying to find someone new, and it's just really hard because I just can't help but compare them
to Tash and I just want Toush to stay. But I'm also like really open and I know there's other beautiful, amazing humans out there that Tyler will fall in love with. Yeah, she's just about not settling and finding that person.
So yeah.
Otherwise, we've got Christmas coming up, My birthday then Christmas, and then we've hired out a beautiful home. It's like seven bedrooms down in Byron Bay over the New Year period, so we're just going to have a couple of family like our friends come down and families with the kids and do sparkles on New Years and barbecues and good music and just have some really slow quality time and then Steve's family's going to come.
Towards the end of the week. Yeah, life's really good.
I just want to say a massive thank you to each and every single one of you for supporting me alongside my journey this year.
It's been a lot.
I've gone through a lot, and it just makes it not feel so lonely having this community. I feel like you guys just always have my back and that's my little life update and freaking can't wait for you guys to see the new podcast name and the new podcast co hosts, like, we've got so much happening next year. I'll say more another episode, but otherwise, thanks for joining me, and I'll be in your ears next week.
Hi,