Reclaim Your Power

We share how Heidi Blackie moved from perfectionism and burnout to a grounded life by questioning her beliefs, honoring her body’s signals, and building daily practices that create an “Unshakable Me.” We explore loss, mindset, meditation, and the choice to heal from the inside out.

• growing up in a culture of overdoing and its cost
• perfectionism, identity, and ignoring body signals
• cascading injuries, illness, and profound personal loss
• the kitchen question: what do I believe about healing
• building “Unshakable Me” as an inner ally
• meditation with Tara Brach, journaling, and breathwork
• gratitude and intention as nervous system resets
• reframing stories, visualization, and neuroplasticity
• acceptance as agency, not surrender
• choosing meaning, energy, and supportive circles
• aligning pace, purpose, and daily rituals

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Guest Introduction
• 2:50 The Hustle Story And Early Signals
• 5:40 Perfectionism And Overdrive Culture
• 7:45 Injuries, Illness, And Denial
• 11:05 Compounded Loss And Total Burnout
• 16:38 Hitting Bottom And Turning Inward
• 19:03 Biology Of Belief And Self-Healing
• 21:53 Discovering “Unshakable Me”
• 24:53 Practices: Meditation, Gratitude, Intention
• 28:53 Rewriting Stories And Visualization
• 31:53 Choice, Acceptance, And Resilience
• 36:23 Purpose, Pace, And Listening To The Body
• 39:53 Resources, Contact, And Closing Blessing

Transcript

Cassandra: 0:25

Good day out there to all of my listeners, and I'd like to welcome you to Is Your Way in Your Way podcast. And I'm your host. My name is Cassandra Crawley Mayo, and I am a transformational lifestyle mentor who empowers purpose-driven women who are stuck, who look so good on the outside, but on the inside, you are really not there, and only you know. Also, um emotionally kind of drained and burnt out, uh, not having any meaning. You just like, oh gosh, there has to be more to life than this. And so, what I do is I empower women to move forward with confidence, fulfillment, and also meaning in their lives. And this podcast, we talk about topics related to personal improvement, empowerment. And so I'd love to bring on guests that really have a great story because my prayer is always that someday somebody will listen to one of my podcasts and they will make a decision. I'm gonna take the step that I need to start living my best life on your on your terms. And today, our title for our topic is how to see through your stories and reclaim your power, because we all have stories. And I'd like to introduce you to my special guest, Heidi Blackie.

Heidi: 1:57

Hi, Heidi, how are you today? Hi, Cassandra. I'm doing great, and I'm really excited to be here.

Cassandra: 2:03

I am too. Let's just dive in. And before we dive in, I just I want to read a little bit of your bio because you have a huge bio. And um, so that people understand what qualifies you to do the work that you do. Because I always like to say this when life knocks you down so hard that you can't push through anymore. So this week, Heidi's going to share how burnout, illness, and loss became the doorway to creating an unshakable me and how you can reclaim your purpose when everything feels impossible. So Heidi is an occupational therapist. She's a speaker, a consultant, and a creator of Unshakable Me, a program designed to help women reconnect with themselves, break free from limiting beliefs, and live with purpose and possibility. After years of prayer through exhaustion, chronic illness, and profound personal loss, she discovered the healing power of mindfulness, belief, and self-compassion. Her journey from burnout and despair to resilience and empowerment. Wow, now fuse her passion for guiding others to create a life that feels aligned, whole, and unshakable. This sounds like this is so similar to the work that I do, Heidi. So our conversation gonna be so dynamic.

Heidi: 3:35

Yeah.

Cassandra: 3:36

Yeah, let me ask you you were a person that sounded so much like me. You were going and going. You were like an ever-ready battery. You thought that what you were doing was the way one lives their life. That's what life was like. So living to its fullest. So you felt, let me just do this, do this, do this, never stop until it's time to go to bed. And then you became, I think you started thinking that is this really what life is all about? But for your your characteristic and who you were back then, the going and going, was it something in your backstory that made you believe what you were doing was the life you supposed to be living?

Heidi: 4:28

Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a household where you you you do, and if you are sitting, you're kind of lazy. And so I, you know, I I don't want to be lazy. So I I always was kind of a doer. And then in 2000, my mom was diagnosed with bone marrow or with lymphoma, and she got a bone marrow transplant. And and she had a lot of successive problems, um, cancer related and not. And I looked at her bone marrow transplant as I have to squeeze the marrow out of every single day because I don't know when it is my last day. And that translated into going a million miles an hour. And I I I had little signals like too much, too much, too much. But I just thought I can do it, I can do it. And I worked several jobs, I was a competitive athlete, I was I just bought a house and I I had projects, and so I just was was going non-stop for years. And and I really did think I am just I am living. This is what life is about.

Cassandra: 5:57

Wow. So wow, so you were like a hamster, right? A hamster. Yeah, absolutely. I I was a hamster too. Um, and you also had perfectionist tendencies.

Heidi: 6:10

I do, yeah. Uh-huh.

Cassandra: 6:13

Yeah, where did that come from?

Heidi: 6:14

That came from not failing enough for pretty much most of my life. And when I was young, I didn't, I kind of was selective perfectionism-wise. I kind of let things go and just and was rebellious as a youth. And then um, when I got serious about my life, kind of after I graduated from college and I decided I want to go to grad school, that's when it really kicked in. And I just did a lot of compensatory things like overstudying, over-preparing, overthinking, you know, having the bar so high that I'm not gonna hit, I'm not gonna hit it. So done is better than perfect, is right is a saying I just clicked with a few years ago, and and I have to continually kind of readjust expectations and ask myself what's important.

Cassandra: 7:09

Right. So you ignored that way of living. I mean, you're like, that's it. This is this is how life's supposed to be until something happened.

Heidi: 7:19

What happened? My body started to break down. I started having these injuries, uh, soft tissue injuries that wouldn't heal, but I would kind of patch them up and keep going. And I had people around me who were not athletes who said, you might want to slow down. And I and I just kind of discounted it because you know, this is an athlete lifestyle. You you push yourself to the limit, you ignore pain. And then I started to get sick, and I would have these the same formula, but it would be it would level me for weeks at a time, and then I would kind of recover a little bit, and then I would get leveled again. And so it was this cycle of okay, I'm okay, I'm gonna try and push, and now I'm not okay, and now I'm in bed for two weeks or three weeks, and um, and in there I was in bed, I had it something for six months, and so I just I I pushed as much as I could until I couldn't really push anymore, and my and my but and I was resisting what was happening to my body and to my life. Um my husband and I met racing our bikes. That was a huge part of our life is exercise. Even we did bike tours, loaded, we did a loaded bike tour in New Zealand, just the two of us with our own maps and all that. And and would do a lot of, you know, every trip was was around movement, exercise, doing things. And so it was that was a huge loss when I was sick, and then I had a number of other losses um that that were like a lit match to all the infections and the bugs that were harboring in my body that I had been trying to kind of tamp down for so long.

Cassandra: 9:17

Right, right. Yeah. So, honey, do you believe number one, you you couldn't stop and and the body provides us signals that sums up? I mean, hey, if you're not gonna slow down, then I think I'm gonna give you some challenges, you know. Or was it that or stress or just pushing yourself? What it was a combination of what do you believe that got you not feeling very well?

Heidi: 9:48

I think it was pushing too hard, and then I I did take a big step back, but then in 2016, I I lost my like super soulmate of a dog to cancer, and then two months later, my sister committed suicide, and then my my wedding was six weeks after that, and then I lost my mom a year later and lived with my parents for her last three months down in California, and then I I had car accidents, layoffs, like all kinds of things that that that were, you know, I I look back and I think I hundred percent uh take responsibility for all of the illnesses that were going on because I didn't slow down. Like I and I had guilt and shame for years about that. Yeah, and then I feel I do look back and I think, you know, all these massive losses were what ignited the inflammation in every system of my body. And and by 2021, I was I lost my career, I couldn't drive, I was in bed. I most of the time I I lost so much, and I feel now that I had to to really do what I needed to do years ago, and that is to look inside myself. And I was looking elsewhere for so long, and and and as hard as everything was, because boy, it it was hot hard, and and at times it still is, but yeah, I think it was a whole combination, and stress, stress is is I mean that that will light everything on fire that's there. And and I I'm I trained people in you know, neuroplasticity, limbic system, all uh, you know, somatics, a lot of of things to quiet your nervous system, but um, but that wasn't enough, and I knew it. And I had these little voices in my head all along, and I just didn't I didn't listen to them. And I I think that's you know, I think the universe was like, you gotta listen. Like, yeah, you're crazy, you're not gonna be long for this world.

Cassandra: 12:24

Exactly, exactly.

Heidi: 12:25

Wake up.

Cassandra: 12:26

Yeah, wow, and I I wanted to really bring that out for my listeners because you know, we all have stories, and we talk about we see ourselves through the stories, but we have to reclaim our power, and everybody's story is different, you know, um, and we all need each other, and I know for a fact stress will kill you. And yeah, and I recall always going to the doctor, and the doctor would say, You're just stressed, and I would get even more stressed because I'm like, What do you mean I'm just stressed? I mean, I was very upset about them telling me all the time that I was stressed out, and and it's real, and particularly you doing things, and I don't know whether you liked the job you were doing, or when you were growing up, did you have a dream that you wanted to do something, or or did you have a dream of being of doing something?

Heidi: 13:25

I had a dream of being an Olympic athlete and and um and equestrian or skiing growing up, but I I was completely burned out in occupational therapy, and that that's I mean, I love helping people and I love figuring out complex injuries and situations, but I was in a system that is so broken, and I I was getting squeezed so much with with the productivity expectations and um decreased insurance coverage, so I'd have only six visits with paid, and so it just I'm I'm an empath. I wanna, you know, I gave and gave and gave, and I had nothing left, and I just was so burned out. But then it was the question of, well, if not this, then what? Because I so hard for all these advanced certifications and to really craft my skills to be the best that I can be. And then what am I gonna where am I gonna go? What am I gonna start with next? You know, I don't even know. So I I'll I'll stay with it, you know, and and I got laid off, you know, and I think that was an opportunity back in 2018, but I just found another occupational therapy job, you know. That's right. I'll just do that because that's what I know. That's right. So it was that fear of the unknown, you know, and then and then I I'm doing something different now, but I think you know, if if if we're not in tune and listening and open, I just drive right past the exit, you know.

Cassandra: 15:45

So yeah, yes, and and many, and many of us do. And you even slowed down, and that still wasn't enough. So you you found what I call a lifeline, right? Yeah, and what was that?

Heidi: 16:02

Well, I I really hit rock bottom in 2021 because I it was pandemic, but I was already alone. I I wasn't going anywhere, I wasn't doing anything because I was so sick, and I didn't have a doctor, and all these years, 10 years, I never had a diagnosis. I had one diagnosis, yeah, and that was what we were operating off of, and that wasn't even the main thing, but I didn't have a doctor, I didn't have a treatment plan. Oh my gosh, and and I was really scared because I have a really high risk for breast cancer, and that's what took my mom and six months. And and I remember I was sitting in my kitchen and I just thought, I I have I have no one. I mean, I have my husband, I have my dad, but they don't really get it unless you're in it. You all have a different experience, and theirs is very hard as well. But I I had searched outside myself for so long, and I had nothing. And I turned the question inward, and I just said, What am I believing about my ability to heal? And I had never in all these years confronted myself with that question. I was just like, Okay, the next doctor, what's going on? This is gonna help me, this is gonna help me, but it it didn't so many times that I was like, okay, so I I I sat with that question, and and the truth was that I actually was believing that I'm not gonna heal and that I'm gonna continue to get worse because that's what had been happening to me. I had been getting worse, and I thought in all these things that I was doing, and I was doing a lot of of other things for you know, um different programs, sure, the missing they felt really prescriptive, and the missing piece was all along it was me, and it was this little voice like you have the power to heal inside you, and and you you need to look inside. And so I thought, if I don't believe in myself and I don't believe in my ability to heal, I could have the best doctor in the world. I'm not, I'm not gonna heal, right? So I I started journaling, I started a meditation practice, I created rituals, I put sticky notes everywhere, believe, believe, believe, believe, and I dove into research because I'm a nerd. And uh the biology of belief, huge. Our 50 trillion cells, they are always listening. And and we are powerful healers. And I'm not saying don't go to the doctor. I did go, I did eventually find a doctor, but that piece of what's mine to do, what's mine that I can do is giant. And it doesn't matter if it's illness or it's confidence or it's esteem or it's compassion, it's so big. And I I just started on this journey. I had, you know, it's funny, I didn't have any expectations. I just felt like, okay, I'm doing a research project. Here's a pilot study of sample size of one, and I'm just going to, I'm gonna research, you know, what's the science behind gratitude and intention and attention and choice and and self-compassion, right? And love. And those all have a significant effect on our immune system as well as our nervous system. And so I just kind of it evolved without thinking like, oh, I'm on this journey. And then I just one day realized, wow, I've I've got this ally inside of me that I call my unshakable me. And it's this this source of strength, of resilience, of joy. And it's it's through connecting with myself, giving myself compassion and love and kindness and belief. And that's built it up into something that's that's really profound and has changed my life in every way. And I and I've replaced doing with being. And it's something I just want for everyone because it's possible. And that's why I'm that's why I'm talking to you. That's why I'm doing this because it's so attainable, yeah, and it's right here for us. But we've been taught to look outside ourselves for for that, yeah, yeah.

Cassandra: 20:56

And you know, and and if you were on, I would say, a four-year journey, a self-discovery.

Heidi: 21:03

It's still unfolding, Cassandra. Sure, I bet, I bet, I bet it will be, it will be forever, you know.

Cassandra: 21:10

Yeah, but it's great. I know, and you know, we're uh a quick fix society, we want everything now, and it doesn't work like that. Um, you know, so all that you did to try to what my therapist used to say, Cassandra, you need to come home to yourself. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's kind of like the doctor telling me I was stressed. I'm like, what do you mean? Come home to myself, yeah. And I was really struggling with that, you know. Um but but you went through a process like many of my listeners. If you want to get oh, if you want to get somewhere else, you got to do something different. So I'm just grateful that you were maintained because you had a message, like all of us have something. We're not here just for the sake of being here, you know. We're not we're not um what I would call we're not human machines, we are human beings, and we just work and we gotta do this and we have to do that, because that's that sounds like you indicate that's kind of the right thing to do. That's kind of how how we grew up, and and we have to be busy. You can't sit around and look at TV and read all day and all of that. So um, and you and I love your ally, the unshakable me. And and and I love it when you said the power that you've gained when you think back over your life, look where you are now, and we're all a work in process. So tell us about that unshakable. Unshakeable that unshakable me. How did you find yourself and discover joy and connection? What did you do? What were some tools and practices that you did?

Heidi: 22:58

Yeah. So interestingly, it was just I was at the park that I go to a lot, and and I heard this voice that said, unshakeable me, and you're gonna build a program. And and that was, you know, okay. But it's um it's it's a noun, it's not unshakable, which is an adjective that suggests coming and going. It's it's a part of you that is always there, and it is a part of you that in my case I covered up because I didn't feel enough. I didn't, I I felt, you know, I don't want to let on that I may not have an answer, you know, for a patient or a client. I want to be see seen as this way. And then through this process, it it really forced me to to go there to be vulnerable and to peel back the layers of not enoughness, the layers of things that I uh don't like about myself or would like to change or would like to be different. But I did a lot of meditation with Tara Brock, who is incredible. I don't know if you know of her. You have a gift to this world. I sent her a card and told her she changed my life because she I tried meditation before and clearly I did not understand what it was about. But she has this whole kind of acceptance piece and sitting with the discomfort, and so Buddhism is a little bit of an influence for me, too, to just say, okay, it's all here, it's okay. Whereas I was always relating to the least attractive or the biggest symptom that I felt like this is the whole of who I am, and my symptoms were very consuming, and it was hard for me to see outside that my world had shrunk so much. So feeling part of a larger world, getting outside every day, even if it's just in my backyard, uh-huh to feel this connection to everything. Okay, and that helped so much with this feeling of separation that I had from the world because I felt like everyone's living their lives, and I'm I'm in bed, I'm not living, I'm in these, you know, this prison. And I had created a prison in my mind on top of the physical prison I was in because of all my symptoms. And and I started a gratitude practice where I really would marinate in the gratitude for whatever and just breathe it in and really feel it fill fill my body. I took an intention master class and um and set intentions every day. And I still set in I set intentions for uh for every day. I set an intention every time I get in my car that everyone on the road is safe and gets to their destination safely. So everything and tasks and just the abundance of every day. So it's it and journaling, okay, movement, so all those things and breath work. I also do. I do I do a lot, Cassandra. I do a lot, but it's it's just fortifies me and just grounds me. And a huge piece is awareness and awareness of the stories that I was believing, which that one day in the kitchen, that was the first kind of crack through the doorway of you're believing this story. Is it true? Is it true? Well, it hasn't happened yet, so no, it can't be true. So really looking at my stories and looking at what am I believing about the story? What am I believing about me? And what are other people believing that is influencing what I'm believing? And working on visualizing a different future. I never visualized, created a vision of what's the healthy me look like, what does the vibrant me look like? Wow, yeah, it's so easy to to get caught in this the day-to-day, the survival, which is what I was doing.

Cassandra: 27:44

Yeah.

Heidi: 27:46

But you lose sight of what what could it look like? What could it look like? And and and go there in my mind every day and be there and use the senses, be rich with all the senses, and and and feel that because your body doesn't know if you're doing it or if you're thinking about doing it, and you release a lot of amazing chemicals in your body when you are feeling that joy, that calm, that love, that connection. And and that in itself, I know there's a lot, there's a lot on manifestation and all that stuff, and this is more of just you know, a picture in my mind, experiencing it, and just feeling good. And it gave me hope, and that kind of kept me going.

Cassandra: 28:45

Yeah, you know what, what um what I'm finding that's interesting is you were at a place like what I call your wits in. And when we get to our wits end, we have a choice. Yeah, we could be bitter about it or better, and thank God you chose better. So you made that decision, it's all about making a decision. This is where I am. I don't like it, I can wall in it. You know, I don't want experience with my relative experience because you know, we talk about suicide. Suicide's big, you know. I'm not just missing it, and it's real, you know, depression is real. And when that happens and you kind of make a decision, that to me, and I always say that when the student's ready, the teacher will appear. Stuff will start coming, like, okay, all right, I can't take it no more. Then stuff start coming, and then for me, I would pray and say, Okay, God, help me get busy, help me execute. You do you whatever it's gonna take for you instead of getting hung up on well, I can't do this because of my religion, and and I'm not down in religion, but you got to there that they're different modalities that everybody some people accept, some, some will not, but there will be something that comes to you where you will be open and accept it because you are desperate, you know.

Heidi: 30:28

Yeah, yeah, and and that you know, it's it's so true because for so many years I felt like I didn't have any choice. And and we always do, yes, we always do. We don't have a choice in everything that happens to us, right? But we have a choice in what we perceive, the meaning we want to assign to it, and ultimately what we want to create in our life, right? And I read a book called The Choice by Edith Eager. Have you heard of her? I haven't heard of her, but I heard about the choice. She was um she was pulled from a pile of dead bodies in Auschwitz when the camp was uh the Americans came into the camp. And she is a miracle. She's amazing, she's a tiny Hungarian woman, she's a powerful woman, and she said the biggest prison is in your mind in your pocket, you already hold the key. Yeah, we do, and that saying just resonated with me. And for so many years, I wasn't ready. I resisted, I resisted, and it was crazy because it's like Heidi, you're losing everything, you're losing, you know, look at you. Nope, I don't, I'm not a sick person. I don't know if I don't apply with that, you know. I'm fighting it, and it was it was crazy, but I thought, you know, acceptance meant the definition, that's who I am, and it doesn't at all. And I and I think too, accepting meant that I now have a choice. It's here, I can choose to let all of that negative thing in my life, illness, the the not enoughness, I can let that make my choices for me, or I can say, hey, you're here, you're part of this huge giant beach. Not one, I'm not one grain of sand. I'm I'm the beach, I am under the ocean, I am so many things. Yeah, and I'm gonna choose the things that bring in energy, yes, and not suck it out. I'm not gonna choose those things, but I get to choose. I get to choose if somebody says something or does something mean. I choose, do I want to respond or how I want to respond?

Cassandra: 33:07

Exactly. Exactly. That's right, that's right. It's just like you choose individuals in your circle because you have to be careful who you surround yourself with. You bet. That's critical. So I am so grateful for you sharing, you know, your meditation, your journaling, your um setting the intention daily. Um, also, you know, the the choice, the books you've read, the people that were in your life, and all of that is working for you. So, you know, so when I think about my listeners, and those are individuals that are just where you are, stuck. Yeah, I don't, I'm not living my life on my terms, and there are many of us don't know what that is. If I say, Are you living your best life? Yeah, I think, yeah, but you know, it's something to really think about. So if I ask you, based on where you've been and where you are now, from a scale from one to ten, ten being the best, where are you on that scale now, Heidi?

Heidi: 34:15

You know, I would say I'm probably an eight or nine. I feel like if if tomorrow was my last day, I feel like I've really lived and I've found the key to living. I do I have more growing to do, yes. Do I have more healing to do? Yes. But I feel this sense of just a groundedness and a connection. And just like you were saying, I know my purpose, I know why I'm here. And I believe all of us are here at this time for a purpose.

Cassandra: 34:57

That's right.

Heidi: 34:58

And it's it to for me, it took I had to slow down. And if I get going too fast, my body says, Correction, you're you're gonna be feeling fatigue or all these symptoms. You need to, you know, I know I'm very much more like I'm a I'm I'm listening, I'm awake. I feel like I was sleepwalking through life before.

Cassandra: 35:22

Exactly, and you know your limitations.

Heidi: 35:26

Yeah, I mean, I know that that this part of of my life, I I walk the walk, and I walk what I what I say is what I do, and sometimes it gets imbalanced, and sometimes it has to, because there are things that I have to do, and that's okay. Yeah, even five minutes a day, which I spend more than that on meditation and just being present, yeah, and breathing, you know, even just putting my hand on my heart, take a breath, be here in this moment, and celebrate it. That's that's enough. And so I I love life, I love life, and it's got a lot of hard stuff in it still, but that's okay because I've made it through before, and I know I I know I I have I have the resilience to get through, yeah, and I can feel that energy.

Cassandra: 36:33

And I remember talking to a neighbor three days ago, and I asked her, Hi, I said, How are you doing? She said, Do you know I feel like I'm in heaven? Oh, I love that. That was like that, took me aback, and I was like, Really? That is phenomenal. She said, Because I've been to hell, I've had my dark stories, I know what that's like, but right now I'm in heaven, and that's where I would love for my listeners to be in that place because it's a beautiful thing, and it won't be up all the time, but at least you had a piece of heaven, and I think hey, that's just peace that surpasses all my understanding, yeah, yeah, and and Einstein said you can live your life as if everything is a miracle or as if nothing is a miracle, and I I look at nature and I just see what a miracle everything is, exactly, everything. So, Heidi, yeah, how can my listeners get in touch with you?

Heidi: 37:37

Uh, unshakableme.com is my website. I've got a lot of free resources for people. I also have a YouTube channel to see other see videos. That's unshakable me is the handle for that. I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all the places. And um, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.

Cassandra: 38:01

Well, I want to thank you. Uh, I know my listeners have enjoyed this, and I ask my listeners to please share this with someone that you know this will bless them. That's what this is all about. It's not about me, it's not about Heidi, it's all about you. And if Heidi was in a dark place, Cassandra surely has been in a dark, dark place that I thought I would never get out. But look at look at us now and also reach out for your help, reach out for your resources, check in with Heidi, look at her website, look at her YouTube, do whatever it is you have to do to start living this life. So when it's time for you to go, you will have no regrets. So again, Heidi, I want to thank you so much. And as I say to all my listeners, I always say bye for now. God bless you and I love you. Heidi, thanks again. I appreciate you.