Choosing Growth Over Comfort: Reflections from Kristin's Conversation with Kena Siu

In the final episode of Season One of Happiness Unscripted, host Kristin DeSouza reflects on her impactful conversation with Kena Siu, the Empowerment Guide behind Midlife Butterfly and the host of Midlife Butterfly Podcast. Kristin discusses the key lessons she learned from Kena about self-love, radical acceptance, and the courage to grow beyond comfort. Key takeaways include the importance of accepting all parts of ourselves, becoming our own best friend, and the never-ending journey of personal evolution. Kena's journey through multiple personal transformations, including her reflections on self-compassion, somatic awareness, and the sacred nature of midlife, provides a rich source of inspiration for listeners.

00:00 Welcome

01:54 The Impact of Kena Siu's Journey

03:01 Self-Love and Acceptance

05:34 Becoming Your Own Best Friend

10:16 The Comfort Zone and Growth

18:13 Living Alone and Self-Discovery

24:15 Practical Self-Care Tips: Building habits one at a time

31:51 The Butterfly Metaphor and Transformation

38:03 Closing: Thank you and Season Two Preview

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Transcript

Kristin - Host.. 0:01

Hello, welcome to Happiness Unscripted, where we are on a mission to embrace happiness. I'm your host, Kristin DeSouza. If you're ready to explore the real unscripted journey to deeper happiness and joy in life, then so glad you found us through this podcast. I'm inviting you to join me as we look within ourselves to find a path towards a life we each passionately embrace and love. With us, hear real stories from people who've made meaningful changes in their lives to find greater fulfillment alongside wisdom from experts across a range of fields to help inspire and inform your journey. So let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to Happiness Unscripted. I'm your host, Kristin DeSouza, and today I'm going to share my final reflection for season one. A few weeks ago, I had the absolute joy of speaking with Kena Siu, the Empowerment Guide behind Midlife Butterfly and the host of Midlife Butterfly Podcast. And honestly, I haven't stopped thinking about our conversation. There was something about Kena energy, her authenticity, the way she described her journey that just stayed with me. So today I want to talk about that conversation with you, share what moved me, what challenged me, and what I'm still sitting with, because sometimes the most powerful moments from an interview aren't just the quotes we can pull out, but the shifts that happen inside us as we listen, let's dive in. You know, before I spoke with Kena, I had read about her journey, four weddings, three countries, three languages, and I'll be honest, I was curious about that. I think we all are, when we hear about someone who's lived such a rich and varied life from what we often see, but what struck me the most wasn't the external facts of her story. It was how she talked about the transformation. Early in our conversation, Kena said something that I keep coming back to. She said I didn't love myself like I thought I did. Can you imagine having that realization thinking. You've been doing the self-love work, thinking you're on the right path, and then suddenly recognizing that there's a whole layer deeper, you haven't even touched yet. She went on to explain that if we're not accepting our shadow parts, the parts we're ashamed of, or feel guilty about the parts that society or religion or culture has taught us to hide, then we can't really love ourselves. We're only loving the acceptable parts, the pretty parts, the parts that get likes on Instagram, but she expressed that true self-love that includes the messy bits, the parts. We don't want anyone to see the patterns. We keep repeating the flaws that we try to hide. And I've sat with that for a while after our conversation asked myself how much of my own self-love journey has been about making myself more palatable, more acceptable. How much energy have I spent trying to fix the parts of me that I think are wrong, rather than simply accepting that they're a part of who I am as a whole? Then I ask myself, what about what I expect of my relationships with others? Am I expecting. These relationships to only consist of what we'd call the pretty parts, the fun parts that are the enjoyable memories, but not really accepting someone else's shadow parts. Insight reminded me. That self-love and love of others isn't a performance. It's not about achieving some perfect version and living in that version all the time. It's about radical acceptance of all of who we are, light and shadow together. One of the most powerful concepts Kena introduced was this idea of becoming your own best friend. And at first I thought, okay, yeah, be kind to yourself. Treat yourself well. Got it. But then she broke it down in a way that really shifted my perspective. She talked about changing her inner vocabulary, about recognizing that her inner critic was saying things to her that not even her worst enemy would say, and she asked herself a simple but profound question, how would I talk to my best friend if your best friend made a mistake? Would you call her stupid? Would you tell her she's not good enough? Would you give her a hard time or judge her constantly on that item? No, I don't think any of us would Rather, you'd be compassionate, you'd be understanding, you'd remind her of her strengths while acknowledging that we're human and therefore none of us are perfect. Everyone has struggles at times and I think she challenged us to ask, so why is it so hard to talk to ourselves that way? Kena said this shift in her inner vocabulary was one of the first steps towards truly loving herself. And I have to say, since our conversation. I've definitely been trying to engage more with this idea. I'll be in the middle of giving myself a difficult time for something and I'll pause and think, would I say this to my best friend? And the answer's always no. At least not in as harsh a manner as I'm saying it to myself, even when there's times that maybe I am calling out or recognizing a pattern that's not the healthiest in me, but criticizing myself in that way. Isn't going to help me towards a constructive path of changing and moving beyond that. It's such a simple practice, but it's profound because the relationship we have with ourselves, as Kena said, is the closest relationship we'll ever have. We're with ourselves 24 7. If we can't be kind to ourselves, how can we expect to show up fully for others? And as a mother, that's something that definitely resonated with me in terms of modeling that sort of kindness for yourself, but also. Enabling myself to show up as fully as possible for my children. And here's what kinda helped me see, self-compassion isn't self-indulgence. It's not letting yourself off the hook or avoiding responsibility. It's about approaching yourself with the same kindness and understanding you'd offer someone. You deeply care about. In fact, as she said, sometimes we talk to ourselves in ways that someone who really dislikes us wouldn't even talk to us. And so it's about recognizing that growth happens in an environment of compassion, not harsh criticism. So there was a moment in our conversation where Kena shared about the death of her father, and she said that his passing made her start questioning everything in her life. She'd realized she'd fallen into a comfort zone, and she said something that really resonated. There's no magic in the comfort zone, and I had to really think about that one. We spend so much time trying to get comfortable. We work for financial security. We create routines. We build lives that feel safe and predictable. But Kena was saying that in all that comfort, she'd stopped growing. She'd stopped learning. She shared that she and her partner weren't building memories together anymore or doing things together. They just settled into a pattern of existing side by side. Coexisting. It took the loss of her father to wake her up to that reality, that pattern that she was in. She asked herself some hard questions. Am I really happy in my marriage? She found the answer was no. She'd gone deep into her spiritual path as she shared with us. And her partner wasn't ready to go there with her. She described it as having these deep conversations about the soul and transformation, and having him look at her as though he couldn't understand what she was talking about, and I did appreciate that she expressed. A kindness and an understanding about the fact that that is a type of journey that each of us has to decide what it looks like and when it's right for us. You know, it's not something that you can really force someone to do and have it be meaningful to them, and I appreciated that acknowledgement. What moved me about this story she was sharing was her courage because facing up to that situation and deciding what was right for her was leaving wasn't easy. She shared, especially because she and her ex-husband still loved each other, but she recognized that love alone wasn't enough. That she was really needing someone that could be growing in the same direction, and she had this awareness that she needed to keep evolving, even if that meant letting go of something comfortable. I appreciated her acknowledgement, uh, that it was such a hard decision, the hardest that she'd ever had to make she said, but she knew that staying would mean abandoning herself and the evolution that she was going through, and she wasn't willing to do that. I really sat and pondered on that one. Thinking of times where I stayed in a comfortable situation longer than was really good for me. I mean, how many of us have stayed in situations, relationships, jobs, just a general pattern of, you know, our health that. Was comfortable but not really fulfilling, not necessarily constructive for us. How many of us choose the familiar over the unknown, even when the familiar is slowly draining us? And one of the things with this is, while Kena example was. Moving on from this relationship. I also think that it can simply mean coming to awareness that you've simply become comfortable and aren't growing anymore can lead you to be exploring and finding a path even within the relationship or the environment that sometimes you just need that mental shakeup, you know? I know for me, I would describe that I've done some deep reflection, some really hard reflection on patterns that I was following, uh, in my late thirties that weren't healthy for me and getting to a better place did require making some changes, making a change with my job. But for me, it meant I. Being more self-aware and just honest with myself and those that love me, uh, for some of those personal relationships to evolve and improve and get onto a new pattern. So part of my reflection was acknowledging that. If you find yourself feeling like you're not on the right path, it is possible to make really constructive changes still within that environment that you can, you know, you can see how to make shifts to make improvements, but sometimes you don't have the ability. To shift that environment in the way that you need, and it does require that you have to step away from it. Kena's story reminded me that, as I said, sometimes the most loving thing we can do for ourselves and for others is to have the courage to choose growth over comfort, and there's so many ways for that growth to come. After her separation, Kena moved into her own apartment for the first time in her life and she said something that made me laugh. I'm still enjoying it. It's so good to live alone. I think that made me chuckle because I lived alone in my twenties and hadn't thought about someone not having that experience these days. Living alone can give you the opportunity to truly come to know yourself better. I certainly know I came to understand some of the things that were really important for me and some things that weren't, and I think that has. It made me a better partner in now sharing a home with my husband, with my children. Like I know the things that really make my home feel good to me versus things that I don't have as strong a feeling on. And if someone else in our household does, I can show them compassion and support by letting them dictate how that item is handled in our life. I think living alone can give you an opportunity to really know yourself better. And I love that Kena is enjoying that experience for herself. There was such a joy in her voice when she said that, and it made me think about how we're often taught, particularly as women, that being alone is something to avoid, that we should always be partnered up, always in a relationship, always connected to someone else. But Kena was celebrating her solitude. She was learning who she was outside of a relationship and she recognized something crucial. She was the common denominator in her two divorces for herself. There were patterns she was repeating, and she didn't wanna carry those patterns into another relationship. So she made different choices. She said, what do I have to shift to heal? Now? Note it wasn't, what do I have to fix? It was, what do I have to shift to heal? And that language really matters because fixing implies something is broKena, something is wrong, but healing. Healing is about remembering who we really are underneath the programming, the conditioning, the patterns that we've been in, and it's about recognizing that many of the beliefs and patterns we carry aren't even necessarily ours. They are voices from our parents. Grandparents, teachers, culture, our environment, our religion. Kena talked about cleaning up that shit, and I love how directly she's put it because it is work. It's not easy, it's not comfortable, but at least for me and what Kena was expressing, it's necessary if we want to live authentic lives. And this is where COVID became, as Kena called it, a blessing. She shared, she had time. She didn't have to say no to invitations because there weren't any. She could go deep within herself. She could do the shadow work, the inner child, work, the meditation. And journaling and yoga. She could learn to come home to herself and she said something beautiful. I learned to come home here into my heart and once I got there, I can be anywhere. Doesn't matter where I am, but I know that I'm always home. I love that so much. Home isn't a physical place. It's a feeling. It's that sense of being grounded in yourself, of knowing who you are and being okay with that person no matter where life takes you. That sense of being grounded in myself is. Something I know I've really gained from my own journey and I find it to be a really amazing, to the point of a sense of awe, the challenging things that are easier to face. When you have a sense of self that you're well grounded in. A thing I really appreciated about Kena's approach that she shared is how it has a very practical aspect. She doesn't just talk about these big, lofty spiritual concepts. She also gives you tools that you can use immediately. Today, she talked about how self-care is really about habits. It's about compounding small practices over time. You integrate one new habit, and once that's established, you add another one. And slowly self-care becomes your lifestyle and not something you have to force yourself to do or carve out special little pockets of time for. I really love this because it mirrors. My own experience. I found that when I was trying to, what I look back and think of as overhaul my life in one go, it was too much. I couldn't make the right thing stick. But when I started picking one tiny thing, I like starting my day with a glass of water, which was an example I shared, and I just focus on that until it becomes automatic, then I don't have to keep focusing on it. It just flows into my life, into my day, and then I can add something else. Kena talked about the same type of approach, and she emphasized that self-care isn't one size fits all. What works for her might not work for me, might not work for the person listening to this. And she emphasized that. It's about finding what resonates with your body, with your rhythm, your life, and that I just really connected with that because I think you have so many people sharing ideas as though, oh, well if you just do this, here's what your outcome will be. But we're also unique and have different histories and different challenges that. What one person needs physically, mentally, emotionally, is not the same recipe as what someone else needs. And I think that's yet another reason that taking it a tiny approach at a time is just such a beneficial way to go about it. Uh, because you can really assess if this one change that you're trying is one that's really the right fit for you, or is this one that you can set aside and shift to something else? But here's the thing that really got me, Kena didn't just talk about self care as bubble bath and face masks. Though those things are lovely and I do enjoy them. She talked about the hard work of self-care, the shadow work, the inner child, the somatic awareness. So let's break down what those mean again, because Kena explained them so clearly in our conversation. So let me take a moment to recap that. Shadow work is about looking at the parts of ourselves. We've been taught to hide the shame, the guilt, the flaws, the parts that society says aren't acceptable. It's about bringing those parts out of the darkness and into the light, accepting them, loving them, because when we try to keep parts of ourselves in shadow, we can't love ourselves fully. In her child work is about exploring the wounds we got in childhood and from Kena research and training. She defined this as usually between the ages of zero to eight years old. These are wounds like rejection, abandonment, unworthiness, wounds that. Shape. How we show up in relationships, how we make decisions, how we react to life. By understanding these wounds, we can start to heal from them. Somatic awareness is reconnecting our mind and body. We're taught to live in our heads. Kena said she described it as to be from the neck up, but our bodies hold so much. Wisdom. Our emotions get stuck in our bodies, and that's where somatic work is about learning to listen to your bodies, to feel our emotions fully, to understand what our physical sensations are trying to tell us. What I appreciate is that Kena doesn't just throw these concepts at people. She talked about how she meets her clients where they are. She doesn't say, okay, now we're doing shadow work. She says, it's a conversation. She asks about their intentions for their sessions, and she guides them naturally towards words, what they need based on what they've expressed. Just like you wouldn't tell a toddler, okay, we're leaving the park now. Get in the car, uh, there you can have a lot of resistance'because they're not sure that they want to leave the park. They're not sure that, that is right for them. But if you make it an easier path of transition. You say, okay, we're leaving the park now, are we going to skip to the car, or jump to the car, you know? Then the toddlers focused on the part of that transition that is of interest, that is engaging them, and you still end up at the car ready to leave the park. Kena creates safety and curiosity rather than that resistance. So let's talk about the beautiful metaphor that Kena uses throughout her work, the Butterfly. And I want to spend a moment with that because it's so rich with meaning from what Kena shared with us. She chose the name Midlife Butterfly, because midlife is full of transformations. Those can encompass divorce, separation, emp, empty nest awaKenaings, moving to different countries. We're constantly transforming, she said, and the butterfly is always in the process of transformation as well. Here's who I love. Kena doesn't see midlife as a crisis. She sees it as an awaKenaing, an opportunity to explore, discover, or remember who we truly are. I loved her sharing of the sacred- in- between that transformative space where we're no longer who we once were, but not quite who we're becoming. Okay. She says, we're always in that space. We're always evolving. We're not even a version of ourselves. We were a month ago. This idea really resonated with me because I think we have this cultural narrative that we're supposed to figure ourselves out by a certain age and then just be that person forever. But that's not really how life works. We're constantly growing, constantly changing because we're constantly having new experiences that expand who we are, that expand our knowledge, our view of the world. We're just constantly growing and changing. And it's not a problem to solve. It's simply the nature of being alive. Kena said, life is sacred. Just being alive here as a human spirit, as a spiritual experience in a human body, it's just so beautiful. Through doing the work that she's done, she came to realize that life is worth it. It's worth all of this change and transformation, and these are all choices decisions. We can keep believing things that don't serve us, or we can choose to believe something different through. This perpetual evolution that we're all going through. We can keep acting in ways that don't serve us, or we can choose to act differently. And yes, she says it takes effort, but you know what else takes effort? Being miserable, being unhappy with. The version of you you're experiencing right now. So if it's gonna take effort one way or the other, why not take that effort and direct it towards creating a life you actually love? So towards the end of our conversation, I asked Kena what advice she'd give to someone who's ready for change but doesn't know where to start. Her answer was so simple, but also powerful. She came back to the become your own best friend. It's the first step to improve the relationship with yourself. She points out that just by asking the question, where do I start? You already have a level of awareness. So the first step is to simply tap into that awareness, noticing what is your inner critic saying to you? Listen to that voice and how you're talking to yourself. Ask, would you talk to your best friend that way? If not, it's time to change the way you're talking to yourself. She emphasized the importance of self-compassion in this process.'cause when you start really noticing what your inner critic says, it can be really painful. You might realize that voice isn't even your voice. It's all these messages you've internalized that don't even belong to you, and kinda gave us this beautiful metaphor. She said, we are the sky and our thoughts are the clouds. We're not our thoughts. We're the observer of our thoughts. So when a thought comes by, that doesn't serve us, just let it pass like a cloud and choose another one that serves you better. Choose something that serves you always. That's the message that I want you to take away from this. You have a choice. You always have a choice in how you talk to yourself. How you treat yourself and what you believe about yourself. And yes, changing those patterns takes work, but you are worth that work. We are. We are all so worth that work. Thank you for listening to this reflection on my conversation with Kena Siu. If you want to connect with Kena, you can find her@midlifebutterfly.ca. She also hosts the Midlife Butterfly Podcast. So you can hear more of her beautiful conversations there. If this episode resonated with you, I would love to hear about it. Please reach out on social media or leave a review wherever you're listening to this podcast. That is one of the best ways you can help others find a way to this podcast to see how it might resonate with them. This is Kristin DeSouza, and you're listening to Happiness Unscripted. Thank you for joining me through my inaugural season. I'm happy to say I've already been working on interviews with some amazing guests for season two, so join us in January to walk together as we each continue our journey to Happiness Unscripted.