166. healing journey setbacks: what to do when you feel stuck & drained by the same cycles.. 🎙

episode will help you. I want to talk about the healing journey, setbacks, and the exhaustion that we feel sometimes when we are on this pursuit of healing and changing

our lives. And I want to talk about this journey because I feel like a lot of us right now we're on a journey of healing, and there might be things that are coming into our lives right now that are stirring new wounds up, or they're making us very aware of the things we soon need to work on, or maybe things aren't working out and it's just exhausting, and we keep finding ourselves going back into these patterns.

All of this is exhausting at times. And I feel like there's a lot of people that I've been working with one on one also just in my community, some of you guys and even myself, there's this energy of just being exhausted, like just being fed up, just like when is this going to end? And I think a lot of the exhaustion that we sometimes feel on a healing journey is this judgment on how we think we should be or this seemingly never ending cycle like why

is this happening again? Why am I feeling this way? Why do I have this urge to go do this behavior again? Why am I not farther along than I thought that I would. You call in something new into your life, and it really just brings you back up to the old version of you that you thought that maybe you were done with or you just want to be done with. And I have found on my journey to not feel so exhausted and do this judgmental thing of like why again, why is this happening? Why am

I continuing to be stuck? Is to acknowledge that this is a part of the journey. Okay, you living your life and calling new things into your life is going to bring up old wounds. It's going to bring up things that you either are aware of or you're not even aware of yet until you kind of become aware.

And this is kind of sometimes going to come in the form of what you look at as relapsing, but it's really not like it's just a part of the human experience for you to not be this perfectly healed human being that you are always striving to be in your life. I think a lot of what a quote unquote step back really is is this perceived idea that you should be somewhere where you're currently not right now.

And I think the thing that has really transformed my journey, my healing journey, and up leveling my life is to give myself incredible compassion and grace through the times where I am clearly struggling, through the times where I thought I was one way, but I guess I am the same way. And this is why it's so important. You have probably spent your entire life operating out of some sort of fight, flight, freeze, fawn, nervous system, dysregulation, trauma,

whatever name you want to put on it. Okay, you have been surviving things in your life, whether there was hard things that you overcame or you're still kind of living with, or you've overcome whatever it is, you have a story and you have been surviving this story. So instead of getting mad at yourself, that part of you that's really just trying to protect you all of your life, that does those selfsabotaging behaviors sometimes that has the anxious

attachment or the disorganized or whatever. You know that that part of you is really trying to keep you safe, and if you don't, then you should know that all of the things that you think you're doing wrong, there's a reason why you're doing those things, and a lot of the times it's because there's a part of you

that's trying to keep you safe. But that part of you doesn't understand that doing those old behaviors are no longer going to keep you safe anymore, like the self sabotaging behaviors or acting out of anxious attachment or disorganized but there is a reason why you're operating like that. And instead of getting mad at yourself time and time and time again when you find you are going back into old patterns, extend grace and love to that part of you because that part of you is fighting with you.

It is, but you feel like you're in this internal battle, like you against the part of you that keeps doing the things you don't want it to do. What changed my life is understanding the part of me that keeps doing the things that I don't want it to do. That part of me has been trying to keep me safe all of my life. And I just keep berating her. I just keep telling her, you're doing it wrong, You're not doing enough. Why do you keep doing these things?

Instead of looking inwards and being like, what do you need? Maybe I just need to give you a moment to breathe. There is a reason why you do not do the things you know you should do. And what we do, like I said, is we just constantly cast judgment on ourselves when we don't continue to do the things that

we dictate ourselves to do. But there's a reason. There's a reason why it is hard for you to continue to live up to these expectations that you hold of yourself when you probably don't even have the proper tools to achieve these things, or you might still be operating out of trauma, or you need to just have more

grace with yourself. There is a reason, and I have found on my journey that in order for me to actually achieve the things that I want and actually get out of a place of these cycles, is to stop casting so much of this fixing energy on the part of me that is already struggling enough in her life

and is exhausted. And I find when I get into any sort of cycle or do a behavior that I know that I shouldn't be doing, it's usually because I am overwhelming myself AKA that part of me that most likely is doing that behavior because that's all she knows. Most likely, I am overwhelming her too much. I am trying to fix and fix and fix and do and do and do. I am constantly belittling myself and saying, you're not doing good enough, You're not doing it again,

Why aren't you doing this? I'm measuring my success in tiny little increments, but in the negatives, I'm looking at all the ways I'm doing everything wrong. And then I'm wondering why I continue to go into cycles, why I continue to go in a downward spiral, Why I continue to feel so chaotic in my mind? It's because I'm fighting my own self. So what do I do when

I find that I'm fighting myself? Well, one, I always see how my behaviors are directly correlated to if I'm fighting myself or not, which will look like a lot of procrastination, It'll look like self sabotaging behavior. Years It'll look like, you know, throwing my hands up and just being like I can't do anything or pushing things off. That is when I know I'm overwhelming myself too much.

And what I like to do is to honor the part of me that, for whatever reason, is overwhelmed, that has been fighting for me and quite frankly, has been waiting for me to acknowledge her, to give her some more grace. So my advice to you is this, if you find that you're battling yourself right now, stop trying to force an answer, whether it is an immediate answer about a relationship or a career opportunity, or an entire life path or what you should do today, whatever. Give

yourself a break. Okay, Understand that you are not going to come to an answer that is going to be aligned with your intuition. When you are in chaos, when you are in fight or flight or your freeze mode or your whatever, you're just battling yourself and it's not really going to get you anywhere. So if you find that you are in a cycle right now of just feeling like you're just you're not moving, You're kind of stuck.

You're back and forth. Stop trying to force an answer, and instead, this is maybe a practice that you can do. I like to do this, either journaling or just in a quiet space, put on some music and I just come to my breath, breathing in through my nose out through my mouth. I do that a few times, and I just try my best to connect to what I know or what I could feel. It would be my intuition. And you don't need to really know an answer. Again,

we're not forcing anything right, just whatever feels decent. Coming into that consciousness and asking myself what do I need to let go of right now, and sitting with that for a moment, and I usually find there tends to be something that comes up right away, and then there'll be thoughts after that that'll be like, oh no, it should actually be this or that or this or that, and then that's kind of like the logical mind, you know,

the trauma brain is trying to control everything. Come back to that first answer or the answer that you feel is from the highest version of yourself. A lot of you can distinguish the difference between a wise answer and an answer that is coming from that place of you that is like domineering. Doesn't mean that that domineering answer might not be a great answer, But you've been trying to listen to that domineering voice and that has been

getting you stuck in the cycle that you're in. So try and do your best to connect to something that is a little bit deeper than you have been, and you will find what will come out of that. And I can't tell you the answer, obviously, but what usually comes out from that is a very loving, soft, more compassionate ease of an answer, or like a thing that maybe your soul wants to do or your inner chiel wants to do. However you want to connect to it.

And it's not in the form of let's do another thing to try and fix and change what I'm feeling. A lot of the times, it's just this like melting energy of like, you know what, let me just be for a second. Can I just breathe for a second. And the reason why I'm even saying that is because you haven't been breathing. When you're constantly battling yourself in

your mind, you're stuck in this energy. You aren't breathing, You're tense, you're trying to find an answer, and sometimes all you seriously need to do is just breathe for a second. Now, when I find also that I am stuck in cycles, or I'm feeling aggravated, or I'm feeling just annoyed, I like to do my best to give myself either a day or two. And this is very flexible and flow to just be me. Okay, Now, what

does that mean and how does that look? First of all, it doesn't mean getting rid of all of the things that you need to do. Like if you have to go to work, you go to work. If you have to do school, you still do that, but you do it in a way where you're just giving yourself so much love and grace. It's almost like you are tending to a young teenage self, you that is heartbroken right now, and you're just like being her best friend and so

like a few days. Right Like, if you think about like a teenage version of you who just went through their first heartbreak and you were their friend for like a few days, probably she'd be like pretty down and out right, like, she'd be sad, she'd probably need some things.

She'd probably just like need to watch a movie, or need to talk to a friend or just like let it out or vent or cry or just like have so much grace right like, even if she has to go to school or to work, It's like, I'm not putting all these expectations into dos and all of these things on her plate right now because she doesn't need much. Just let her be. And that's what you need to do for yourself, and that's what I love to do

for myself. If I find that I'm just like coming to this breaking point of like realizing that I can't force an answer and nothing's going to come that way anyways, and then I drop down into my body and I just say, you know what, it's just going to be one of those days or a few of those days where it's going to be like highly emotional or it's just going to be very chill, or it's just going to be this practice of giving myself grace every time

I hear the negative self talk, because that's what will happen as well. Sometimes if you're high achieving and you try and do this, you'll be constantly just judging yourself and being like, oh, I should do more, I should do more, I should do more. So maybe this simple practice is today is good enough. Whatever I do right now is good enough. I'm going to take one step

at a time. I Am not going to try and rush these things, and you're just going to be very vigilant with changing the inner dialogue that you have in your head. Now, another thing I like to do if I find myself stuck in some sort of cycle and I'm driving myself insane is not only do I like to connect to myself in that set that I just spoke about and just like really just just let it go for a second, just just breathe, please, I do

like to talk to someone. And this is a reason why I like to do this is because and and by the way, like I'm somebody in general that likes to isolate self isolate. I like to deal with all my problems alone. I'm not even saying it's a healthy thing. It is my default. I That's just how I've lived my life. So I have to really work on that. But I find that there is a part of me that does still need to kind of search for an answer or like a next step, or like I need

to think. I'm a very logical person. I do spend a lot of time alone, which means I'm always thinking and ruminating in this that so for me to try to, you know, tell myself to not think about the situation at hand or like try and figure a way out and this that it's not really gonna happen. And there's not a point on even trying to do that, because there is that part of you that does want to

keep you safe in that sense. So instead of though, spending a lot of time just like thinking and ruminating and journaling, even like sometimes journaling can be a little bit much if you're trying to like financiers and stuff like that. This is where I do like to talk to someone if I can, whether that is considering to go to therapy, or working with a coach, or even just talking to a friend, like whatever it is. You know,

everyone has their own levels of access to things. I know that therapy is not like accessible to everyone in this that, but I do find gaining new perspective and listening to other people can be really really helpful for you to get out of this stuck energy that you might be in, especially if you find yourself always just going back and forth in your head, and it can be difficult, especially if you are somebody who likes to isolate or you feel like you can always find answers.

Taking this time that you are, you know, really honoring that part of you that just needs to breathe for a second and almost like invite new energy or new people or new perspectives in a way that kind of heals you in a way, like instead of you doing all the seeking and you, you know, all the answers or you're giving the advice, like kind of drop into that more feminine energy, which is kind of what that is, by the way, when you like checking in with yourself

and you just like breathe for a second, reside more in that feminine energy and allow the world, allow people around you or things around you to kind of give you some sort of not clarity because you're not really looking for clarity, but just insight or just like let people or the world hold you in whatever capacity that is. And I know it can be so scary, especially when you are somebody who is the fixing energy, is the masculine energy, really is the I'm going to do it

myself energy. It can be hard to do that, but you have to think sometimes of what the opposite is, and what the opposite is is usually you going into this cycle again, you getting into this freeze mode, you not being able to find an answer because you are disconnected from sometimes things that you need to be connected to, which is your body and is more of that healing energy.

And in order to help me be able to kind of stay more into this healing energy or you know, a few days where I'm just giving myself more grace and I'm not trying to figure out an answer or I'm not trying to, like you know, come up with changing whatever is currently happening in my life. I like to remind myself that my setbacks quote unquote setbacks do not erase my progress, and in fact, it really is

just a natural part of growth. Okay, when you get into a new relationship and your attachment style gets triggered again, you don't have to look at yourself like, oh my god, why is this happening again? I'm so mad at myself. I need to fix myself right this second, and this needs to be done right now. And I'm a bad person because this is happening again, and why is this happening again? And da da da da dah Right you're

going all the way up into your head. If you're gonna go up into your head, I want you to think from your very wise part of you that knows the truth, which is this, Your setbacks do not erase your progress. Okay. Just because something is happening again does not mean you have not made some sort of progress. Okay. It just means whatever is coming up in your life, it is calling you to go deeper. It is calling

you to listen. It's not even calling you write this moment to even fix it, although you are trained to fix it because that's what you do. It just needs you to listen. And that's the energy that you have to have towards yourself when you are changing, because if you try to always look at your downfalls or your setbacks from this place of oh my god, I ruined my progress, you can guarantee you will continue to be in setbacks and cycles for the rest of your life.

So if you're feeling exhausted, it's understandable. And when you are exhausted, what you don't need is another push. And what can help you with slowing down is looking at the version of you that has fought for you every single day, whether you think that they did a good job or not. They for you, every single day since the day you were born, looking at this version of you and thanking this version of you, recognizing this version of you, and saying to this part of you, thank

you for keeping me safe. Thank you for doing the best that you could with the things that you had. Thank you for trying to protect me. And I am not mad at you for the days that you couldn't protect me, the days that you quote unquote fell short. It's not your fault. And instead of me wanting to change you, wanting to force you into being somebody that you're not, right now, what do you need from me?

And every time I ask that part of me what it needs, it genuinely just needs me to listen to her, to just breathe, to acknowledge her existence, to be nice to her, to give her a break, give her ease, give her non judgment, give her unconditional love. And something I always ask myself when I find myself in this just really chaotic energy in my mind my body, is

what would somebody who loves themselves do? And somebody who loves themselves would see all parts of themselves and understand that there is a reason and a rhyme for why it is that this part of you is doing the behavior or keeping you stuck in some way and understanding that in order for you to change any behavior in your life, there's gonna need to be a part of you that understands and listens to be able to adjust, to be able to support these parts of you that

just learned whatever behavior they learned and is acting out of whatever trauma just to keep you safe. And this is not about accepting poor behavior or treating people poorly or doing any of that behavior. It's not. But I'm talking about the constant berating that you do on yourself when you know you are the one that keeps getting up over and over and over again. You are being so hard on yourself and you're wondering why this healing journey feels like it's never ending. You have to give

yourself more grace. You have to see how you are your biggest critic. Stop trying to force an answer, give yourself grace, give yourself time, breathe. Take a moment, Take a moment away from self development, Take a moment away from people. Take a moment away from forcing yourself or rushing yourself to find an answer. You don't need an

answer right now. That is not what you need in your life is an answer, and the answer is going to come to you when you stop trying to force it, when you stop trying to push yourself, when you stop judging yourself for being a human being. I hope this episode resonated with you. Please let me know what you like to hear next. You can respond on Spotify or in the comment section on YouTube. Don't forget to subscribe if you are not subscribed on YouTube, and follow me

on the Instagram. You can listen to my audio version of the podcast as well if you're going on how Grow Walks and you don't want to use your data for YouTube. If you watch on YouTube, all the links will be down below. I'll see in the next one. Bye.