The Athena Wellness Podcast
Episode 151 – How to Invite Inner Dialogue with Ulrika Sullivan
September 21, 2022 

[music]

[00:00:05] Kathy Robinson: Welcome to The Athena Wellness Podcast, the show that invites you to take a seat around the community fire and listen to stories that inspire. I'm your host, Kathy Robinson, author, coach and founder of Athena Wellness, a company that's dedicated to supporting you on your journey to live more wholeheartedly. 

[00:00:30] Kathy:  Today's episode is brought to you by The Athena Wellness Academy, your resource for wholehearted living. 

The Academy's featured offering is an online course called, From 'Type A' to 'Type Be,' How to Mindfully Descend the Corporate Ladder and Invite What's Next. This course is perfect for you if you're contemplating or navigating a professional transition, and it's available as a self study or with a small cohort of students facilitated by me, Kathy Robinson. 

To learn more, I invite you to go to AthenaWellnessAcademy.teachable.com or click on the link in the show notes.

[00:01:21] Kathy: Hello and welcome. Thanks so much for joining me for this shortened Wellness Wednesday episode, a little midweek boost to help keep your Warrior Vibe high. 

Today I'm joined, once again, by author and healer, Ulrika Sullivan. During this discussion, Ulrika shares practices that help us invite dialogue with our inner wisdom.

And now onto the show. I hope you find these practices helpful.

[00:01:53] Kathy: Once again, I'm joined by coach, teacher and healer, Ulrika Sullivan. Welcome back.

[00:01:59] Ulrika Sullivan: Thank you, Kathy.

[00:02:01] Kathy: So, you know, you mentioned something in the last episode, you have a guide to be able to help folks listen to their inner intuition. And so I'd love to explore ways a listener can reconnect with herself. How would you suggest she begin to invite dialogue with her inner wisdom?

[00:02:21] Ulrika: Mmmmm, so important, and I have three things-- three tips for somebody who's like, "I need to do something." 

The first tip I give always is, look at your life, your week right now. What days of the week are you giving yourself time for you? And I'm not talking about doing the traditional going to the spa or going for a walk or things like that, which are great, that's all good. 

But what we're talking about here, look at your week and see, "When do I have inner me time?" If it's only once a week, it could be once a day, and it becomes this decision, if you will. Because we all can choose, right? 

But here is a truth-- that if we're not spending inner me time, we are not getting to know ourselves better. And if that's the desire, in terms of starting to connect with your true self, that me time is kind of Step One.

And then it becomes, how can you make space for yourself in your life in that way? And that becomes trickier, because maybe you have to say, "Okay, on Wednesday mornings, I want 15 minutes to myself." And that is easy to say to ourselves, but it also takes that-- we have to kind of let our family know that I need 15 minutes undisturbed. So it needs to be kind of-- we involve our immediate family in this, on this journey.

[00:04:13] Kathy: Can you talk a little bit more about the quality of the time?

[00:04:16] Ulrika: I recommend, and this-- many of you have heard this so many times, but it's true. Meditation is a term, right? It doesn't have to happen in a certain way. But 'meditate' means that you spend time with your soul, with your inner self. 

So whatever we want to call that time, whether it's meditation, whether we want to call it something else, that's how we start with that. It's that opposite, like, we can't really search for the answers in the external world. We find our answers within ourselves. And if we don't make space for that time to happen or that to even happen in our lives, there's no way we're going to connect the dots in that sense.

[00:05:11] Kathy: It's some sort of reflective time.

[00:05:14] Ulrika: Reflective time is a great term, yeah. 

And I recommend guided meditations where you are guided by somebody's voice. It's the most basic, because you don't have to worry that you're not doing it right, which is a myth of meditation, you don't have to… 

You have a certain time, it's guided, but the important part is to really find somebody that you love their voice, because that is an energetic match. When you love somebody's voice, that means that there's something in that vibration between you and that person or that voice that resonates with you, so that's a little tip.

If you want to expand this, let's say you start with a five-minute guided meditation, I recommend to bring out a paper and a pen and allow yourself to, right after that meditation, start writing anything that comes up after that meditation. Because when we are in that meditative state, we're in connection with our true self, our soul, and whatever needs to come out on the page will come out on the page at that time.

It's amazing how much we can learn about ourselves, and how we-- you know, that inner conversation that we sometimes need to be more aware of to be able to change what we're telling ourselves. 

So give yourself that space to discover, let's say over a week. If you do that five minutes over a week and then go back and read what came up, it might be the same things. That gives you a little clue on what you're dealing with or some insights that you may not have come across before about yourself. 

So that's kind of the mini-start that, if somebody's like brand new, "I have never done this before," that's what I-- 

And you'll learn also about yourself, like how hard it is to just write about something that comes up. It's this free stream of consciousness that we're looking for to connect with. And everyone can do this. There's nobody that doesn't have intuitive gifts.

And then it's about expanding that and making it into your daily routine. Because that's-- I'm big on having what I call a spiritual practice. Almost like brushing your teeth, this routine or practice of meditation and journaling can be part of your every day. You just want to go back to it every day, because it's such an enriching time.

So it is to expand from there, and if you want to expand it into some body movement, because often, intuition comes through our body as well. People think that intuition sits up in our brain. It doesn't. It's in our heart, and our body. 

So again, it depends on how you run energy. Some do run it through the body. And the intuition comes from body sensations, and if we're not in tune with our body, that can be difficult sometimes if we're not in touch that way. Any form of body movement, put on a great tune, dance it out five minutes a day. 

It's this holistic view of how we become more of ourselves, tapping into the creativity and inspiration within ourselves. The body is something that, at least I did exclude for many years. I had no sensation in my body as far as what was right and wrong. Now, that's how I know what's right and wrong for me, in many ways.

[00:09:18] Kathy: Wonderful. Just to recap for everybody, the first step is this five-minute meditation with a journal by your side. The second thing is to expand this, to make it more of a daily practice, and I'm guessing that the time can expand as well as the daily practice. And then the third thing is to find ways that feel good for you to access your intuition through the body, whether it's dance, or yoga, or some sort of movement that works for you and try to get at it that way.

[00:09:49] Ulrika: And also, I would love to make a plug for going outside in nature. Because our environment is in flow already. There's no stopping a tree from growing. That is a natural energy of flow already. So if we spend time in nature, we are naturally aligning to that flow. 

I think in many ways, we've gotten away from connecting with nature in a natural way where we are kind of seeing our nature and our environment as part of us. And I think that's what we really want to come back to. We don't have to do anything, we just have to acknowledge that energetic flow that's around us. By doing that, it's like we're tapping into it.

[00:10:41] Kathy: Absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here. And I'll link up all of your contact information in the show notes.

[00:10:50] Ulrika: Awesome. Thank you so much, Kathy. I enjoyed our conversation.

[00:10:53] Kathy: Same here.

[music]

[00:10:56] Kathy: Thank you so much for joining me today. I know there are many ways you can spend your time. Thank you for choosing to spend it with me. Until our paths cross again, be kind to yourself and show your Warrior Spirit some love.

If you know anyone who could benefit from today's episode, please pass it on. And many thanks for supporting the show by subscribing and leaving a review. It means a lot and it helps others find their way to our circle.

If you'd like to access the show notes, have a question you'd like addressed on a future episode, or would like a transcript of this episode, visit www.AthenaWellness.com/podcast. 

Until next time, be well!

[music]

[00:11:58] [END OF AUDIO]