The Cost of Silence: Self-Forgiveness through Honesty and Grace

What if the story you’re afraid to tell is the very thing that sets you free? We sit down with author and transformational mentor Julie Heaton to explore how shame, silence, and people-pleasing quietly script our lives—and how courage, honest words, and kind boundaries write a new one. Julie shares her journey from a teenage adoption and decades of secrecy to reunion, deep repair, and the everyday practices that rebuilt her inner voice.

Together we unpack how unprocessed emotion turns into physical stress, why approval-chasing leads to burnout, and how to use simple mental filters to right-size problems before they swallow your day. Julie’s approach is practical and compassionate: heal in layers, tell the truth to people who can hold it, and treat triggers as teachers instead of proof that you’re broken. We also dig into narrative work—how to spot inherited beliefs, decide what’s truly yours, and stop rehearing old stories that keep you small.

If negative self-talk runs your mornings, you’ll leave with tools: the “Stop” interrupt, believable replacements for harsh thoughts, mirror work that doesn’t feel fake, and a gratitude routine that shifts your whole day. Julie introduces ROAR—reclaiming your voice, owning your story, aligning in your truth, and radiating your light—as a gentle map for moving from self-judgment to self-respect. It’s not a switch you flip; it’s a sequence you practice, with humor, patience, and a lot of heart.

If this conversation gives you a breath of relief, share it with a friend who needs the reminder that light grows where we tell the truth. Subscribe, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: what story are you ready to rewrite today?

You can find Julie at hellojulieheaton.com

Chapters

• 0:00 From Overthinking To Perspective
• 0:15 Show Welcome And Mission
• 1:45 Meet Julie Heaton
• 2:28 Early Shame And The Adoption Story
• 6:15 Performing For Approval And Burnout
• 8:20 Reunion, Telling The Truth, And Healing
• 12:05 Feeling Feelings And Kind Boundaries
• 15:10 Secrets, Light, And Shared Honesty
• 19:05 Healing In Layers And Self-Forgiveness
• 22:40 Letting Go Of Old Identities
• 25:10 What Stories Are You Carrying
• 28:00 From Self-Loathing To Self-Love
• 32:10 Catching Negative Self-Talk
• 35:20 Humor, Gratitude, And Daily Practice
• 38:20 ROAR Framework And Where To Find Julie
• 40:15 Closing And Listener Invitation

Transcript

Julie: 0:00

I spent my whole day obsessing about what I did wrong. When in reality, no one else really cared. You know, everybody else went on with their day.

Mary: 0:15

Welcome to No Shrinking Violets. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness, what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature, and flourish. Let's dive in. Hey Violet, welcome to the show. No matter how long I do this work and talk to so many amazing women who have overcome limiting narratives and their socialized tendency to stay small, I am still awestruck by how difficult it is at times for all of us to take up our space and live authentically. I am not immune to those simpering voices in my head that try to use fear to limit my choices and my happiness. Even when we get unstuck, that pesky, sticky trap of self-doubt can pop up again when we least expect it, and we can step right back into it. So I will continue to invite women to be guests on my show who have done the work and now help other women to share their stories and their triumphs. Because I feel like they are the true North on our life compass. When we get a bit lost, as will happen, because life ain't a straight paved road, I believe these stories can help us orient ourselves again to what feels authentic. My guest today is Julie Heaton. She is an author, transformational mentor, certified health and wellness coach, and Reiki master. After more than 30 years as a corporate executive, she answered a deeper calling to help others come home to themselves. Her books, including The Manifestors Playbook, The Manifestors Workbook, Roar, and her children's series, The Adventures of the Fabulous Three, offer soulful practical tools for self-discovery, healing, and personal growth. Julie empowers others to release old stories, reclaim their voice, and live with clarity, purpose, and deep self-love. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Julie. Oh, thank you so much. That was a wonderful intro. Thank you. So I would love if you could start by sharing the powerful moments in your own story that led you to where you are today.

Julie: 2:37

Oh my gosh, there's so many. You know, um there's been a lot of pivotal moments in my life. For those people in my age um bracket, parenting was a little different for our parents. Uh-huh. Their job was pretty much just to keep us alive.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Yeah.

Julie: 2:53

You know, in my experience. And so I was uh I was brought up by a single mom who did her best, and I was the youngest of four, and I learned to adapt and parent myself. And uh I also have a very strong personality. So I learned to set boundaries and protect myself early and to be a chameleon. What do you need me to be? And I carried that through my life. Um, I always asked questions, I always knew there was more. I dug deeper. But in the end, nobody really wanted to answer those questions for me. So I'll say high school was very tough for me. It was the first time I learned that I to be accepted, I couldn't be me. It started it started early, earlier in the family, but then for strangers, outsiders, I learned pretty quick that um I didn't fit. You know, I just didn't fit. Those were tough years for me. And then I got um pregnant very early by a boy who just paid me some attention, and that was good enough for me at the time. And because I didn't understand parenting and what it meant, and parenting to me looked like a chore, not a gift, I put that baby up for adoption. And that was the first big pivotal moment for me in my life where I made a choice that I wasn't good enough to raise this baby. And that created so much trauma and pain and regret that I I just shoved down and then really far and then built a life around it like it didn't exist. Although there was so much pain, I had to keep shoving it with something would come up and I would swallow it back down, something would come up, I'd swallow back down. So that was a big, huge pivotal moment. I went from um carrying my burden as a from a childhood story to carrying this whole other burden that no one talked about, and it wasn't acceptable. And and you know, from watching a movie where someone was adopted to having people tell their stories of adopting all the things, it was just more to shove down, more shame, more shame, more shame. And the thing I'll tell people about shame and regret is it just builds until you shine light on it. So by the time I was in my 30s, I was carrying so much shame and regret. I didn't even recognize myself because my thought was I'm not gonna give this baby up for nothing. I'm gonna make something out of my life. I'm gonna prove I'm okay. So then I started living my life for approval. Everything was approval. I'm gonna prove to my family that I'm not the black sheep, which by the way, I was born the black sheep. I'm gonna prove to people that I'm successful, that I can be something. I'm gonna prove that um that I made the right choice. And so that started this whole trajectory of um earning love, earning validation. Okay, I'm gonna show up this way and I'm gonna be successful. I'll tell you, I what I was successful, people approved of me. Only by the time I was 45, I had made my body so ill from um not listening to my instincts, from not being myself, from performing for love, not feeling um that I was worth love. And that's when that was an another huge transition for me. Was I going to live or die, basically? I was very sick. I made myself very, very ill. In between that time, you know, I lived life. I had I got married, I had another son who I'm very grateful for and we're very close. But um, as you can imagine, you know, I had buried all that shame. And it was really a big secret that people knew, but nobody talked about. So in raising this other son, there was a lot more that got swallowed down.

Speaker 3: 7:14

Yeah.

Julie: 7:15

And when my um second son was about 15, my oldest son um reached out. And uh my husband at the time didn't know. My son didn't know. And I had to make a choice then too. Uh, you know, do I want to develop this relationship? Which I did. Everything in my whole body wanted to have a relationship with my first son. I I loved him the minute I held him. So anyway, that was another big pivotal moment where I had to share this truth that was buried under years of regret and shame. It was buried so far, I didn't even know how I was gonna get it out. And there was months of sleepless nights and false starts. And oh my gosh, it took so much to finally say the words out loud and start that healing process. And that healing journey took it took a while. Yeah, I'm sure. That was a big answer for one question, I know.

Mary: 8:19

But well, I love that because we can still tend to think when we see someone who has arrived at something, you know, I I read off you published all these books. And so to me, who has my first book coming out in like three months, I'm excited. Oh, thank you. It's like, wow. And so I think we can see one thing and we can assume all kinds of stuff about someone. And it's only when we hear their story that we recognize our own stuff in that, in whatever form it is. But one of the things you bring up is really important, and that is when we don't address something that's emotional, it for sure becomes physical. Our body is gonna find a way to make us pay attention to it. And usually that's when it turns physical.

Julie: 9:15

There's all I always say the universe will tap you on the shoulder, like, hey, look here, you need to handle this. And it will like give you a little nudge, and then it might just push you a little, and then it's just gonna shove you over a cliff. Yeah. Like, hey, listen, you've got to figure this out because it's not working. You're disconnected, there's a gap between your soul and your body, and you need to fix that. And I often say I'm I was a slow spiritual learner because I had to get shoved over a lot of cliffs. But um, that's what happened. I and that was the start. There were so many things in my life, so many stories I could tell you that have led to who I am today, so many disappointments, so many, so many things. But the truth is I wouldn't be here without all those things. And um now in my life, I'm very, very grateful every time I get triggered or upset because I know, oh gosh, that's something I need to heal. You know, something's still a little rough edge in there, a little stone I swallowed that needs to come back up. And so now I I look forward to those times in life where I'm mad. And I let myself be mad too. There was years where I was trying so hard to have people love me that I felt like being mad wasn't spiritual. You know, that you had to be kind all the time. Well, the kind thing is to feel your feelings, you know, and to and to process them and to figure out what's going on and to have those conversations that are harder. And um yeah, I have a friend right now that's mad at another friend, and I said, you know, the kind thing to do is tell them, hey, that really upset me. Here's why, you know, and the kindest thing you can do for someone you love is to share your feelings. And so I thought I learned that the hard way too. But um, yeah, I I mean I've certainly been on the journey. I understand pain. I understand boundaries, I understand, you know, the weird thing about this whole experience that shaped a lot of my life is is that there was this agreement in my family that nobody talked about it. So I was already kind of the, like I said, I was the black sheep. I was I was already the one that was a problem in the family. And so when I had this baby, that was it. We didn't talk about it again. So new people in my life, my my husband now had no idea until 15 years later, you know. My son who I raised had no idea, you know, like nobody, there was no talking about it. And that really created another layer of deep, deep shame and regret. You know, when I had my second son and I held him and I realized what I had given up and the the connection and the love, there's more shame, more mortification, more you know, just I kept burying it, just more and more. I don't know how I breathed. I really don't. So now in my spiritual life, in my life, I just refuse to hold anything in. You know, I've just learned that that's part of my process is you know, something doesn't feel right. I can't just not comfortable with that. That doesn't feel right to me. And um I will say to anybody listening that, you know, it's hard. I was so embarrassed to tell people. And for the first, I'm not, you know, I had friends that I've had for 20 years that didn't know like all this stuff. I was so embarrassed to tell people by the time I said it, I had to say it like, I don't know, eight times I had to tell like eight people before I could just say it to somebody.

Speaker 3: 12:55

Uh-huh.

Julie: 12:56

That's how long it took, you know, just to kind of like be okay with it. And and then the work around it. There's a lot of work. It wasn't just saying it, it was just a lot of healing. Work and healing with my son, you know, healing that relationship and and kind of discovering each other. And, you know, life is not easy. I it drives me crazy when people feel like they're the you know, life should be easier than this. Here's the thing it becomes easier when you develop inner peace, when things don't throw you over the edge every time. And that's where I am now. I mean, not to say I don't ever get upset, because I do. But now, you know, if my husband does something that drives me nuts, like um, I don't know, leave sturdy dishes in this thing. And I my first reaction is, oh my god, blah, blah, blah. I think in my head. And then I immediately think, is this really worth being upset? And the answer is usually no. It's not. You know, either just clean it up or ask him to clean it up. You know, like so I don't little things are easy for me now, and bigger things are actually pretty easy for me now too. They're all the same. So I try to keep my measurement here instead of all over the board. And that's when life gets easier, when things are you absorb them more than you feel them. When you can look at something and think, is this a five-minute problem? Is this a five-hour problem? Is this a problem at all? You know, is this something I'm gonna remember in five months? And if it is, how do like, wow, okay, so how did I get here? And how do I avoid getting here again? And how do I get out of it? You know, instead of diving in it and you're in the problem, if you can pull yourself back from the problem and view it as um an experiment, as wow, that yeah, that got I got myself in a hot mess here. Okay, um, what am I gonna do? And how am I not gonna get here again? And life becomes easier. That's when life becomes easier. But we all got problems.

Mary: 14:54

Oh, for sure. And so a couple things with what you've been saying. The one is where you said, you know, you pushed this situation down. And what happens then is we keep getting layers around it because we're trying to keep it there. It literally blocks our ability to talk about it because it gets so big. The bigger it grows, the bigger it becomes in our mind. And really, you're talking about communication, whether it's dirty dishes in the sink or just speaking what is true about yourself. When you give air to something, it starts to make it smaller because things can't grow, things can't get mildewy and all that gross stuff when you start to give them air. So I'm curious when you started to tell people about your son, your first son, were you surprised at their reactions? What were the reactions? Were they more accepting than you imagined?

Julie: 15:53

You know, I love what you just said about the mildew. I always think about if you can't shine a light on it, you need to dig it up. Like you need to shine a the light has to come in.

Mary: 16:04

Yeah.

Julie: 16:04

So um, I always think about can I shine the light on that? You know? Um, I had all different kinds of reactions. People are funny. You know, people will meet you where they are.

Mary: 16:16

Yeah.

Julie: 16:16

And uh they're not always where you are, you know, and that's okay. I will say this, I've always said this. Uh, if if everybody told the truth, no one would would have to feel alone. We wouldn't have all this loneliness in the world. So when I started sharing my deepest, darkest traumas and secrets, mostly I will tell you, 90% of the people that I told told me something about them. You know, like I heard about abortions and false pregnancies and things that they were ashamed of, that they were able to release because I released my truth. It's an invitation, it's how we heal the world. The more open we are, the more vulnerable we get, the more others are able to give that back. And it starts to shine light in places that we weren't expecting. And love grows in the light. Love grows in the light. Acceptance grows in the light. So the more honest we are, the you in my book, in my new book, I have this story about um when I got in perimenopause. It's it's a silly story, but it just I started getting these chin hairs. Oh yeah. And they're like radical aggressive chin hairs. Like, what is happening out of nowhere? I I basically had was like had no hair, you know, like none. I wouldn't wasn't a hairy person. Giant. Anyway, I was freaking out. I was really embarrassed. I, you know, was had a 10 magnifying mirror and I was just every morning scouring my face. And finally I got the courage to ask my best friend. I said, Oh my God, Stacy, I've got, I have to tell you, I've got these chin hairs. She goes, Oh, yeah, I just pluck them. I was like, why didn't anybody tell me about these chin hairs? Like, why aren't we talking about this stuff? I I had no idea this is a thing that happened, you know. And when she said, Oh yeah, I just pluck them, it was like all the tension left my body. You know what I mean? It was like, oh does she have them too? Does she have them too? You know, yes, everybody you know goes through this thing when your hormones aren't balanced and you start getting hair. And it was a huge, huge relief. And I did not feel alone in that problem. And it really occurred to me, I really understood the truth of if everybody was honest, if everybody shared their story, nobody would feel alone in the small things or the bigger things, or the things that got you into some hot water, or the secret you're keeping from your husband, or the secret you've kept from yourself since you're five years old. Or that's the thing about sexual abuse too. You know, most women don't come out with their story until they're in their 50s when they've been abused as we hold that story in our bodies, partly to protect others, yeah, and partly because we don't know what else to do with that story. It's just buried so long and so deep, you know. Yeah. And I think the a I you probably know better than I do, but I I read the average age is 54 when women come out from sexual abuse and when they are little. So I mean, holding these stories in our bodies, like you said earlier, creates all this disease. So I don't know.

unknown: 19:45

Yeah.

Julie: 19:45

Any anything that you're holding as a secret, any secret gurgle you have in, I always tell people find a friend or a therapist. Find someone you can trust and just start releasing the pressure.

Speaker 3: 19:58

Yeah.

Julie: 19:58

You know, you don't have to like All at once. And certainly don't tell people that haven't earned your trust, but start shining a little light on. You know, start shining a little light on, a little more light, a little more light.

Mary: 20:12

Well, first, I pluck my chin hairs too, Julie. I'm gonna let you know that. Um and I actually have a best friend who we can talk about all this stuff. So it was no surprise that when they started sprouting, I'm like, oh yeah. Um so one of the things that I think that we underestimate is the gift we give to other people when we're honest. So we tend to focus on our fear and and warranted because the viciousness of society now on social media is just, I mean, it's unprecedented. But that is the problem of that person. So that person's judgment isn't about you at all, it's about them. And when you have that, I'll say courage to be honest, these are the things that happen, just like you're describing. You have other people that are like, oh, yeah, like this is what happened to me. And we tend to not think about our honesty being a gift to someone else. We tend to think about it reflecting poorly on us, being judged. And that's gonna happen. That will happen. But I feel like not only for my life, but the majority of my clients, when they finally do give air and light to that thing, they're like, oh my God, that was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And thinking about it as that deep sharing that women do. We are here really, I believe our friendships are one of the most magical things that we can have. And so when we share that authenticness with someone, I think that's that opens them up too. And we don't often think about that.

Julie: 21:59

I believe that we're wired to be concerned with ourselves first. So when you know, we're the only ones that can feel this pain. We're the only ones, and and it is unique to us. We we from our perspective and our lens and all the things, it is very unique to us. I'm not taking anything away from the pain. Also, I believe in general, we're wired to not not want to feel the pain. And so we push it off and push it off and push it off. And it's easier to say I'll deal with this tomorrow. And when you do tell someone, it's not like the pain goes away. You've opened up the wound. Yeah. Now you now it's ready to heal. You can start healing it, or you can push it back down. You know, it's so you have all these choices every day. And so when I opened up that wound, I uh that first wound I told you about, I I opened it that much. And then I that was it. That was all the all the healing I was willing to do at the time. This this healing with letting my first son go has taken 15 years to arrive. We heal in layers, we heal in w where we are at the moment. So so what I say, put light on the wound, it's not like you're gonna put light on the wound and the angels are gonna sing. You're gonna put light on the wound and you'll begin to heal. And you'll heal to the point where you're ready to face things. And then maybe a little later, another year, whatever, a year or six months or whatever, you might be ready to heal a little more. And and something else will come up that will help you heal a little more. So it is, it's a a whole process and part of the healing, part of the dark night of the soul is feeling those feelings. Obviously, when I was putting my son up for adoption, I couldn't deal with all the emotions and all the feelings I had at the time. I couldn't do it. I had to bury them. I wouldn't have survived. I just wouldn't have. Uh and so for my own survival, I shoved everything down. And then it and then over the period of time I dealt with it a little bit, dealt with a little bit, dealt with a little bit. Until now, where I actually I feel like I did the best I could. And I I did what was right at the time for me.

Speaker 3: 24:14

Yeah.

Julie: 24:15

Would I make that choice now? No, I wouldn't. But the 18-year-old Julie did, and she needed to.

Speaker 3: 24:22

Yeah.

Julie: 24:22

So it's it's forgiving that version of yourself, that past version, that little girl, that lost teenager, you know?

Speaker 3: 24:31

Yeah.

Julie: 24:31

And holding her close and and so you can grow into this next version of you. You've got to let these older versions go to find this new version of you. You so you can have more space to grow into this thing. I describe forgiveness like um, like an octopus. So we go along life and we're we have our little arms and we're carrying this wound from when I was five, and we're carrying this wound from when I was 18, and we're carrying this. Whether it's forgiving yourself or forgiving others, we're we're carrying them all around and we carry them to the office, we carry them to bed, we carry them in every relationship we have. And when our all our arms are full, we just we don't have any room to reach out to for something new. Yeah, you know, so it's hard to change and grow when you're like lugging all the stuff around. When we start to forgive ourselves and others, we can release those things from our arms, and then our arms are free to love, our arms are free to grow and find new versions. And so I I think about that on my own life, all the things I draw, I drug around to be accepted and not to wreck any boats and to um to not have to deal with the pain, like all the things. But it just stunted my growth. Yeah, it just stunted this new version of I tell I tell people I'd never go back to I love me and I love my age. I j I do, I just love it. I would never go back to any other age. I've had 200 lives since then. You know, I've had all these different versions, all these different uh additions of who I am, and and I love her. Yeah, you know, and I have forgiven all the past versions for what they had to do to survive. And you know, it just it just is what it is, and that is life. I I see people my age who are holding on so tight to past experiences and past versions, and they just can't let go. And they're not they're not ready. And some people might not ever be ready in this lifetime.

Speaker 3: 26:37

Yeah.

Julie: 26:38

And uh that's okay too. But for me, um, I'm like the sky's the limit. I want to like find, I want to dig up everything that's left in there. Hey, what, hey, what's down there? You know, what's left in there? Because I'm ready to for this next version.

Mary: 26:53

Yeah, it's interesting because every now and then I'll ask a guest if you could go back and change something, what would you change? And so often I hear I wouldn't change anything because I wouldn't be here without that. And you know, I I think the other thing that you bring up that I want to acknowledge as a therapist is when you start to unearth things, it hurts like hell. And I think I call it the junk drawer. So, you know, it's the place we throw all the stuff we don't know what to do with. And then when we finally open it, we're like, oh my God, you mean I have to take out all the stuff in here and actually look at it. And and so I tell my clients, you're gonna feel worse before you feel better. And often what you said happens, they'll come, they'll talk for a bit and then they ghost me. And I don't take that personally. It's more like, okay, they got to a point, like you're saying, and they needed a break. And often, and I worked with college students for a long time. So I would have them for the four years that they're there and they would come and go. And each time they would come back, it was, you know, at first they're like, I'm sorry. I'm like, you do not have to apologize. But let's start, where are you now? And I want people to recognize that just like a lot of things, it's not linear. And it it isn't like when you finally sit down. First of all, I tell people all the time when they'll say, like, I'm gonna, I, you know, they'll apologize or they'll they'll talk about their story, like what you're saying with shame and embarrassment. And I say, I've done this 35 years. Every story is unique, but there's not much I haven't heard. Yeah. And the gift of therapy is that you get unconditional positive regard. It doesn't matter what you say, and it's really powerful, but it's also a really difficult process. So finding a person that you feel comfortable to do that with, that's not everyone, you know. And so I just wanted to kind of acknowledge that if there is someone that is listening to you and thinking it's time for me to give light and air to this. And I can't, you know, especially our generation, therapy, as you're talking about, like my parents would have never taken me to a therapist because that just that's not what they did. This is actually my dad's birthday when we're recording this. He would have been, he would have been 99 today. So he was very proud of what I chose to do. But so I think it's important to recognize all of that. When you are unearthing things, it's not all of a sudden, oh, I'm just it's not gonna float away like a red balloon. It's something where you're peeling the layers back as you have the strength to do that. Yeah, and you have to deal with those layers.

Julie: 29:38

Yeah. You're right. It's just like a junk drawer. It's funny you say that because in in my book I say it's like a dark room. It's like a room.

Speaker 3: 29:46

Yeah.

Julie: 29:47

That out with all the stuff you inherited, you don't even know what's in there. And you have to unearth everything and figure out do you keep it? Is this my another thing I ask myself is, you know, because we inherit a lot of things too. A lot of ideas, a lot of um stories, a lot of we just inherit a lot. So some of it's not even ours. So I will tell when you think about a room or a junk drawer, I like to think about it as um a lot of stuff you inherited, a lot of stuff you don't even know what's in there. And you can ask yourself, is this even mine? Do I want it? So I always tell people if you want to know what you believe, listen to the story you're repeating in your head. People always want to know how to like manifest money. Well, if you're if you're saying, Oh, I want to make a million dollars, I want to make a dollars, and then in your head you're thinking, I can't pay my car payment, you're there's a big disconnect. It's the same, it's the same, is that your story? Or is that your parents' story? Did you hear that growing up? Or is that, you know, it's I think it's really important to figure out, is this even yours? Is this even something you want to take ownership of? And if it is, are you ready to tell another story? Like, are you ready to let that go and tell another story? The thing about unearthing stuff, I will say is important too is you don't want to live in the story. So you want to unearth it. You know, just like when I say, Hey, I gave my son up for adoption, and I'm not living in that place anymore. I'm telling it as um as literally a helpful tool for other people. So I'm not like playing the same story in my head. Like, oh, I shouldn't have done it, I shouldn't have done it. So when we start to heal, you can tell when people get stuck in a place.

Speaker 2: 31:36

Yeah.

Julie: 31:36

Because the story is that thing. You'll hear them say it, oh, my mom did this, or when I was five, you know, like you'll hear the story over and over. And that's what I'm talking about. Do I want to stay in the story? Or am I ready to let the story go and rewrite the narrative? I don't have to live here anymore. So I think that's important too with healing. You things come up that might not even have been your idea or your you know, we we I was brought up in church and my mom wasn't religious, my dad was. And I would come back from church and I would be so confused over what I learned in Sunday school. I just didn't get it, you know, like wait, wait, wait, wait. And so I'd ask him, Dad, so explain the sins of the father. So if you go and do something bad on responsible, I don't understand, you know. And hit he gave me the answer he knew, and that was yes, the sins of the now I I do get the spiritual lineage of that. I get how that works. But the truth is I don't have to carry those. You know, I can reconcile them at any time. Yeah, and that's that's the thing. We don't have to live in this narrative recreated. We can we can rewrite the narrative. And so it's so important when we're stuck and we're starting to heal, and and you hear the same thing playing in your head, to start asking questions as an uh an observer instead of living in that old story. Is this mine? Do I want to keep it? Am I ready to change it? Does it need healing? Just start pretending you're your therapist. Ask some questions to yourself. And I do want to say something about therapy. I love therapy. And I had the best therapist, and I wouldn't be where I am today without her. She was amazing and um so kind. Just exactly what I needed when I needed it. And she allowed me the space and love. She held me so that she just was so good. I was able to unburden a lot. She was a very safe space for me to do that before I took it out in the world. And as a matter of fact, at one point at another story that we'll talk about if I'm on your show again, uh something so dark and so deep, I had to write down on a piece of paper and I had to read it. So I want to tell people too, that if you're not ready to speak it out loud, if you have a good therapist or someone you really trust, you can write it down. It's easier sometimes when it's buried so deep. There's all kinds of ways to do it. But always give your story to someone who deserves it, whether it's a therapist you trust or if you happen to have a really good friend that you can say stuff to that's not gonna judge you. This is a really important place to have boundaries. You don't want to tell someone who can't hold the story for you.

Mary: 34:31

Yeah. And you know, it does take time to trust a therapist, but in it part of the whole process is there are protections built into the process and that can make it a little bit easier. But yeah, um, so the one of the other things that I wanted to kind of pull into this discussion is the idea of self-loathing. Now, I'm I have a degree in English. I words to me are they they are so important, especially in how we talk to ourselves. So I'm sure that when I say that you help people go from self-loathing to self-love, there are people thinking right now, I don't loathe myself. And I would say maybe listen to what your words are in your head, and you're talking about the narrative. What is the narrative? And often the narrative isn't this happened and then this happened. It's this happened and this is my fault. I caused this, I contributed to this. And again, I as an analogy, I talk about the rocks that we're carrying in our backpack. You talk about the octopus. So we have an awful lot of rocks in our backpack that if we actually look at them, they're not even ours to carry. So talk a little about how do you get someone to first recognize that what they actually are doing is a little bit of loathing of who they are. And then how do you move that, help someone move that to just loving their who they are?

Julie: 36:03

This is actually my favorite topic in the whole world. Because what I used to say to myself, I wouldn't say to my best friend. It you are your own best friend. If you don't feel that when you look in the mirror, if you don't feel that when you're sitting with yourself, um, I happen to be alone a lot. My husband travels and and um I actually and I I have friends and I'm like I'm going to lunch with friends today. I it's not like but I like being alone. But what goes on in my head is really important, right? So I'll I'll tell you when I was younger, when I was about 30 something, um a friend of mine, I was saying, I was saying something, it must have been really negative, and she said, Don't talk about my best friend like that. And that was another pivotal moment in my life. It was like, oh, and I really got that language. And then I took it a step further, like, well, I I was born with myself, and I'm gonna die with myself. And everywhere in between, I should be my best friend. I should be the person who loves me the most. And so I from that moment I started working on that. And that that took some time, I'll be brutally honest. It was very hard because I grew up in a family that looks were really important, and presenting yourself to the world in a certain way was really important. Now, we were poor, but and so we had this thing like you can be poor, but you gotta have class, you know. And we and we had a thing, you know, my mom would say, Yeah, yeah, them. And what she meant was like rich people or that, you know, like all this stuff. So we I had all these notions in my head from a really young age about things. And so when I looked in the mirror, I was never good enough. I never liked what I saw. And certainly would never look in the mirror naked. I mean, I've really avoided eye contact when I got out of the shower. And as I started on the self-love journey, I started doing mirror work. And it sounds so corny, and it um feels very corny when you first do it. I I don't if you're not old enough, this for your audience, you won't remember this, but Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, it's a big thing. You know, he would look in the mirror and say, I I love myself, people love me, you know, it's like this whole thing. And they made a joke out of it. It's the right thing to do. You have to be able to look in your own eyeballs and say, I love you. You did a great job today. Thank you. Thank you for all you did today. Like it's so important to appreciate and acknowledge yourself in a way you would your best friend because you are your best friend. And you can only give someone else what you have. So if you don't have the love deep down for yourself, you can't give that to someone else. You can only give what you have. There's no there's no giving more than that. Man, that sounds a little brutal because oh no, I love my son way more than I love me. That's not true. You put more expectations on him. You can only give what you have, what you know. So my goal in life is to love myself so much that that's all I have for the world. You could because you can't have hate and love in the same thing, right? And I am not there yet, because there's with all the divide and all the things, there's believe me, I'll look at Instagram and go, so I do love myself. I I do, I look in the mirror, I go I come out of the shower naked, I thank my body, and I'm Hey, I'm not the size I was at 30, and that's okay. My body's healthy and strong. It gets me from point A to point B. I fell sexy in it. I I thank it. I thank it when I wake up in the morning. Thank you for my legs. Thank you for my hands, thank you, whatever it is. Thank you for my smile. I will tell your Listeners, if the first thing you wake up and do is complain or start negative, oh, I'm so sore. Oh, how did morning happen this fast? I didn't get enough sleep. Stop. Tell you just tell yourself, stop. Wake up and say, Thank you, I'm alive. Thank you, I'm alive. And then find things to be grateful for. Thank you, I'm alive. Thank you. If you know, you you just had a guest on that that went blind. So maybe it's thank you for my sense of smell. It's what do you have?

Speaker 3: 40:32

Yeah.

Julie: 40:33

And not that everything's perfect, but focus on the things that you love and the things that you love about yourself and things you love about your life. And then aim. Then you can aim for higher. But if you're coming out of the gate negative, it's really hard to have a positive day. So anyway, I love this this well, I said earlier, the stories you tell yourself are what you believe. So when you start listening to stories you set you're telling yourself about yourself, although I'm so stupid. Yeah. That was so dumb. Oh my God, I look so fat. Let me think of some other things I might have said to myself. Why would I say that to him? That was like, you know, he must think I'm an idiot. You know, these things would come in my head because I was always performing for love and working so hard for approval. Everything I said I had under a microscope, everything. I I did not say two words without analyzing those two words. And it was a brutal way to live. So I did. A lot of days I I'd be in a meeting or leave a meeting and think, oh my God, you're so stupid. Why would you say that? Now he's probably mad at you and blah, blah, blah, blah. You gotta go fix that. You know, you gotta go fix that. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like all this stuff. I spent my whole day obsessing about what I did wrong. When in reality, no one else really cared. You know, everybody else went on with their day. And I was just spending my life's energy. I want people to understand too that life is energy. So when you're putting energy to something like that, you're not spending your life's energy on creating this fabulous life. You're spending your life's energy on negativity and what didn't work and you know, on all this stuff. So the first thing I did was I would literally tell myself to stop when I would have, oh, Julia was so dumb. And I would I trained myself to hear it. Because that's the first thing you have to do is recognize it. Because we do it so um yeah, automatically. Automatically, it doesn't even register that we're doing it. And I asked my closest friends to tell me if I said something negative. And I told them why why. So I had some allies that and so I started catching it. I started catching it. And the more I caught it and said, just stop. And then I would have a little mantra, I would say. Um, which I will affirmations and mantras are great for this process because it it fills a void. And anytime there's a void, you want to fill it. Your brain wants to fill it. So instead of like, I'm so stupid, I would say, you're doing great, you're doing the best you can. It it doesn't have to be something like high in that sky, spiritual or huge. It just I'm so stupid went from no, no, you're doing great, you're doing the best you can, or I don't like what I see in the mirror. I'm so fat. Oh my God, your body is amazing. Think of all the miracles that have to happen in this very second for your body for to do this, to do that. All the things that are happening, all the atoms, all the cells, all the it's a miracle, and it's God's gift to you. What better gift do you ever get in your lifetime than your body? You've got to appreciate this gift. And so that's how I changed that. So now I don't look at the extra 10 pounds. I look at not that I'm not trying to be healthy and I don't exercise and I don't do all the things because I do. I'm very into my health. But my body's changed. It's not the same. So I accept that. I don't resist it. I just accept it. I love it. And I just work hard on health, on on that input. So I know that was a long answer, but um, but self-love is a complicated question. And it's yes. And the first thing to do is catch your thoughts and then have something you can replace them with. Easy, that's easy at hand. It doesn't have to be hard.

Mary: 44:22

Yeah, and uh it's something that people do struggle with. And so I sort of back it up even a step. If you're feeling crappy, be curious about what did I just say that maybe is making me feel that embarrassment or shame or whatever that feeling that and and really when you start the things you're talking about, this opening yourself, truly looking at yourself without judgment, it is cringy as hell. It really is. You got but it's getting to the next thing. And really, you sort of mentioned this a bit, it using humor, you know, like um I one time I did improv with my husband in the last year, which is something I never thought I would do. And he's he's pretty introverted. So it was his it was his um idea. So I'm like, all right, let's do it. Well, we ended up loving it, and so one of the things I read that really resonated with me was a woman wrote something about when she does something and in the past would have been like, oh, that was idiotic. Now she's like and scene. So she just sort of makes it like, I just, you know, I it was an improv scene, it was supposed to be funny. And so I think the more we can inject that lightness into it, because whatever it is, it's done. Like if you're if you have anxiety about the past, it's it's already done. So what you're doing is you're ruining the present. So kind of that, yeah, that acceptance. But the self-love, I think, is a very difficult task. And so I think if you can know going into it, that you don't just flip a switch and oh, this is great. I love myself. I'm not gonna self-judge, use some humor, recognize that it's gonna feel a little like you're gonna squirm against the cringe, but just a little bit each day. And you did talk about gratitude. And the guest that I had, Laura, that went blind as a teenager, she talks about gratitude. That it at the end of the day, the gratitude might be thank God this day is over. But you know, there's that humor again, but there's always something to be thankful for. So we have talked about so many awesome things. I really honestly think we could talk another hour. Oh, thank you.

Julie: 46:37

So I know I could talk to you for hours. I feel like I feel like we could be best friends.

Speaker 3: 46:42

Uh-huh.

Julie: 46:43

But uh, you're right. I let me just say one more thing about self-love and then I'll tell because the and I said this in the thing. If you just ask yourself, would I say this to my best friend? And if the answer is no, don't say it to yourself. Then or think it. And that's that's that. I mean, would you say this to anybody else? No. Anyway. Um so my new book, you mentioned it earlier, is Roar. And Roar stands for reclaiming your voice, owning your story, aligning in your truth, and radiating your light. And it's my journey. It's how I got here and all the pain and all the process and all the light. And um I my greatest hope is that it helps people and that I I can reach, I can help people go through all the things I've gone through just with a little grace, a little easier, maybe, or or let people know there's light and they're okay. Yeah, they're gonna be okay. Yeah, and you can find me um at hello julieheaton.com. That's my website. I'm on Instagram, helloJulieheaton.com, and and TikTok um at Julie Heaton official. And um, that's where people can find me. I like to work one-on-one with people. I'm gonna start doing some workshops around the new book. But in the next month uh or two, you'll be able to find that book on my website and and probably Amazon.

Mary: 48:07

Well, thank you so much for what a great discussion this has been. Thank you. I appreciate it. Oh, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. And I want to thank everyone for listening. Please forward this episode to another amazing woman who is ready to shine. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.