Blossom Your Awesome Episode #22 - You Have Superpowers With Kamini Wood

On Episode #22 of Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Kamini Wood shares her insights into living powerfully, purposefully, and with meaning.

She is here to affirm for all of those who may need it - we all do indeed have superpowers! 

How do we tap into our own superpowers?

What are those old beliefs and programming, those patterns that we hold onto that are just not serving us? 

What has that been for you? 

Kamini Wood is a best-selling author, certified life coach, and the founder of Live Joy Your Way. 

She works with high achievers to help them tap into their superpowers and maximize their potential even further. 

She teaches people how to do for them and stop with the people-pleasing and needing constant validation from the outside. 

She teaches people how to deal with stress and anxiety and live fearlessly with meaning and purpose.

To get in touch with Kamini Wood you can check out her site here.

For more inspiration check me out at Blossom Your Awesome.

Or for some of my other work check out Sues Blues. 

Transcript

00:00:00
Hello and welcome to the blossom, your awesome podcast episode number 22. Today on the show, we have best selling author and the founder of Live Joy your way comedy would she is hair teaching us how to let go of old ways of being behaviors and patterns that do not serve us how to stop outsourcing our self worth, stop the people pleasing and have that mindset shift to live more prosperously and abundantly with greater meaning and purpose. I am so excited and honored to have comedy here with us sharing her insights and wisdom. Comedy. Thank you so much. Welcome to the show. Hi, I'm so excited to be here with you. Oh, I am so excited to have you here, sharing all of your insights and wisdom and expertise.

00:01:05
So I'm gonna say, we just kind of start with your background, how you got into this line of work and writing and helping people and teaching and offering inspiration. Sure, I'll try not to be too long winded. Um so it's an interesting path of how I ended up where I am. I was on the trajectory to just be in business. I was a project manager and working in the internet world uh eventually found my way managing my husband's law firm uh really kind of running the show, so to speak from behind the scenes, but in the realm of that I ended up working with the staff uh the legal assistance of paralegals attorneys, really working with them on helping them figure out where they wanted to head in terms of their own their own growth, not just career rise, but personally as well, just because of who I am as a person, I tend to really like to get to know people you match that with my own personal growth and transformation that was occurring, I am mom to five and so one of the things that occurred as I was raising them uh and they got to their teenage years was I was starting to see them show a lot of people pleasing and perfectionist uh um attitudes and personality traits and really during that process it was I refer to as my catalyst because I was able to recognize that they were getting it from somewhere and that somewhere was me.

00:02:31
Uh so I actually did some self reflection and realized that part of how I was showing up was based on you know some false beliefs I had from when I was younger, uh just in terms of not wanting to be a burden, wanting to figure out how I fit in, proved that I was you know, part of the group, so to speak that I belonged um and just, and that had kind of come about in my own world as, as being a people pleaser and a perfectionist and I realized if I didn't do my own work to somewhat change that, that was going to repeat within my own kids, so you take the business side of what I was working on, you take the personal growth that I was going through and you kind of bring those two together and I realized that my true calling was not to just sit in an office and run an office. But it was really to work with people individually on helping them really come to terms of their own personal superpowers. Really help them find that sense of clarity, that sense of deep self acceptance really recognize who they are as people so that they can live into their best selves.

00:03:32
They can actually live into what they want professionally as well as personally. And so they can define success and happiness for themselves rather than from some external source or external validation. Mm I love that. Now tell me clarify this for me because is it it seems that we all kind of especially as Children right growing up, we're looking for validation from people. So is that what is that that people pleasing? Like? Where does is that stem from insecurity? Not feeling validated? Is you know, what can you kind of elaborate on that? I think a lot of times it comes through in the form of trying to prove that we're good enough or that we're worthy. Uh so it's not to say that every single person who you know, is a people pleaser that's their story, but I would say a lot of the people that I've worked with when we really unpack it together really it comes down to wanting to please and wanting to make other people happy, because we're trying to um prove that were good enough for that we're worthy of of their love and of, you know, just their attention and just, you know, being worthy people and when we can recognize that that's that false belief that we're trying to get that from someplace outside of ourselves, someplace external.

00:04:54
And we can break that down and recognize the truth is we are right beings by the mere fact of our existence. It's not our worthiness doesn't come from our accomplishments. It doesn't come from somebody else saying that we're good enough. We come to terms with how right we are because of who we are, our value system, our gifts. When we get to that place, we're able to then show up from that new true belief of ourselves and take aligned actions to live into what we actually would like to do and now for somebody who is lacking self worth and just where do they start? Where can we begin with that? That's a great question. The way that I so one thing that I always say is that the most important relationship we have is the one with ourselves, and it all comes back to that. And when we're looking at where do we even start when we're trying to realign with our self worth and realign with ourselves. It's really getting back in touch with being able to name what we're feeling and what we're needing because again, when we really kind of dial it all back, what we find is we lose touch with that.

00:06:03
You know when we're Children were little babies and kids, we are very clear about what we feel and what we need. We we let people know and then somewhere along the way that shifts and it's about realigning to that true self of what do I feel and what do I need? So when we're talking about where do I begin? It's really getting back in touch with naming that for ourselves first and foremost. And then you know, going deeper with that. So I know one of your things that you teach is learning to kind of heal yourself right? The relationship with oneself mm hmm. So speak to us about that all kind of coming together cohesively. Yeah. So when we talk about that relationship with self, we're talking about, you know, are we able to like I said name how we feel what we need, How do we talk to ourselves? How do we see ourselves? What are those uh Saboteur mindsets really that are kind of playing in the background. So when we're when we're thinking about how do we heal that relationship with self? It's bringing all of those things to the awareness because if we're not aware that those things are what's happening in the background, we can't really shift it, we can't really move forward from it.

00:07:13
So when we bring it to the awareness, it's about really practicing self compassion at that point being kind over judging ourselves, recognizing that other people have had similar experiences were not isolated in what we're going through. So common humanity when we practice that. So we get to this place of just acceptance acknowledgment and acceptance. Yes, this is this is how I've been showing up. This may be the false belief that I've been holding on to, I accept it. I acknowledge that it's here and then being really uh really um in charge and empowered of ourselves to say now I'm ready to take Aligned action to live into what's actually true about myself. So it is it is a step by step process. The first thing is awareness. The second is acknowledgement and acceptance. And then the third step that we really get to is aligned action and with Aligned action. It's about making commitments to self and then keeping your word to yourself and that's when we really are truly feeling that relationship with self because if we're really honest with ourselves and really ask that question, how many times do we break our word with ourselves?

00:08:18
That's the key. It's about keeping our word to ourselves hmm. Now what is that about us that makes us do that? Like why are we not able to kind of stick to things right? We start things and we can't stick to them and we don't um what is that? I think it's different for different people. A lot of times, there's a fear involved, you know, maybe there's a fear of failure, maybe there's a fear of, I'm not sure that this is the right choice, I'm not sure that this is gonna turn out okay. Um sometimes the lack of being able to keep our word to ourselves, because we actually are so worried about others that we're, we want to take care of others. So we we don't have boundaries um, protecting ourselves and our own self care, and instead we we allow for porous boundaries and we give to others instead of to ourselves. So it can be a menagerie of things that can, can contribute to not keeping our word to ourselves. And again, it all comes down to taking the time to do that work.

00:09:23
To understand what, what is keeping me from keeping my word to myself, What gets in the way, what am I possibly afraid of if I were to follow through with this thing? What am I scared of? Or what am I what do I fear will happen? Uh, I often will say that self sabotage is a way that we are actually trying to self protect. Uh we figure we'll we'll self sabotage or we won't follow through with the thing that we say we're gonna do because um that way at least we can control the fallout, We know it's coming. So we're in control of it versus trying to do? The things failing and not knowing how to not trusting ourselves, that we'll be able to handle it on the other side. And it's really about challenging that and saying to ourselves, well, the evidence shows that I'm gonna be okay because I'm here, I'm here now. I've faced hard and challenging things before I've come out the other side. So if I just lean a little bit into the evidence that I'm going to be okay on the other side of it, I can I can do the thing that I might be afraid of. I can keep my word to myself in this situation and follow through with this thing I said, I'm going to do.

00:10:27
Oh, I love that. That is so inspiring. And you know, it's just um it's so interesting how we're kind of at the cusp right? People are like, they're right there, they want something, they, but they just can't cross over and say, okay, yeah, I'm gonna keep my word to myself, what do you find? Where does that shift happen, where you're like there and then you, you decide to take the plunge. You know, I think honestly, the work that I do with my clients, what it comes down to is pushing them to become aware of how many times they don't keep their word to themselves because they have to see it once they start seeing it, they're like, oh my gosh, I really what, you know, and then we ask that empowering questions like, well what's keeping me, what am I afraid of here? Because when we start to challenge ourselves and we start to become aware of the thoughts that we're having, we recognize we can shift that we can shift the thought that I'm not going to be okay into, well I will be, it might be uncomfortable, but I'm going to be okay. And that's the thing that allows people to recognize that they can they can do the scary thing, you know, it's like getting on that roller coaster, you see it, you know, it's gonna be scary and we do it, it's it's about doing the same thing, recognizing I'm still gonna be able to, I'm gonna ride will finish and I'll be okay.

00:11:47
Oh my God, sometimes though, I mean some of those rides, it's like when is this ride gonna fit? That's true in the middle of it, you're like, oh wow, what did I do? Right, but you get to the end Exactly, That is awesome. Now, next question for you, what about, you know, you say that kind of self worth or people pleasing and needing that validation from others, how is it different once you get over the people pleasing and now you've found yourself worth, you're ready to, you know, do the work and believe in yourself, but you're still kind of wanting those affirmations from other people, Well let's be honest, I mean, you know, getting getting recognized from other people does feel good and it's not to say I never need that or, you know, we just go through life and we don't really ever acknowledge when somebody says something nice to us or or or acknowledges us. It's about accepting it and really allowing it to feel good, but not needing it to know that we are worthwhile.

00:12:54
I hope, I hope that makes sense. It's about this, this it's like a separation between the validation equals, I'm worthy versus the validation is just a nice to have. It's almost like the cherry on top. So to speak, of the sunday, we don't totally need that cherry. But oh my gosh, it's lovely to have it. Um and it's about, you know, recognizing that as humans, we're going to ebb and flow. So even me, as I said that I'm a recovering people pleaser because there are moments where I'm still triggered into it and it's because that's how I'm pre wired and it's okay. It's about back again. We go back to self compassion. Yeah, it's going to happen sometimes. It's just about getting back to center, you know, shortening that time, back to center like, oh, I'm doing the thing where I'm saying yes to people because I'm afraid that they're going to be unhappy with me. Well what's motivating me to do that, you know, just recognizing that, okay, I'm gonna shift now. I can, I've noticed it. I've named it and now I can make an empowered choice of how do I choose to show up right now, Is this something I actually want to do versus do?

00:13:58
I feel like I'm doing this to just make somebody else happy, recognizing I'm not responsible for other people's happiness allows me to make that that mental shift into, well, you know how I how I want to maneuver, do I want to do this thing or do I want to say no, that's not gonna work for me right now, you know, I can do maybe I can help you out later, type thing, right? And and now, you know, one of the things that you teach is self leadership, which I just, I love that it's so empowering because a lot of times people just feel, you know, they go to people for guidance for inspiration and breaking these old patterns, but it's you know, the self leadership, it's kind of like, okay, this is going to happen, but I think it's so awesome that you're you know bringing this out there and letting them know that they can kind of lead themselves and so how do people get there? How do they tap into that? Yeah, and and it is about knowing that we can we are responsible for ourselves, we do have control over the choices we make in the reactions we have the situations and and that really does come from from this concept of self leadership, which I feel is rooted in the ability to you know, how we see ourselves to self esteem, what we believe about ourselves, self confidence, but it's that third really important prong of self compassion really being kind to ourselves over judging ourselves because when we get to that place and we recognize that we're part of common humanity, were not isolated, we're not, you know, going through this alone or having isolated events that are happening to us.

00:15:33
We can lean on our support system when we recognize those three things and we have those three prongs, we are able to step into that concept of leading ourselves. We can recognize when maybe our our saboteur mindsets are trying to sort of take over and we can shift we can shift via all three of those together into this place of how do I choose to show up right now, who do I choose to be and how do I choose to show up in this moment, Whether it's a happy moment or a challenging moment, I'm always I'm always the person who gets to choose how I want to show up. Okay, and what about for people who don't get that right? What what is that advice? Because so many people don't get the power of personal choice or the freedom that they have to do that at any given moment. You know, that's a really great question because I think a lot of people and I've had clients who have been, you know, um what I refer to as stuck, but they feel stuck in maybe some unhealthy relationships and they're just like, I don't have the ability to do that, I don't have the ability to choose, I'm not in control of myself, I'm not in charge of myself.

00:16:44
And it's really recognizing that ultimately, if we do have choice right, we have choice in the sense of what types of boundaries we want to set up, uh you know, are we showing up in a codependent way or in an interdependent way and recognizing that when we tell ourselves we don't have the choice of making those empowered choices, you know, decisions for ourselves. It's about challenging that and really taking a step back and asking ourselves, am I am I somewhat in a codependent situation where I've lost my identity, my own sense of self, have I. D. Self myself. And and and it's about asking ourselves, well, what's the first step I want to take to realigning and reengaging with myself. And so we go back to your very first question of where do we start? We start at the beginning, which is starting to re identify what we're feeling and what we're needing and that's how we start the process of getting into this place of being able to go on that trajectory to become our own self leader that is awesome now.

00:17:51
Um tell me what about are there some like actionable tips that we can that you can offer us to just kind of get you know, start thinking in this more empowered way. Mm hmm. The biggest thing that I I say is it's about becoming self aware. So it is about slowing it down, becoming mindful, right? A lot of times we are either ruminating on the past or we are future tripping, thinking about worrying about what's going to happen in the future. So mindfulness is huge. Piece of this puzzle which is what's happening in my President moment, you know, where am I right now? What am I feeling? What am I experiencing in this moment versus what happened in the past or what's possibly going to happen in the future. And that that very first actionable items of practicing mindfulness starts, starts the process and then it is about becoming much clear on you know, what do I envision for myself, what do I truly want in my world?

00:18:57
What do I how do I feel? What do I need? Really engaging with those pieces of self awareness because that's where it all begins, is really becoming um realigned with with who you, who you have. It's not it's not about psychoanalyzing the past. Maybe we understand patterns from the past but it's about who am I right now and who do I want to to live into like who do I want to become And that's how we can really help ourselves move on that on that trajectory now, how about some advice for someone who is just really stuck and struggling and does not believe they can find that kind of inner resolve to feel worthy or get going, get started. Just some advice for that person, well a couple of things and I've had to, I've actually had conversations with people who have reached out to me in the past um in terms of coaching for instance, I always say that you know coaching is about making the decision to move forward.

00:20:08
So what you're describing is more of um sort of being stuck in that victim mindset where it's like all these things are happening to me and so the very piece of advice I would I would offer is you know, get present in this moment and then it's about Taking a step back and and asking yourself, you know what is what is possible, if I give myself even five um openness to, you know, what could be possible, you know, what would that look like or what what could be possible for my, you know, really open it up, even just with 5% if I could just shift 5% of what's happening in my world, what could be possible and the other piece and then this, this quote um is something that has stuck with me and it's shifting from a place of this is happening to me that this is happening for me and through me and that that statement has resonated with me since the moment I heard it because when we recognized that the victim mindset is it's happening to me.

00:21:11
It's very hard to shift out of if we can just say to ourselves this is happening for me and really step back and say how is this happening for me or through me right now it enables us to open up that doorway to starting to make those shifts. Oh I love that, I love that. Um Now company tell me for you. Like you're just you know you're out here inspiring other people. You struggled with your own self worth. You said you know when you were younger and people pleasing what was it for you? Where did that shift begin? Was there something you know traumatic or what happened that caused you to make that shift? Well for me um you know my my people pleasing and whatnot started from just not really feeling like I belonged where I grew up just because you know a little indian girl growing up in a small pretty anglo town in Connecticut.

00:22:16
Um but for me it was I was being a mom that was my catalyst really noticing some of those behaviors in my Children. Um so that was the shift for me that said I've got to slow it down evaluate where this is coming from and uh make the shifts that are necessary and so that's why I personally did the self work to understand, you know, what was happening, why it was happening, what was the story I was telling myself and taking ownership of the story that I was willing to write for myself, wow now, you know, there's something like really depth fel to this because you couldn't see it in yourself and I think a lot of us struggle with that, but you were able to see it in your kids. Yeah, which is an interesting thing, right? Because our kids are a reflection of us, uh so it was, you know, and and for me being able to see that reflection, I couldn't see it on my own because I wasn't really taking the time to look at myself, but when I was able to see to my kids, I was seeing it as a reflection of me.

00:23:23
Um and that's why I say that they're the biggest blessing for many reasons, but that's one of the biggest blessings that they brought me was the ability to see myself, but just through their eyes, wow, that is so beautiful now, um you know, you mentioned superpowers. Mhm. Can you talk about that, how we, how we start leaning into that? Yeah, I love to talk about superpowers because I think a lot of us don't think that we have them, right? We think superpowers and we think superhuman or you know super, you know, superman, wonder woman all the things and I think that when we look to our strength that we have that um when we can identify them, they can be their own superpowers. Like for instance for me, I think one of my superpowers is my my empathy and my empathetic nature uh to some people that could be considered a weakness and I I look at it and say no, that actually is what allows me to do the work that I do and also to really engage and connect with people.

00:24:26
And I truly believe that each one of us has our own superpowers in terms of our own innate strengths and abilities, uh that means something to us, even if it doesn't mean something to somebody else, it's important that it means something to us and it's going to be different for each one of us. And once we can take a step back and see ourselves and see those superpowers as superpowers, we recognize that if we can again lean into those will be able to uh you know, live into the lives that we want for ourselves and I'm not just talking about professionally, but I'm saying speaking personally as well, wow now, you know, so really kind of I just, I love that you're so you know, self leadership and superpowers and things that people don't really um you know, especially those who are lacking self worth aren't thinking of themselves in that way and kind of bringing that to the light, so is there just a simple exercise for, because I know, you know, a lot of people like you said, don't believe they have superpowers, so helping people kind of, you know, reveal or see that for themselves, Is there something simple?

00:25:40
I mean, can you just kind of something simple to start thinking in that way? Yeah, just even going through a simple strength list, I mean there's so many strengths list, but you can find online pulling one offline and just simply sitting down and picking five that really resonate with you. Five strengths that resonate with you, that you feel that, you know, you you embody at some at some level and and then it's about, you know, each day kind of leaning into one of those strengths and really uh kind of bringing that, like, okay, so that's one of mine that today, I you know, um one of my strengths, I said empathy already, but another strength of mine is um is patient, right? I can be very patient and not really kind of jump on things, it's today, If I lean 5% more into my patients, what what would I choose to do or what would be possible today, leaning into that for the day, playing with it, Getting creative with it, that's how we can start bringing these strengths into our consciousness and awareness and we can start living into them as our personal superpowers uh that is awesome, I love that.

00:26:49
Because that's so that's such great advice and it's so um just attainable. You know and very practical for any of us to tap into. I love that now. What about some other advice you want to share with people? Um who just really are struggling and stuck. Yeah. I think honestly my biggest piece of advice is um and I don't even know if I can you know I hate I hate saying that I'm giving advice. Um just because I feel like the work that I do is really about providing space for people to have their own insights and their own way of seeing themselves through where they are. Um But I would say that it's about really challenging ones. You know recognizing I have shown up this way and it has gotten me this far. So it's never about judgment or saying, oh that didn't work or that was bad. It's just about Yeah this is how I've shown up this you know for this portion of my life. And it's gotten me here. And what could be possible if I were willing to open up my mind to other ways of looking at things and you know allowing that space to just get creative with that.

00:28:04
Because that's when we start shifting from that victimhood into taking on that the self leadership qualities. Mm hmm. Okay. And now in closing I am going to I mean you just you've been doing it this whole time. So it's gonna be a little redundant but I'm gonna have you leave us with something powerful whatever message you want to leave for us. I honestly my message to people is really this one that I've kind of said throughout the process of this show which is simply that we each have our own superpowers. We each have our own unique gifts and qualities. And when we are willing to recognize them, own them you know share them with the world. That is when the world does get to benefit from us. So it's about really shining our light and not dimming our light. And that's honestly the message that I love for people to get is that it's time for them to shine their light and not doing it.

00:29:09
Mm mm mm mm mm mm. I love that. Thank you so much. You have been so amazing and so insightful and so inspiring. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciated it. Thank you so much. Mm hmm. Mhm mm hmm.