Rebirth: A Gentle Journey Back to Myself

In this episode of Shy Space, I open up about my struggles with mental health over the past year, including feelings of depression and burnout despite positive life changes. 

This episode really emphasizes the power of meditation, specifically a technique from Joe Dispenza's book 'Becoming Supernatural,' in helping me overcome these difficulties. 

Tune in to hear about my transformative year and get inspired to make positive changes in your own life!

Transcript

Shy: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to Shy Space where we talk about all things pertaining to mental health and manifestation. My name is Shy. Oh, I'm really nervous right now. My heart is like racing. I have not done an episode in almost a year now. It's also not my finest hour. Yeah, my hair's a little greasy from hot yoga, but you know what, this is not a beauty contest, whatever. Take me as I am for this little podcast. Most people probably don't even see me right now anyways, but welcome back everybody. If you're new here or you've listened before or you know me in some capacity, I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you listening. It's really exciting to be back. It feels a little bit weird. It feels a little bit like imposter syndrome. London's crying, so she probably agrees, but. I'm very happy to be back with you guys. As you can see, I have an entire new setup, if you've watched any of my episodes before. And I have two little friends here with me, London, and Lilah. So that's gonna be a fun new change, I guess moving forward for this season. So yeah, today I am also really excited because a part of my new setup, I guess is that I'm gonna be using my phone attached to my MacBook camera using camera continuity, if anybody knows what that is. I don't really know much about it, but I've used it before to take pictures and it's absolutely stellar photography that comes through. So we love that. But for some reason I literally cannot find the little device that holds my phone up on the laptop. And I was using it last week and I refuse to buy a new one or even wait to film this episode. Just because of poor camera quality. Who knows if anybody's even gonna watch this? Okay, so here we go. I printed out my notes because of that phone escapade that I'm gonna be doing moving forward, which is very boomer of me. But I really like it to be honest. And no, oh my God, my, the gorilla grip on my hand is crazy with this new mic, we're gonna have to get used to out how to hold that a little bit more delicately. I just skedaddled on down to the business center in my building and just used their printer. So no, I do not own a printer. I'm not that much of a boomer, but I did in one phase of my life, like not too long ago. As you can see, this episode is titled how I Meditated My Way Out of Rock Bottom, and while I don't wanna make light of a situation that I went through I also don't want to over dramatize something that I went through and try to make anything seem to be worse than it actually is, because that's not what this is about. This is about community and vulnerability and just like opening up so that other people can feel safe and heard and understood because this is a lonely world we live in where chat GBT is our best friend, literally my best friend, and we could talk about that on a separate episode. That's a whole different ball game, but today we're gonna be talking about just life and depression in general and what that can do to you and how that can impact your hobbies and your day to day and really just everything in your life. So again, thank you so much for being back here with me. I'm really excited. I'm feeling really energized and hopeful and just like positive about what life is looking like moving forward. Things over the past 11 months or so have been phenomenal, but also very stressful and very overwhelming for a lot of different reasons I think what I'm really learning and taking away from this last year that I also wanna emphasize and like echo is that unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I'm realizing that life really is never going to get to a point where things are just like easy and stress free and they're gonna slow down so you can enjoy it more. Like I feel like I keep waiting for that and I keep seeking that out, but at the end of the day, like that ability to remove myself from the chaos and slow down and be calm and peaceful is never going to come unless I just decide that it's going to come. And that obviously can manifest a lot of different ways. But anyways, just getting off track per usual. So I really wanted to talk about how much can change in a year because I feel like first of all where I was last year is hilarious. Just in terms of how different my life is now, like a year ago I was planning to move to Austin and I was in a relationship with somebody that lived in Austin at the time, but obviously when you're in a relationship with somebody that's gonna influence you and persuade you a little bit more than if you weren't. Regardless, Austin is where I'm meant to be and I'm so glad that I'm here and I know that relationship led me here to lead me to the life that I'm in today, which is amazing. And another thing to talk about and just remember that when one door closes, another one opens and you never know when something is gonna actually propel you into exactly where you need to be. Crazy. But yeah, almost a year ago, I had just gone through a breakup. I was about to move out here to Austin and I was working a new job that I had been in for like almost a year, but it was just really stressful. That's the job that I'm in right now. I don't know why I'm saying I was working. But that's just been like a constant, I feel like pattern over the past year is just like stress overwhelmment and just really feeling burnt out. So the reason that I wanted to bring that up is because I wanna talk about how meditation really helps me get out of that rut. I really feel like that was a solid, like six to 10 month rut, of ebbing and flowing in and out of like very depressed energy. Which again sounds really dramatic and really bad, but it's like not that serious. It's just actually life. And I just wanna talk about it because I know that there's a ton of other people that feel the same way and go through this and they're probably like, what the hell? What the helly do I do about this? Oh my god. Cringe. Okay. So we talked about, I'm like looking at my notes, we talked about the move and getting broken up with but what did that lead me to? I moved to Austin at the end of June of last year. The beginning of August, or actually at the end of July, I met my now boyfriend who I live with in my apartment. He ended up moving in with me to this apartment. This is his little nightstand over here with his stuff. And this is his dog, Lilah. So she's my other new roommate and I love her so much. She's a golden retriever and she just turned five in March. She is a Pisces, I believe. And London over here is three. And she is a fellow Aries girl aussie mix. For anybody who doesn't know. They are literally my entire life alongside my boyfriend, of course. And when I tell you like I have never been happier in my entire life. However, that doesn't take away from the fact that you can be so happy with everything going on in your life, but still experience deep, like heavy depression and just heavy emotions, burnout, fatigue, whatever it is. And I really just, I feel like I need to like drill that in because I feel like people get confused and think I shouldn't be unhappy or I shouldn't feel this way because I have X, Y, and Z going on. And the more you invalidate yourself, I'm learning in therapy, the worse that your time and your experience with that depression and those emotions and things that you're trying to process is going to be. It's just a reminder that life can be so amazing and that doesn't mean that it's not equally as challenging. That's my TED talk. Thank you very much. But another thing that is important to talk about in that regard is like the fact that it's really easy to ebb and flow through your self-care practices, especially when you're struggling. And that's another big thing that has been a theme for me over the past year-ish, was like falling out of my meditations, falling out of like basically completely stopping journaling even before I moved to Austin, like I just had stopped and I don't know why. And I wasn't really meditating and I canceled my class pass. God, this microphone is literally gonna be the death of me. If I, okay, if I just grip it like as strong as I possibly can, maybe that looks better. I don't know. Dude, this is brutal. I've never been so insecure about my hands until this fricking podcast episode. So honestly, I hope y'all have a good time looking at this if you're watching with me. It's hard to get things done when you're struggling. But it's also important to remember that like your depression, your anxiety, your fear, all of the things that you're feeling, they want to keep you stuck. And so you have to find the balance between listening and honoring your feelings and then also stepping out and moving the actual energy that's in your body that is pent up and held up, that's keeping you stuck. And we're gonna talk about that more later on, which is why we're talking about meditation and all of this. But that's basically how the past year has been. The actual catalyst that kind of led me to having this rebirth, if you will, or getting me outta my depression rut and getting me back on track in a happy, healthy flow was actually revisiting a book that I had been reading a long time ago. And it's one of Joe Dispenza's books. I love Joe Dispenza and he is one of the people that is responsible for, how great my life is, truly because of his teachings. I have been reading his book Becoming Supernatural, and specifically in the chapter that's called Reconditioning the Body to a New Mind. Talks about a very specific meditation and how that meditation works and how it can help you change your life. And I decided to try the meditation once I stumbled upon this chapter and this finding in the book, because it just was like, it was basically a extremely scientifically dumbed down version of what meditation does to your body and why it benefits your body, your mind, and ultimately your life. And it just clicked something in my brain to where I was like, okay, I've already been a heavy into meditation girl, but I'm not as dedicated as I need to be with my level of anxiety and stress that I experienced just naturally. If I didn't have a reason before to absolutely just dedicate myself to meditation fully, I do now because I just understand it that much better. And in that moment I just had, like I said, a light bulb moment where I was like, I need to get back on the podcast. I need to talk about this. I need to start doing this. And like I know it's gonna help me. And guess what motherfuckers it did because look, we're fucking back. Basically that is the meditation that has completely changed me for the better. Of course. So let's dive into it. Like I said, it's in Joe Dispenza's book Becoming Supernatural. And if you're interested in finding the actual pages that I read, it's pages 124 to 130 roughly. That's in the hard copy that I have. In the chapter, Reconditioning the Body to a New Mind. So in this chapter he talks about how meditation and the act of breathing impacts your central nervous system and moves energy from your bottom three energy centers up to your brain to be used creatively and to help you overcome trauma, et cetera. So if you don't know anything about spirituality or like those types of things in the world then you might not know about the fact that there are chakras within your body that each basically control a system in your body. And then they also hold energy which impacts your body in different ways based off of like how those energy centers are blocked or not blocked and things like that. So that's what yoga and breath work and spirituality surrounds their practices in, or that's what the spirituality practices are rooted in, so to speak. You always hear people saying you have to align your chakras, girl. It's a real thing. I remember somebody said that to me in the UCSB library one time when I was like having a meltdown and I literally was like, this is before I was super spiritual. I was just getting into this stuff in 2019 or 18, and I was like. Huh, I've never thought about that. If only I had, my life probably would've been a lot better. So let's talk a little bit more about the meditation'cause it's super interesting. Basically what he breaks down is the fact that upon inhale, during a meditation, the sutures of your skull actually open up super slightly, and a suture in your skull is basically like the lines or the separations between the different parts of your skull. So they bind together like very loosely, or not loosely, obviously it's their fricking skull, but they're bound together somehow. But they have a very small ability to move. And they do during meditation. Quick disclaimer for any hating Harry's out there, that's gonna be like, you dunno anything about anything. I'm obviously not a doctor, but I did study psychology and I do study these things a lot. So I'm really just relaying information to you that you can get on your own. Basically upon inhale of any type of breath, but a very strong deep breath is what you want. The sutures of the skull open up very slightly and at the same time, the sacrum, which is at the bottom of your spine, like your tailbone, slightly flexes back. When you exhale the sutures close and your sacrum flexes forward. So what you need to understand is that super small flow of movement in your brain within the central nervous system specifically, which is made up of your brain, your spinal cord, and your nerves. That small movement actually pushes cerebro spinal fluid up and down the body so that it basically activates the brain better and allows you to create more effectively and be more open-minded and be more grounded and calm and just all the good things, right? All the fun, silly things that you want in life that make you feel good and make you feel happy, like those feelings you can then experience a lot more because you are balancing your chakras and you are specifically realigning the energy within your bottom three energy centers, and those are some of the most important ones. And I didn't write down what those were. This is a line directly from the book, but the constant motion pushes the cerebro spinal fluid up and through the central nervous system, which is what allows the stored negative energy and emotions to be released and overcome. So you store energy and emotions from trauma, past experiences, bad bosses, ex-boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever. You store that energy of the experiences that you've had, that you've not released and you've not fully processed in your energy centers, in your chakras. The bottom three that are in like your spine and pelvic area, if you will and down at your tailbone are some of the most important when it comes to emotions. So again, doing meditation, that's what creates this movement within your body. If you're a doctor or a scientist, like literally props to you because every time I read this book, I'm like, what the helly? What the hell Leonte does that say? It makes no damn sense. It's like I'm becoming a scientist just reading his books. I swear to God. So yeah, you're welcome. So like I said, I was really excited by that when I read it and I was like you know what, if I had just done a simple Google search about how meditation actually impacts your brain, I probably would've learned this a long time ago and I'd probably be a lot happier and not on Lexapro, but you know what? Whatever. Just the basic concept of breath and intention moves energy. So obviously when you're meditating, if you're not familiar with it I would recommend you do some research and not just listen to me, but I. When you're meditating, you want to try to focus on the breath and not have a lot of outside noise coming in terms of like thoughts. So you want to quiet the mind as much as possible and just focus on the breath, and that really is what helps you have the most effective outcome and be able to release as much emotion as possible, which is really nice. It's a really hard thing to do if you're an anxious overthinker like me. So if you've never tried it and you're considering trying it and you're like, I fucking hate this, when you try it, I'm right there with you because I actually still hate it and I've been doing it for years I mean I hate everything. That's good for me. Vegetables, working out, so whatever, like it is what it is. Doing it first thing in the morning as well is something that's really important to know. If you can first thing in the morning, 15 to 20 minutes, 15 is what I like to do. That would be the best approach. Next I wanted to talk about the actual breath technique for this meditation specifically. There's a lot of different types of breath work that you can do, and there are different types of meditations that will guide you through different types of breaths. Or breathing. And, there's lots of different breathing in yoga as well that are really good for the mind. And I can talk about those too. But I wanna specifically talk about the technique in this example that I'm sharing with you for this specific meditation. So you do a slow inhale through the nose and you then contract your lower core muscles like the pelvic floor and your abs, and then you focus on the top of your head while you're doing that. Again, this is all very strange, but if you're a scientist or a physiologist or something, you're going to understand that this contraction and this breathing movement is what is moving the cerebro spinal fluid that I keep talking about. This silly little fluid that I cannot pronounce. So then you focus on the top of your head and then you hold the breath and you squeeze your body, which is what helps move the energy up. I feel like I'm not explaining that really well. I'll give you an example of a meditation that I've been doing for fucking years that I literally always, I'm so annoyed, I always didn't do what she was telling me to do'cause it didn't make sense to me. And I was like, I don't wanna squeeze my whole body when I'm meditating. Like I am trying to relax and you're making me flex my muscles. Like what the fuck is this? So I have this really good lady that I listen to, and I'll link her somewhere. She's on YouTube, but I listen to her meditations a lot. She has a very calming voice. She's like Australian or something, and she plays the best music in the background. And she just sounds like an angel. Like honestly, she really does. She has helped me manifest so many things through her meditations, but she always told me to breathe in. Hold the breath at the top and then squeeze my body as much as possible. And I never fucking did it. I just held my breath and then I didn't squeeze my body, which is really disappointing now. But you know what? You live and you learn. So please listen to me because I regret not doing this sooner. You wanna think about it like slow inhale contract lower core, pelvic floor, abs, everything below the lower body. Hold the breath. Focus on the top of your head. I look insane right now. I can actually feel how powerful that is. Like first I'm flexing and squeezing everything down below my belly button. And then as I breathe out, I squeeze the rest like up top. And it's, it genuinely just doing that made me feel better. That's crazy. Highlighting what this does, it pulls stored emotions from the body to the brain, which helps you clear out your negative energy and helps the brain rewire new patterns. If you didn't believe me now, then I hope you'll believe me in a second because I'm gonna throw up some diagrams that are included in this chapter that I think are really cool. And maybe no one else will think they're cool, but I am one of those people that really likes to be able to lean on scientific things, to just feel more confident in something. Like I'm a big woohoo spiritual girl believer in nothingness, but I'm also a believer in science. So science really does support spirituality, which is amazing. We're gonna look at figure 5.6. This is the brain and the spinal cord inside the skeletal system. So it talks about how your sacrum, your spinal column, and your skull are the bony structures that protect the most delicate systems in your body, which is the central nervous system which controls and coordinates all of the other systems. So you can see, obviously just. Basic outline of your body, which you've all probably seen in physiology class at some point. So let's move on to figure 5.7, the inhale, exhale of the spinal movement. This is gonna be the fun stuff. So this is showing the movement of cerebro spinal fluid upon inhale and exhale and shows the little diagram of the sutures opening and the sacrum flexing and just looking all cute like that. And again, just a reminder'cause we're all learning here, including myself that as you inhale, your sacrum slightly flexes back and the sutures of your skull expand as you exhale your sacrum slightly flexes forward and the suture is closed. It is this natural action of breathing that slowly propagates a wave to move cerebral spinal fluid up and down the spinal cord and throughout the brain. Okay, now figure 5.8 is about using the core muscles to move the energy. So the actual breathing technique that we talked about. We're looking at how to contract your intrinsic muscles to move the fluid up towards the brain. So if you look at the little diagram, you can see the three energy centers towards the bottom, and then the top energy center all the way at the top of your head. And it talks about how as you contract the intrinsic muscles of your lower body below the belly button, and at the same time, take in a slow, steady breath through your nose while placing your attention on the top of your head, you accelerate the movement of the cerebro spinal fluid towards your brain and you begin to run a current through your body and up the central axis of the spine. This shit still is like flooring me just as I'm rereading it. This is fucking crazy. I love learning. Okay, figure five point 10 is about the energy moving to the brain and how the body becomes a magnet as a result. Five point 10 A and figure five point 10 B. In A, we're talking about releasing the energy from the first three centers at the bottom and how that breathing motion pushes them up towards the brain and the top energy center. And then in figure B, it shows how the body then becomes a magnet by running the current up the spine to produce an electromagnetic field. So when you're continuing that breathing, flexing, focusing, extracting, contracting motion over and over for 10 minutes, 15 minutes if you can keep it up. She's so cute. She's so cute. Lilah. Sorry, I cannot. Not love on them. They're so cute. Anyways, if you're able to continue doing that's what creates the current running up and down your spine, which is crazy. And that's what creates the field of energy that is then produced outwards from you. So if you know anything about energy, just real quick, then you know that everything is energy, including us. We are made of atoms, which are made up of energy molecules. We emit energy, whether it's positive or negative, and that energy that we emit is what we attract back into our lives because, like attracts like and positive energy leads to more positive energy. Stop. Stop. I am getting annoyed right now for one reason, and one reason only. It's because this motherfucker gets jealous when I pet this motherfucker because she grew up as an only child for two years and can't handle the fact that her mom loves another dog. Honestly, it's sad. It really pulls on my heartstrings. Like it makes me sad because I'm like, why are you so insecure? Like you're my number one girl always. Hey. And yeah, I know you're gonna be like, they're just play fighting. They are now. But it all started because I was petting Lilah and London started biting her, because that's what she always does. She gets so jealous. I still love you. Oh my God. She's literally biting her. Okay. Hopefully I can just get through the rest of this episode in peace. They're making a bunch of noise, but. Last thing I'm gonna say about these diagrams and then I'll wrap it up and we can have a short episode is that the inductance field is created by the acceleration of the cerebro spinal fluid up the spine, and it will draw the stored energy in the first three centers back to the brain. Once there is a current flowing from the base of the spine all the way to the brain, the body becomes like a magnet and an electrode and an electromagnetic torus field is created. What is a torus field? I have no idea. I should have looked that up. So I wanna wrap this up'cause these girls are crazy, so I'm gonna take them out. But basically I wanna talk about just real quickly, like what really changed for me after I started doing this meditation. Biggest thing I would say is like physical, emotional, and mental shifts also energetic. So one of the biggest things that I've been struggling with is just having like literally no energy to do anything except work my job and then go to sleep and do things on the weekends occasionally, which I've gotten a lot better about being more social. I will say that, but it's also a bit hard because I'm a lot more social now that I live with my boyfriend and I don't live alone. so having a lot more energy to do social things and also just be able to give more energy to life by giving it to my partner and also giving it to another creature because I now have two dogs instead of one. I can understand how I felt more drained maybe from taking that on, but I also don't think that should have drained me at all because. Really, it lifts me up. Like I love Lilah so much and I love taking care of her. Like I am her mom and like she's my baby. Like I love her so much. London's gonna freak out now that I said that. Hey, stop it. Lay down. Lay down. And Caleb's the love of my life like. I wouldn't have it any other way, but it's just sad to be like, wow, I was so happy and everything was so great, but I was also like so burnt out and I knew something was wrong and I knew it had nothing to do with anything in my life, but it just had something to do with me. Having a lot more energy to just give to life and pick back up the microphone and do a podcast is huge for me. It's really sad that I didn't wanna do that for the past year, but whatever. I also sleep a lot better. Not every day, but it's just in general, I feel like I sleep a lot better, which is nice. And I have a lot less body pain than I used to. Which is a big deal for me because I've always struggled with really bad back pain from my scoliosis. And I do yoga several times a week now. I know that helps, but I also know that could cause more pain and it doesn't. So that's a huge thing for me. I also don't drink coffee, which is a big deal. And I just think that's something to call out because I just drink tea and I feel like to some people that might be shocking when I say that. They're like, what? How? Like, how do you have any energy? And I'm like, I really don't know. But yeah. And then in terms of emotional shifts, obviously my depression lifted. I have more joy and just more calm energy in my life. I have a lot more patience to give to myself and others and my dogs and just things that happen in my life. I've been going through a lot just in general, like there's been a lot of random things that have been happening that can be very stressful and just drain me and I feel like I've been able to handle it really well. I also will say I'm in therapy again, which is a huge thing that I wanna talk about more in another episode, but that's just something to call out too, because obviously therapy helps, but it doesn't help in a vacuum. Like therapy is not a fix by any means. It's a tool to put in the toolbox along with a bunch of other things. And like for me, those things are meditation, yoga, walking, journaling, therapy. You name it. So I really just feel like overall I've started to feel like myself again. Which is huge. And then in terms of the mental shifts just having a much clearer mind. I'm a lot less reactive to things that I used to feel would really take me down. And I feel a lot more creative too, just in general and just more uplifted in a way. So that's been really great. And I've also just started attracting better things. A lot of great things, which I'll talk about as well at another time, but very exciting. I wanna emphasize that none of this happened overnight. I had to really find myself after the breakup and then find myself again after moving in with Caleb because no matter how good your life is, it's always gonna come with challenges. Like I found an amazing boyfriend and moved in with him and got a best friend built-in roommate and another dog and it was literally a dream come true. But it also came with a lot of challenges, had to get into an entire new routine with a new person and another dog and deal with London's reaction to the other dog and even that person,'cause she even gets jealous of Caleb. Oh my God, she's so cute. Poor baby. She's so jealous all the time. Had to get in a whole new routine, had to figure out how to like, live with a boyfriend and share a space and still make time for myself and still, all the things. It's a lot. And I feel like I was sad too'cause I was like, wow, I'm having like such a great time in life. Like things are going so well for me, but I'm also just like really not doing well mentally. Like I'm sleeping all the time and my boyfriend's even like calling me out for how much I sleep. And although I do love sleep and I'll never be a person that like doesn't love sleep. I think that how much I was sleeping was crazy and can be crazy on a continual basis if I don't take care of myself. That's a big one for sure. And yeah, I just wanna remind everybody that if you're going through something similar you're not alone. And there are ways that you can pull yourself out of these ruts, these feelings of stuckness, like your energy is just stuck. It just is stagnant and it needs help moving and you need help transforming. And there's a lot of different ways to do that. Again, like I said, exercise is a big one that I love. I love yoga. If you live in Austin, Texas, Black Swan Yoga is an amazing studio that is on ClassPass. And this is not sponsored at all. It's just my yoga studio and I absolutely love it. It's the best yoga studio I've ever been to in my life. And it's also donation based. So if you don't wanna sign up for ClassPass or you don't wanna sign up for a membership and you just wanna go to a one-off yoga class or just try it or whatever you can just go and donate like 15 bucks, 20 bucks and do a yoga class. You can also do them online, as most people know. But I think that doing it in person is a lot better. So yeah, yoga is a big thing. Meditation's another. I really can't speak to the journaling'cause I haven't been doing it as much, but I'm confident that my thought patterns have become a lot more stronger and positive. So I don't really need the journaling as much as I used to. So yeah, those are my final thoughts. Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you for bearing with me through the chaos of my dogs and just my thought pattern, or not my thought patterns, but just my like random ranting and tangents of thoughts. I really appreciate you guys. I'm so happy to be back. I love all of you and I just wanna say one final thing, which is that this is a quote that I found and it really made me happy. Even if you are at rock bottom, you can rise. So just a reminder to all of you, thank you again for listening. I love you a million times and London and Lilah also love you a million times, and they hope that you have an amazing day. Thank you. Bye!