Asking What You Truly Want Changes Everything

What if the simplest question is also the hardest: what do you want? We go straight into the heart of messy awakening to find an answer that isn’t scripted by Instagram, family expectations, or fear. Through real stories, hard-won insights, and gentle guidance, I explore how self-reflection, inner child work, and parts work (IFS) reveal the patterns behind people-pleasing, overgiving, hyper-independence, and the quiet ways we abandon ourselves.

I share a pivotal moment from meditation when grief and love collided—how losing a primary mirror for my joy shaped my attachment patterns and fueled a lifetime of shining outward to be seen. That realization didn’t arrive with force; it arrived with tenderness. We talk about why tenderness heals faster than hustle, how awareness returns your life to you, and what it means to stop fixing yourself and start meeting yourself. Expect practical reflection prompts woven throughout: noticing triggers, asking why rest feels unsafe, and spotting where comparison robs the joy from the life you already built.

This conversation is a permission slip to go slow, to breathe in the blessings you’ve been too busy to notice, and to redesign your life with honesty rather than crisis. If you’re in a season of shedding—old roles, friendships, or dreams—you’ll hear why that’s not failure but rebirth. By integrating exiled and protector parts, you build self-trust, clearer boundaries, and an embodied sense of home within yourself. Subscribe, share with someone who needs a soft landing, and leave a review with your answer to the only question that matters right now: what do you really want?

Transcript

Raw Awakening And Intentions

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome back to the Spiritual Shit Show. My name is Julie Wynn, and this is the podcast where we are keeping it real raw messy because the awakening. But anyway, it can feel so disillusioned. It can be messy. It can feel like it can feel like some shit that you actually don't want to do. I know that's like beautiful, beautiful, beautiful pepperfets. I get to read some of my life. This is what we're gonna start with today. But before I do that, I wanna thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me here. And the intention always is to inspire you to be more of yourself. The intention of this podcast is to be empowering. There are so many times in my life when I was going through these personal evolutions and it felt messy and I felt crazy. And I wish I had a podcast like this. So there was somebody out there reminding me, like, oh no, like this, you're in it. You're in the work, and this is exciting. And this is part of it. That our lives are not Instagram or TikTok, if you have that. Perfect. That real growth comes from kind of its messy. And real growth and aha moments come from asking questions. Why is this triggering me? Why am I the way I am? Why do I believe what I believe? There's this question that comes up again and again in my work with clients. And for all of my clients that listen, I say this all the time. Thank you. Because I learned so much from you. And probably more of the work that I need to be doing is coming through because of our sessions together. And so this question, it's simple, but I have been finding it one of the hardest questions humans ever have to answer. What do you want? What do you want? Not what should you want, like the big house and the car and the money, not what makes you lovable, not what looks good on Instagram, not what keeps you safe inside someone else's expectations, just what do you want? I feel like that was a line from the notebook. What do you want? What do you want? Anyway, so many people, including me, freeze when asked that question. What do you want? Not because we're confused, but because most of us were never taught that it was safe to want. And also for me, I have realized that what I want from my ego's point of view, that goes back to wanting something because it feels safe. It feels in alignment with other people's expectations. It feels like it's something that I should want. But deep down at the core of who you are, of who I am, what do you want? So today I want to talk about the power of self-reflection. This is all how we get clear on being able to answer that question. What do you want? Like really honestly, organically, authentically, what do you want? The power of self-reflection. Why inner child work changes everything? I got a story about that. Holy cow. Why growth is tender and not aggressive, and how you get to redesign your life consciously instead of from wounds or these programs that are running that you probably don't even know that are running your life. Because here's the truth awareness is the moment your life becomes your own. And for me, deepening my own personal awareness and being able to climb out from one reality into another, honestly, it's been a nine-year, I'm a nine-year work in progress right now, you guys. Actually, I'm a lifelong work in progress. Um, and this is why I'm here sharing, because, you know, this is this is the work. It's lifelong work and it's so beautiful. And it's what most spiritual practices, healing modalities, and therapeutic frameworks all point in the same direction. It's all pointing you to go inward. And I love when I'm working with clients because sometimes I can really feel that rattling hesitancy to go inward, to clean house, to be vulnerable. And maybe that's because looking on the outside, it feels safer. Building your future feels more exciting or safer. God forbid we look to our past. Could be painful. Yowzels. And also maybe it's because we scroll, we compare, we absorb other people's ideas of success and happiness, we subconsciously build our lives based on other people's stories. And then one day we wake up inside a life we never actually chose, or we wake up to a life that is so beautiful, but because our energy and our mind has been elsewhere for so long, we've missed like all these years. I'm talking about myself here, all these years where I could have been completely happy, but I was so worried about what other people thought and what this looked like. So for instance, for me, I remember in 2015, we bought a house, and I actually loved this house. It's perfect, but I was so concerned that it wasn't big enough, that I didn't choose wisely enough because I didn't have a big enough house, that I never really loved to learn this house. And no matter what we built in it, I didn't like it because I, you know, it's not big, it's not fancy, it's not whatever. And in my healing slash awakening slash, yeah, healing really is what it is. I like wake up and I'm like, my God, my house is amazing. It's literally everything I want, everything I want. But I was so distracted in other people's thoughts, ideas, opinions, what it looked like, that I could never be happy with what I had. So sometimes we do wake up to the life that is so great, but we're so disconnected from it that we can't see the blessings in it. Self-reflection isn't about fixing yourself, and this is what I'm learning too. It's about meeting yourself, it's about developing self-love, it's about having and learning how to hold yourself with such deep compassion. And ultimately, the awakening journey or the healing journey is about you remembering, damn, I'm wasting all this time stressing or anxious or worried, and I am missing out on life. I am missing out on the blessings that the universe is constantly giving me. In my own journey, it's been a lot of questions. Why do I react this way? Why did that trigger me? Why do I keep choosing the same patterns? Why does safety feel unfamiliar? Why does love feel unsafe? Why does rest feel uncomfortable? Why do I fear productivity? Self-inquiry is where the unconscious becomes conscious. And this is where your power lives. I have been doing such, such, such, such deep work for nine years now. And it's kind of fun because nine is a year of completion, and I feel like it all makes sense. Like the timeline of everything makes sense. Annoying, yes. Did I wish I could have fast-tracked all of it? Kind of, but not really, because every painful event, every uncovering, every uh heartache and break, it all taught me something valuable. I learned so much from the process that I was thrown into. Um, but also in that, there's no blame in it. I pretty much sure my soul chose all of this. As painful as it has been, what a beautiful, beautiful gift I have been given is to get to know myself, to have the time to unwind and unwire from my childhood, from uh family dynamics, from narcissistic relationships, from all of that. And in order to remember, to see, to compassionately witness who I am, who I am. And in October, November, it was like spiritual deep dives. Every meditation for me turned into spirit saying, Nope, put your journal down, lay down, we're gonna show you these things that you need to see. And if you know anything about parts work or internal family systems, you will know that there's these exiled parts of us and there's these protector parts, amongst other parts of us. But whoa, October, November, it was like down into the basement of my soul being to reclaim these exiled parts of myself. I thought I knew what shadow work was until I was in it, and I was like, ha ha ha, this is shadow work. This is gnarly, this is so painful, but at the same time, it was so beautiful too. I needed to see it all. I needed to see how certain parts of me have been running my life always. I had to see these protector parts, these people-pleasing parts, these hyper-independent parts, these overgiving parts, these hyper-loving parts, and eventually my inner child. One morning in a meditation, something became so painfully clear. It was like spirit itself was guiding me, showing me why I do what I do a lot of the times. And it was so funny because the night before I got so inspired by somebody. So I left them a voice memo. I don't even know who they are. I thought, I mean, I was like, this is so true. Like what you do. Like I was hyping the stranger up. And then I was like, why do I do that? Why am I such a hype girl for other people? Especially if I don't even know them. They're probably like, uh, like literally, actually, she responded, like, uh, is this for me? And I was like, Yes, girl, that is for you. Let me hype you up. I don't even know you. Why do I do that? So, in this meditation, the next morning, Spirit was like, We're gonna show you why. When you were little and you had a mother, and you were so joyful and loving and cute, and you loved love, you also had somebody to reflect that love to you. She loved you. She loved zipping up your jacket, she loved tying your shoes. You loved holding her hand. You loved being next to her. And when she passed away, from that moment forward for the rest of your life, there was never anybody else who was reflecting that type of love, your authentic joy and light and love back to you. So your love had nowhere else to go. But it was there. It's big, it's a part of who you are. So now you just fucking spread your love everywhere, which is fine, but this is why you do it if you want to know. And I was like, oh my God. So then that just spiraled me, like literally laying on the floor crying because I learned such a deep part of myself, and because I had that knowing and could feel it, like my mom was there with me, my little child self was there, my adult self, like there was a lot happening in a short amount of time, but it was so transformative, it was so spirit-led, it was so truthful, it was so gutting. But no matter how much healing work I do on myself, there is always such like a deep sadness within me. And that, that moment, I felt like sliced open so it can finally heal. That I now I have this awareness of why, why I do that. Why was I why am I patterned to be that way? And the gift of knowing felt like such a beautiful release. And now I can move through it. I spent my entire life shining towards people. So I spent my entire life shining generously, my love, my light, my joy towards people. And the little trick in that is because I've been trying to find someone who can reflect that same joy and love back to me. That is an imprint, and that realization humbled me because I saw so many of my achievements, my overgiving, my brightness, my exhaustion, my longing, all of it traced back to that moment, to that wound, to that part of my story, to that one loss. Now, was it easy? No, no, and I'm like, I get it why people don't want to touch these pains of the past. Totally get it. No one wants to be flattened out laying on the floor crying for hours, but because I had that awareness, it's like, whoa. Now I don't have to repeat that pattern. I don't feel obligated to other people's happiness. And please, may I never just reach out and give some stranger online some unsolicited joy and reflection. So ridiculous. But that moment wired my nervous system. It became my attachment pattern. It influenced my relationships and how I relate to other people and the world. It shined a light on my self-worth and again why I do what I do. And I also realized that wounds don't go away just because we grow up. And I'm gonna say that again. Wounds don't go away just because we grow up, they hide, they shape our partners, they shape our careers, they shape our boundaries, they shape how much we believe we deserve, and it's tender. These unmet parts of ourself it takes courage to sit with pain that once had no voice to meet the version of you who felt unsafe, unloved, invisible, too much, not enough. Sometimes people think healing should feel powerful. And when you're healing, sometimes you can feel too much. I've been called emotionally unstable by my family forever. But now I see I'm actually the strong one because I did it. Because it takes a lot of strength and courage to do this type of work. It's gutting, it takes a lot of atonement, self-forgiveness, woe, self-compassion, honesty, accountability, sitting with uncomfortable truths about yourself. All of these parts of myself, of my story had to have a witness, and I needed to witness them. When my inner child came in in the meditation and was showing me the wound that I've been carrying my entire life and why I am the way I am, I was like, okay, get it, ready to move on now. And my inner child self said, No, wait, I want to teach you something too. And I was so uncomfortable being brought to my childhood bedroom. And my bedroom was, I had to share it with a sibling. It was gross, it was little, it was clothes everywhere, my sheets were dirty, it smelled, it probably has never been cleaned ever. And I was like, I do not want to be here. I do not want to be here. And my little child said, Yeah, we're gonna stay here because you have to learn how to accept everything and not run. So when we're doing our healing work too, again, it comes back to this question why? Why? Why do I do this? Why do I run? Why do I feel uncomfortable? Why do I feel unsafe? So to get to the answer of what do you want? The real soul, the answer, what do you want? What are you here to do? Sometimes that does require doing some inner work, revisiting the story of you. You get to say, what actually do I need? What feels true? What do I no longer want to carry? What type of life feels honest? And I will say, redesigning your life does not require a crisis, but it does require honesty. And we have to be honest with ourselves. You get to design your life, and what does that really mean for you? What do you want? In my own experiences, what I have learned is that the energy that heals faster than anything, it's tenderness, it's not discipline, it's not force, it's not hustle, it's not running away from, it's not perfection, it's tenderness, being able to meet yourself, all of it with compassion and patience and presence and self-trust and grace. The work is not to overcome yourself, but it's to be yourself, to embrace yourself, to know thyself, and in that embrace, that tenderness, you evolve. Give yourself permission to go slow. Give yourself permission to pause, to question, to start again. If you are in the season of shedding or overcoming, you know, unfortunately, sometimes life comes with overcoming traumas. Old versions of you are falling away. Wow, I feel that so much for myself. If you can breathe deep enough to let the old life that doesn't fit or the friendships, or the stories, or the dreams that aren't in alignment with you now, and you're ready to ask yourself again, what do I want? Remember that this is a rebirth. You are not too much or too emotional or crazy or unstable. You are actually really incredibly courageous. You are becoming who you have always been, which is powerful, creative, inspiring. And I will tell you again, the work for me has been long, but what I am able to touch now is such a sense of embodiment, and for the first time ever, maybe what it feels like to be home within myself. If you want support on your journey, if you're ready to meet your subconscious patterns, if you're craving clarity and compassion at the same time, I offer one-on-one soul sessions where we explore your inner world together. The work is gentle, it's light-filled, it's supportive, it's deep, it's personal, it's embodied, it's transformational. And you can find me at Numinous Wisdom. And as always, I am sending you so much love and the reminder to honor your tenderness, embrace your story, lean into your gifts and how powerful that is to be able to meet yourself, to meet your powerful, authentic, loving self. You get to be the witness of the brilliance of you. And don't forget, what do you want? Like, what do you really, really want? And how can I really redesign my life? My love. What do I allow to be a part of my life? And can I honor all of that? Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Until next time.