Work With Yourself: Aligning Your Energy, Emotions, and Needs.

In this week’s short and sweet episode, I’m sharing a heartfelt reminder to work with yourself, not against yourself. Inspired by my own journey of losing touch with my body’s rhythm, I’m diving into practical, tactical ways to honor your energy, embrace your emotions, and set boundaries that empower you.

We’ll explore:
✨ The cyclical nature of women’s energy (and how to plan around it).
✨ Why setting boundaries isn’t just about saying “no” but protecting your energy and intuition.
✨ The connection between self-confidence and self-trust—and how to rebuild it.
✨ And how the relationship with yourself can feel as magical as falling in love.

This is an episode you’ll want to come back to again and again, especially when you need a gentle nudge to be kinder to yourself.

Take a deep breath, lean in, and let’s align with our most powerful, intuitive selves. 💕

Need extra support from Maria? Join MUSE Energy, her exclusive women 's-only channel on Instagram, for more insights and inspiration! - https://www.instagram.com/direct/inbox/?thread_key=8628881520460159

For personalized 1:1 coaching, visit Maria’s website at mariafuentes.net or email her at info@mariafuentes.net for guidance.- https://mariafuentes.net/

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Transcript

0:00

If you think of all the times that you you've given yourself, like wholeheartedly to someone and you felt so in love and on a high, and you've. You feel that dopamine, right? The endorphins, like all these good hormones that the flow, when we're in love. Imagine if you can feel that within yourself. Everything else starts to feel aligned and flowing. Welcome to You First, a journey to self podcast, where we empower women to rediscover their true, authentic selves and regain personal power. If you are ready for a major shift, you've come to the right place. I am your host, Maria Fuentes, an expert in women's emotional mastery and self discovery. With a degree in psychology and nearly two decades of experience, I am passionate about addressing the challenges women face monthly. Self love, healthy relationships, and emotional awareness. I've had the privilege of coaching so many incredible women and witnessing their transformation through the methods we'll discuss on this podcast. This show is your weekly space to shift your perspective, find inspiration within and heal in ways that feel true to you. I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into this week's episode. Hello, my beautiful muses. And welcome back to another week's episode. As you can see, this one is short and sweet and you know, and if you've listened to me for a while, that when I do these, when I make them short and sweet, It's because I need you and I want you to come back to them and listen to them over and over again, whenever you need it. Because at any given time, I need to hear this. I forgot to work with myself instead of against myself. And so this is your gentle reminder, and I just want you to have some like tactical things to do and just. Some tactical things to do. And also just to remind yourself to be kind to yourself, because we all go through things everything's cyclical. And I'll start with the cyclical part because as women. If you're listening to this and you're a woman you're autumn menstrual cycle, or maybe you don't have one anymore, or maybe yours is dysregulated or whatever's happening. Our energy levels change so much throughout the month. And so one are probably the most powerful thing that I've done is to it's working with my menstrual cycle. I lost it for a few months and I truly believe it's because I was working against myself. I was like, Go go go. Didn't give myself a lot of time to just breathe and be. And when I had my cycle, I still did the same stuff that I did when I didn't. And when my energy levels were higher. And when I was feeling really low and tired and exhausted, I just pushed myself and I truly believe that's why I lost my menstrual cycle. So learn from my mistakes and working with yourself. It's going to take some, getting to know yourself on a deeper level. Some things you might have to track. Like I have an app that tracks my menstrual cycle. So I know like a few days before my period, and then a few days into my period, I am a complete blob. I don't want to do anything I'm exhausted. And I usually don't work out. If anything, I go on a walk. I rest, I journal. The week after my period though, I can conquer the whole damn world week and a half to two weeks. I couldn't do it at all. And that's when I do the most. And that's when I am in my masculine energy. The most is when I'm. I'm go Google. And I know that I can handle anything and everything. And I don't feel overwhelmed. I've noticed that right before my period. I'm like the things that normally don't overwhelm me, they're so exhausting to me. So check in with yourself. Like when, around my period or my cycle, am I feeling super overwhelmed? When am I feeling like this is the most energy I have one of my feeling more emotional and start planning your life around that. And sure. You can't just like, not go to work when you're feeling certain things. And I don't mean that, right? I don't mean to stop your world because you have your period or you do a thousand things because you don't have your period. Now it's like your energy levels are going to change. So when you're feeling your best, that's when you do more and when you're feeling your lower. You retreat back into yourself. Another one that I think is really important. Has learning when to say no to people and setting boundaries. Right. And this one's a hard one because as women, we want to be liked, we want to be nice. And we feel like we set boundaries. People won't like us. They will think. We're bitches. They'll think all these negative things about us, but what we don't realize is that every time we let somebody cross a boundary or we overextend ourselves, or we don't know when to say no, we're compromising ourselves. We're saying to ourselves, you're not worth. Paying attention to, but they are, and we started losing a little bit about. Uh, for ourselves. So if something like, and we know we're intuitive, we just lose our intuition when we do these things so much. So when someone asks you to do something or someone's asking something of you, like sit with it for a second and say, how does this feel? Like, is it a hard yes, right away? Or is it a hard no. Or is it a. I'm not sure and communicate that, Hey, I would love to help you, but right now I'm just over my energetic capacity. And it's just not the time for me, or yes, absolutely. I would love to do it. Hey, can we do it this day? Because this is a day that works best for me. Or, Hey, can I sit with this for a couple days? I know I have a lot going on and I want to make sure I give you my best energy and everything else I'm doing. So let me get back to you. You start to own your life when you speak like this and these terms, when you start. Just saying what you need saying how you feel and not just saying yes or no, because you're scared because you're fearful of people not liking you or because you're scared to take an extra step. Like. Learn when you, and again, it's going to take some research, right? Like look back at the times that you've said yes, and it felt really wrong. The times that you've said, okay, I'll do something. And you're like, I shouldn't have done that. Like, why did I do that? I spent so much of my energy doing that and it didn't feel good. We interrupt patterns when we recognize them and we interrupt them when we say, okay, I'm not doing that the same way again. And it doesn't mean you have to do them. Perfect. It just means that you're willing to do them differently. And also. And the topic of setting boundaries and learning when to say no, I think it's just as important to learn when to say yes sometimes. If you're like me and you're an overachiever and you're a serial entrepreneur, you want to say yes to a lot of things and a lot of things, some really fucking great. Um, but isn't in your energetic capacity and it doesn't mean that you're not capable. Right. I used to struggle with this concept of, I was like, wait, If I say no. Because I don't feel like I can right now. Does that mean that I'm not good enough that I'm not capable and I've just realized that that's not true and that a year from now, I could have way more capacity than I will have way more capacity because I've worked so hard and just creating more. Energetic capacity within my nervous system, within my mind, within my brain, within my body, within my emotions. That right now, what might sound like a good idea, but I don't feel like I have the energetic capacity. It could be a resounding yes, a year from now. Um, or there's times where maybe fear stops you and you're like, wait, I don't want to do that. Like, I do want to do that, but I'm so scared. Is it fear. And what is your worst case scenario? Because there's two different things there, right? And when you're working with yourself, I want, I want you to get really clear on, this is fear. This is anxiety. I want to say yes, but I'm so scared. And every time I think of all the things that could go wrong, that's anxiety and I'm just, I don't want to do it. That's when you should say yes, that's when you take the leap and you're like, absolutely. But I'll take this a step further. You only do that when you have your high energy levels. If you're saying yes on your menstrual cycle and you know that you're on your menstrual cycle, you have the lowest energy. Now you're compromising yourself because you're saying yes to something that you really want to like dive into. And you're already scared, a little skeptical, a little anxious, but you're doing it at your lowest energetic level. You say yes to things like that when you're at your highers energetic level. Now when you're emotional and not when something tragic just happening in your life, not when you just went through a breakup, unless you're already, um, you know, on the go side of a breakup, you know, the go side is like that. I can go to anything. And so. Look back. Okay. Is it fear? Or is it. I just don't have the capacity for it right now. And both are valid and both are good and both are okay. Right. You could always go back and say yes, later. Sometimes we think that things have to be so black and white and everything is so detrimental. Like, oh, if I don't do something now, if I don't say yes, I'm going to lose the opportunity. If you believe that, then you believe that there's scarcity in life. You believe that there's only a limited amount of things and that's just not true. There's an abundance and an overflow of money, love and great positive things everywhere around you. 24 7. And you get to choose to tap into that. And just because you say no right now doesn't mean that you don't get to tap into it later. Because you have to subscribe to the idea that you, that the universe and God's always working for you. And if it's meant for you. Even if right now it's a no. It will come later and it will actually probably be way better than you even expect it to be. We have to have that trust within your intuition, that trust within your body to know. I'm not lacking anything. I'm not missing out on anything. That's for me, because whatever's for me is going to feel right and it's going to feel good. Another one that is really important when it comes to working with yourself and not against yourself as women and being emotional beings. And, you know, I love talking about emotions on here. It's really important that we communicate our emotions and our feelings to people around us when it's right. And to who it's right for. If you have a kind of friendship that maybe they did some, or you have like an acquaintance that you're not really like close friends with and they did something that hurt your feelings, like ask yourself, is this worth me? Acknowledging my emotions to them and communicating my emotions to them this, this deserve my energy. It's a valid question. I want you to ask yourself as like, do they deserve my energy and does this deserve my energy? And if it's a no, then some things just don't need to be said. I think some things are just felt, people know when you don't like them. People know when you're energetically pushing them away. People know when you don't care. People know these things. And so sometimes you just have to let your energy speak for themselves.'cause I will say, like once you start practicing, going into emotions and understanding your emotions and communicating your emotions, it feels like a lot at the beginning. So you have to be really selective on the relationships that you're willing to say. You know what? I want to have this conversation with this person. I want to be open. I want to be vulnerable. They're worthy of me being open. They're worthy of me being vulnerable. They're worth my energy. So who's worth your energy and who's not worth your energy. And then the last one and I'll leave it with this one. Because I think this is really important. I think that a lot of us think. People like me, even online, there were a hundred percent confident all the time. And that you might watch somebody the super successful online. You're like, gosh, they must have confidence. All like all day, every day, they ooze confidence. Like. If I'm not like them. And I'm not confident I shouldn't do something and that's just not true. The times that I'm not confident is a hundred percent because I'm putting my confidence and my self worth onto something else. Whether that is my relationship with someone else. My business. Uh, my Instagram, whatever I'm saying, oh gosh, I didn't, this didn't happen. So I'm not good enough. Or this person didn't do what I wanted them to. So I'm not good enough. And so my confidence, my self worth my self trust, which that's what it is. So confidence is it's literally the definition of confidence is literally self-trust. It means that you're, you're confident. On yourself. You're confident. You're going to show up for yourself. You're confident. And you're going to do the things that you say you're gonna do. That is very important with working with yourself because. If you're not confident, you're not going to do the best. You're not going to S when you say yes, it's going to be half-assed, you're not going to believe that you actually can do it. And sometimes we think like I have to be born confident or I have to practice this confidence bone in it. It is practice and it's a consistent practice, but it's practice within yourself and you have to say yes to the things and come make commitments to yourself and keep them. You have to show up for yourself consistently. You have to train yourself to know that you can count on you. I won't get too deep in this because this could be a whole other podcast episode. And I actually have a great friend. That's so good at talking about the subconscious and subconscious work. But when I re I read the untethered soul, which I highly recommend the book, but it's such a brain fuck. Right. Like I read this five years ago and I remember I took me, I think, like eight months to read this book because I had only digest it in little pieces. When I realized that there's basically three of us in our brain at any given time. It's our true self. Our conscious self and our subconscious self. And 98 to a hundred percent of the time we are operating in our subconscious. And so when I realized that and I realized that, wait a minute, How does my subconscious feel then is my subconscious feeling safe that she trusts me. Does she. I know that I'm going to show up for her. Does she know that I've got us? Does she know these things? Because if you start seeing yourself in a sounds a little crazy and like we have split personalities, but truly this is how we all operate. I started just telling myself the things I needed to hear as a child telling myself. I'm showing myself the consistency that I never had, the consistency I never had with relationships. All the things I wanted from other people. I started giving to myself. And again, the times that I don't feel confident it's because I stopped doing that because life gets busy because this, because of that, and to be honest, I used to stop doing that. Weeks at a time why I never did it for it to begin with. And then I started doing it and it wasn't so pretty. It wasn't so consistent. And then I was like, okay. I shortened the gap. Right? I've showed him the gap from then to now. So now I catch myself so fast within a couple of days. I'm like, whoa, let's, let's backtrack here. Why am I not feeling confident? And let's switch to shut up. And a lot of the times, at least for me, and this is not maybe the same for you because I'm an introvert because I'm a reflected human design because I'm a Pisces because I'm all these things. The only way I recenter properly and effectively is by going inward. In nature, walking, going inward and to my emotions going inward. And I'm like, what am I doing? Let's let's. Change, this let's change this right now, you know, and going back and I have to talk myself back into. Where are we not showing up for ourselves? Like what do, what do I really need? And how can I give that to myself? And I think that's one of the most crucial things other than the menstrual cycle and understanding your energy levels is understanding that your subconscious constantly needs something from you. And the more you get to know yourself and work with yourself, you understand what that is. And sometimes it's going to be really confusing or like, I don't know what I need, and you're going to think other people should give it to you. And you're going to think like, why, why isn't this happening and why isn't that happening? And then you're like, wait a minute. I can actually give this to myself. This is great. And. That's where true magic starts to happen. And so, like I said, I'll keep this one nice and short, and I hope this was effective and good for you. And I hope you got some good nuggets out of it because working with yourself is so important. And like the re and the relationship with yourself is the most magical relationship you will ever have. If you think about falling in love and how great that feels. If you think of all the times that you you've given yourself, like wholeheartedly to someone and you felt so in love and on a high, and you've. You feel that dopamine, right? The endorphins, like all these good hormones that the flow, when we're in love. Imagine if you can feel that within yourself. Everything else starts to feel aligned and flowing. So. I love you. Muses. Thank you for tuning in and I will be back next week. As we come to the close of this episode, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude and admiration for you. Taking the time to show up for yourself is an act of self love. And if this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might benefit. And also, if you love this episode, please rate and review us. When you do, screenshot your review and email it to us for a special gift. Our Rediscover Yourself Worksheet. This worksheet includes exercises to help you uncover your authentic self, and assess the areas of your life that are misaligned with the true you. Email it to info at maria fuentes dot net. Also stay connected with us on social media for updates and more inspiration. You can find all this information in the show notes. Again, thank you for being here and I cannot wait to continue this journey together.