Raw, Messy & Very Real: The Journey Back to Your Authentic Self

🎙️ WHO ARE YOU BENEATH SURVIVAL MODE?
A Conversation on Healing and Authenticity with Elisha May

What if the version of yourself you've been showing the world isn't who you truly are?

In this powerful episode of Breaking Curses with Excellence, host Christy sits down with Elisha May, Intuitive Energy Coach and Founder of Freedom of Self®, for a deeply honest conversation about trauma, grief, survival mode, people-pleasing, self-worth, and the journey back to your authentic self.

Elisha shares her personal experiences navigating PTSD, loss, emotional suppression, and the process of reclaiming her identity after years of surviving rather than truly living.

Together, Christy and Elisha discuss:

✨ Healing from trauma and PTSD

✨ Grief, loss, and rebuilding your identity

✨ Breaking free from people-pleasing

✨ Emotional safety and self-worth

✨ Trusting your intuition

✨ Living authentically and unapologetically

✨ Moving from survival mode to self-trust

✨ What Freedom of Self® really means

If you've ever felt disconnected from yourself, struggled to prioritize your own needs, or wondered who you are beneath the expectations of others, this episode is for you.

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🎙️ GUEST: ELISHA MAY

Intuitive Energy Coach

Founder, Freedom of Self®

Helping soul-led humans return to truth, freedom, and alignment.

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✨ CONNECT WITH ELISHA MAY

🌐 Website:
https://www.freedomofself.com

📧 Email:
elisha@elisha-may.com

📸 Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/iamelishamay

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🎙️ HOST: CHRISTY

Honorary Doctorate in Humanitarian Services

Trauma-Informed Life Coach

Mindset & Empowerment Coach

Speaker & Podcast Host

Author

Founder, Breaking Curses with Excellence

🌐 Website:
https://www.therusmix.com

💜 Explore coaching, books, speaking engagements, personal development resources, and more.

Breaking Cycles. Building Self-Worth. Leading with Purpose.

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🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, and everywhere podcasts are available.

#TraumaHealing #PTSDRecovery #GriefHealing #PeoplePleasingRecovery #SelfWorth #AuthenticLiving #PersonalGrowth #EmotionalHealing #FreedomOfSelf #BreakingCursesWithExcellence

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to this episode of Breaking Curses with Excellence. I'm your host, Christy Christina. I have today a friend from across the pond.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

I love it. I love it. Kindred spirits. Great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Kindred spirits. So Alicia, tell us a little bit about your journey. What got you to the place you are at right now? Share whatever you like. We're being real, right? What you you tell me the three words again.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

What's the three words? We're being raw, messy, and very real.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

There we go. There we go. Tell us all about it.

unknown 0:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So it's it's a very long story, but in a nutshell, um, I knew as um as a child that I had um intuitive abilities, I was very sensitive. At 11, I was told I could um use energy. So I knew I was an energy worker from a very young age, but life life happened, you know, you get into societal stuff and you've got to go to uni, you've got to get a job, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I always listened to my body at very young age, and I'd have these energetic experiences that I learned later on what they were representing. And I thought, you know, when I was I'd done university, I'd done several jobs, um, because I'm a multi-passionate person and everything fascinates me. Everything. I'm like a little four-year-old. So yeah, and so I did my art degree, tried a load of other things, and then I thought, right, what's next? And I thought, oh, corporate, yeah, that's the next, you know, thing. And I'll never forget this day. I was walking down the street and my soul just went, yeah, um, if you want to sell your soul and get sick, and I thought, oh no, I don't want to do that. I won't go to London. Let's think of something else. Um, and so I started traveling and I thought, well, I I love, I love traveling, I love exploring new things. And I thought, great, I I need to work, I need to make money, I don't know what I want to do. I was only 23.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I knew I liked traveling. So then I started traveling, went to Kenya, then I decided, oh, let's go to America. And I went to America and was a nanny in New York, where that is a whole conversation. That is where I got my first proper dose of PTSD. And yeah, sadly, the woman really traumatized me. Obviously, you know, looking back, I have to take responsibility for not getting myself out of it sooner. I tried diplomatically, but anyway, I stayed in it for too long, got PTSD, came home, then a couple of and I didn't know I say that, I did know I had PTSD, but at 24, 25, and you've been a nanny, I remember being in Heathrow coming back, and I was an absolute mess. And I saw my parents and I just collapsed on the floor. And I remember thinking, I'm sure I've got PTSD, what people from the army get, but I was like, but I'm 25, I haven't been shot at. Don't be so stupid. Get up, get going. So anyway, several um months later, I went, I was again, I was I was in survival mode. So I was in survival mode. I didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted to live, I wanted to settle down, I wanted, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was chaos, I was in I had internal chaos. So I did the French Alps for a couple of months, got really, really sick, came back. Then within two weeks, my mum has um her third psychosis, but the first one that I witnessed.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And then, and again, more PTSD, more trauma, and it's compounding. At this point, it's compounding. And I don't yeah, and I don't know this. And then six months later, I'm in New York visiting my friends because my parents said, Go off, have the summer that you wanted to have at the end that you didn't get. So I went over the night before I was due to fly back, my brother killed himself completely out the book. Oh my god, that is where everything ended, but simultaneously began. If that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

No, it absolutely does to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

And so I I was saying to somebody the other day on a podcast that the because I I experience my energy body and my my nervous system and everything about myself being an empath and a sensitive and an intuitive, right? Everything's very visceral, it's a very visceral, intense experience for me, where it almost feels like an exorcism when I go through my deep healings and things like that. And so I remember at the time, those first few days of him passing, there was this fragmentation process in my body. I could just feel this disconnect, I could feel this separation between my body and my head, and as if something had then gone out of my body and was no longer in my body.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

So I remember very clearly, and this is 14 years ago, and I remember very clearly this sensation of who do I who do I be in this? Do I do I be the version of me that just wants to break down and cry? Do I want to be the younger sister? Do I want to be the daughter? Do I want to be the higher self? Do I want to be the survival mode? Do I want to cry? Do I want to rant? Like, who which version of me should I be in this in this situation? So I'll finish off. Um then I, as you do, end up going into unhealthy relationships. I trauma bonded with somebody who had PTSD who was ex-military. And then I was drinking myself to sleep. Um, for almost nine months, I couldn't sleep. I was so traumatized. I was drinking myself to sleep. Valium became my best friend. Um, then about a year later, my body just spoke to me and it said, You've got to stop doing this, you have one kidney. And I was like, Yeah, I know, but I don't know how to do this. And so I spoke to the GP and I was with a psychotherapist at the time, and I'm sure we'll go on to this in a minute. But when you've lived this stuff and got yourself through it, you can spot it in anybody a mile off. But when you've just read about it for five years at university, you haven't got a fucking clue because survival mode is so brilliant at looking like you've got your shit together on the outside, but internally you are fucked. Excuse the language.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

No, but you're right.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So and so I went, so they didn't know I had PTSD. I wasn't dealing with my PTSD at all at this point.

unknown 6:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

And I went on to antidepressants, it was like a lesser of two evils. So I went on to antidepressants and was just in survival mode. And I was living, quote marks, I was living, I was functioning. Yes, yes, getting up every day. Anyway, I fell into beauty therapy, self-employment. Um, and then years late, a couple of years later, I and I tried loads of things like typical entrepreneurial journey. And I was entrepreneurial at the age of 11 in primary school because I ran a bring and buy sale and I loved it, and I was organizing it. I loved it. And as you may or may may not appreciate that when you're a sensitive, particularly in those younger years, those teens and early 20s, if you haven't got the right people around you, you get all these conditioned, projected messages of you're too sensitive, you're to this, you're too. Oh, absolutely. But we're so called that. My family, even you're dealt into this. Right. And it's like, well, which version am I allowed to be? Can I be my loud self or can I be my quiet self? Like which which is allowed? Right. So so for seven years I'm fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, working, working in an unhealthy relationship, and just trying to figure my way out of it. And then one day I decide, right, enough's enough. Get off these antidepressants. And I tried about for about a year, I came off them. It was it was a very uncomfortable process. And this is about, I think, 2018 at this point.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

And I'm working, I'm what running my business, I'm running his business, and I'm working six, seven days a week, 12 hours a day. Like, why would you do that? Why would you do that? I I convinced myself, as we all do, there's a result at the end of this. Like, just keep going, just keep going.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Then it all come together. Yes. Right, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Then I'll get the money, then I'll be happy, then I'll be free.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

All that shit.

unknown 8:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So then, um, so then it gets to um 2019, end of 2019, beginning of 2020, and we break up for the for the third time and the last time we break up, and I'm 32, eight years ago, and I go home. I go home to my parents. I I admit defeat, so to speak, and I sell everything, pretty much everything I own. I sell it. I go from a three-bedroom to a one-bedroom annex in my parents' place. Wow. And talk about starting over, and then COVID hit the same time. COVID hit, took the time off because I had to, I couldn't legally work being a beauty therapist.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

And that was it. That was the beginning where I'd had the best summer off, but I didn't know who to be because I'd been living this false self for seven years. I wanted to be me, but I was like, but how do I bridge that? How how do I like how and I the anxiety that I had that summer, like I had beautiful country walks and I spent time with friends and my parents, and we we healed. Moving back with them was profound. Like there was a huge healing process that I didn't realize that I'd um what's the word? Um, I I didn't realize I denied us. I didn't realize. So we did a lot of healing, which was incredible. Um, and then it was the usual, it's the usual saying of when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

And right.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

And then a few months later, somebody introduces me to being an HSP, highly sensitive, and that was it. That was that that was when I just went into not free for, but it was almost like that, where all of a sudden I just got all these flashbacks of when I was five, when I was seven, when I was 12, when I was 14, when I was this, when I was that. It was like, oh, so this is why I'm the way I am. I am and even though I'd known I was an empath and sensitive, for some reason in 2020, autumn 2020, finding this out was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

And then you know what it does? You then research it, then you interact with people. And that's when I met that's when I met my first mentor who was an absolute, he he was exactly what I needed when I needed him, and that was very much the beginning. And as we both know, with the healing journey, it's constant.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

It's constant, it keeps going on and on. It does not stop.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Exactly. So, but I but obviously we have to get to a certain point, and so it was probably I started this work about four or five years ago, making it available to other people, but I've had but I was having side jobs, so really it's the last sort of like two years, 18 months, where it's like, no, I'm really serious about this. And um, I was given freedom of self about three years ago, trademarked it last year, um and and gave up my side jobs, and I am all in with this because I'm on a mission, Christy. I'm on a mission.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. Sorry, that was long. No, no, no, but but but you shared some very vulnerable things, you know, and and and you showed us um, you know, I think it's beautiful. I think it's absolutely beautiful that you move back with your parents. Like, I I I think that as adults, when we have those moments where we can go back to our mom and dad, you know, it's it's healing in a whole nother level, right? For all involved. All involved, you know. You know, it I I think it's so like I haven't gone back to my mom's house on this. Like there was a period where I did. I had when I came back from New York, I had to to to come to my mom's house first. But um our relationship is so different now, you know, it's it's so different, you know. There's some struggle with her um because of the life that I live. You know, I'm I am married to a woman, and so that's just struggle for her because she's very religious, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

But the way that I understand the way that I look at my ma is completely different. The way that I've been able to convey my forgiveness and absolute love for her. Um I hope it's healed her. I know it's healed me. It's made me feel so much better. Um it's it's amazing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Because I remember at the beginning there was this relief. Like I just I needed to just after seven years, ten years, seven seven, nine years of survival mode, to go back to my mum and dad's was a relief. Yes, it was an absolute, okay, finally I can just drop my armor and I I can stop pretending. I can stop pretending that I'm happy and successful. And and then what happened afterwards was the shame. Yes. The shame that came with going back to my parents in my 30s was like, you failure, like you, you are you are this, you are that. Like the shame was profound. And that that took me a lot to work through. Now I'm like, fuck it, I don't give a shit. That's my story. And and I'd go back again. Exactly. Like you said, like you said, like even though I I had a good relationship with my parents, moving back, it just cemented us back to who we were before my brother died, but on a much more deeper, slightly different way. And I was like, shit, I didn't realize we needed this, but we did.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

We didn't, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, um like I said, it's such a beautiful thing. There's a lot of parts of your story that are amazing, just realizing that, you know, no, I wasn't extra, I wasn't too sensitive. That is how I am. I remember a period in my life where um verbatim. I said to God, I hate that you made me this way. Why do I have to feel everything so much? And then at that, I'm he I'm feeling the worst part of things, like you know what I mean? Like, yes, this will be bad for somebody who who felt things normally, but this is like 10,000 times worse for me because I feel everything so deeply.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah, yeah, where it's where it's almost like physically painful, and like for me, like the amount of times I've spoken to God or the universe and said, like, what the fuck have you done? Like, how dare you? How dare you? Like, I want to check out this is how you make me feel, it's just too much.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Yes, yes, yes, yeah, absolutely. Yes, when does it stop? When does it stop? When did I get to feel the good? Come on.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah, when when do I get to feel normal?

SPEAKER_02 16:00

I don't want to feel things at this this level, I want to feel it the way they feel it. Or don't feel it for a matter of fact. Exactly. Yeah, so to so yes, thank you so much for sharing that with us so much. So much. So I know we talked about survival mode. Um can you help others who are listening identify what survival mode may look like before your healing journey starts? Like give them some for lack of a better word, some symptoms of being in survival mode.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I and I can only speak from my experience because again, I have I haven't read this and I haven't read it for five years in in a classroom. I've I've researched it myself, lived it. But yes, survival mode, um, it's it's kind of like a hyper-vigilance, it's very similar to hyper-vigilance. It's this you're constantly busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, and you don't like the quiet. You you quite often can't be in your own company. Um, you're on to the next thing, the next project, the next distraction, or the next coping mechanism. Um, so for me, I I had a drinking problem. I, like I said, I had you could say a drug problem. I I was I loved Valium for a bit. That was my fract. Um, and then there was a spot where I was, you know, smoking a bit of weed to calm my nervous system down. So I was using external things to calm myself down. Whereas now I don't need any of that.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Right, right, great, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I just need nature and quietness and to close my eyes. And with time, my nervous system regulates again. But it's this constant, just like busy, busy, busy, you're filling your diary. Um, quite often you might. So I suffered with insomnia really badly after my brother died, and for several, several years, up until recently, actually, the last couple of years. And so you might suffer with insomnia because you you're never allowing yourself to process to to decompress. Um, and survival mode as well is very it's like you say, I haven't got time for that. I haven't got time for fun, I haven't got time for play, I haven't got time to be happy, I haven't got time to feel love, to feel joy. It's like, no, I'm too busy doing life, whatever that means. Yes, yeah, and it's quite often people pleasing, and you're you're too busy worrying about everybody else's needs other than yours. And there's just uh for me, this huge profound feeling of disconnect, and I just felt disconnected in my body, and I just yeah, all those sort of uncomfortable feelings, and that's another thing. I remember for years feeling this sensation of okay, I'm being this version of myself. Why why do I get this feeling or this knowing that I actually want to be this version of me? Because she seems like I don't know, like kind of cool, and she doesn't give a shit about people in the nicest sense. Like she's living her life, she's happy, she she knows what to prioritize. But how can I how can I become her? How do I get there?

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Yeah, absolutely. I I that resonates with me so much because there were times in my life where I was very quiet, um, very quiet, very shy. Um, people got the wrong impression of me because of that, but there was this version of me inside my head who was like I am now, right? She's very outgoing, she's talking to people, she loves to laugh, she all the things, right? And so it wasn't until for me, until I learned Spanish and became a more around that community that that that version of me came out, you know. But um, yeah, definitely thought, like, yeah, she's cooler, like because she's just herself, and you know what I mean. She she says things and does things that make people laugh, and you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 20:17

She's laughing out loud, she doesn't take herself too serious, or you know, it just yeah, yeah, and it's and it's and it's this deep sensation of like I'm no longer apologizing for myself. Yes, I spent years apologizing for my sensitivity. Years, yes, apologizing for being quiet, but also apologizing for being loud and powerful and enthusiastic and passionate, and just this constant apologizing and fearing the truth of who I was.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

Yes, yes. I I have a very loud laugh, and that was punished um when I was a child, right? But um as I got older, you know, people people would say things like, Oh, Christina, everybody hears you, and oh, that's so loud, and I didn't care. I scared kept laughing. And I'm gonna you know what I mean. Like, if that's what they hear from me is laughter, then that's a good thing, right? Because it can be contagious. Maybe it'll make them laugh, maybe it'll give them a smile for the day. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not ashamed of that, but that was getting to that version of me that was okay being me. Yeah, no matter where I'm at, no matter how bothered you are.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

I love nothing, yeah. I love nothing more than hearing somebody laugh because it makes me laugh. I just it's contagious. Yes, yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

It's contagious, and then when other people laugh, like you you just even if it's been a rough day, a rough life, if you can just laugh for a few moments, it it brings your spirit up. Oh, you know, it does, and so I I I resonate with that, like, yeah, being yourself, being comfortable to be yourself. It and I'm even more so now, but even at that point, um, I was okay unapologetically for my last. Yes. So for high functioning people, right? Why do so many of them struggle with an emotional um suppression and self-sabotage? Like, why do because it it's almost synonymous with being high functioning. You know what I mean? Like it means you're suppressing a lot. Um, so can you give us some insight on that?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah, so it's it's very, yeah, it was very much again. This is my experience and my observations. It's this because we're high functioning, if our system is running on the right fuel, like we're unstoppable. Sensitive, high-functioning people, we're unstoppable. And when you're in that survival mode of high functioning, you feel that you can't stop. Because if you stop, you don't again, you don't know which version you're gonna be. And you're like, but what if that version can't function? What if I can't show up for work? What if I can't show up in my relationships? And you just keep going, you keep going, you keep going. Because again, it's that story of like one day, one day, one day, I can't stop because I've got this edge about me, and I can't stop because I need this edge to be able to do my business, to do, to run the company, to blah, blah, blah, like whatever it is. And there's this kind of for me, it was this also this fear of if I stopped and got honest with myself, went through the process. One, I didn't know who I would gonna be become, but I was also terrified of how happy I could be, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

No, I mean it does. I think we don't recognize it or acknowledge it, but yes, it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Right. Like I was almost terrified because I'd lost my brother, and I was like, I had the guilt of I mustn't be happy. I'm not allowed to be happy. And so for me, it was this fear of happiness, fear of love, fear of crumbling and opening up my Pandora's box and never closing it again, and so terrified of the ver like, because I didn't know that real version of me. Even though I did know her, I didn't know if she could cope with life. I had no evidence that she could survive in this world. But this high functioning survival version was like, well, I'm surviving in this world, like I'm doing life conventionally, like surely this is okay. Um, so you know, but obviously we haven't got time today, but as we both know, it, you know, when you go back, it's unmet child needs, it's conditioning, it's wounding, and it could well be a trauma response, you know, very simply. Um, you know, where the parents didn't say the right things at the right time, or perhaps one of the parents was alcoholic, and so the sibling feels like, well, I need all this external validation to be seen and heard and valued and respected. So they're seeking all that external validation. Um yeah. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

I just absolutely no, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. You're fine. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Um, I think I think a lot of us, you know, while we may not have had such a horrible experience of our sibling, we have other reasons in our lives that we think we shouldn't be happy, right? I don't get to be happy because, you know, whatever it is. Um, so I think that's really important. I appreciate that you're prefacing everything with the fact that this is your experience, what you've had, because that that that's that's what it's about. We don't want to come off as the experts, the final say, but we share what we've learned, we share the lessons so that when it can resonate with somebody, you know, they can take benefit um from it. So that's just a reminder for the show. Yeah, it's it's this it's all about sharing our experience. Um, so thank you for for saying that. Um it's so you know, grief is universal. Yeah, I mean it it's such a horrible thing, but it's such a beautiful thing at the same time, right? So you you're you're grieving the love that you had, the bonds you had, the experiences, the life you had with this person. Um, but it's such a deep hole that gets left. So, can you talk to us a little bit how grief and life experience reshaped your identity identity? I know you just talked about it, you know, I don't get to be happy, you know what I mean? But with yourself, like how did that affect your relationship with yourself? Because we're I mean we're experiencing it in our home right now. So any any insight you can share with that?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, so again, you know, like we said, it's universal and it comes in different shapes and sizes, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:41

Yes, it does, yes, it does.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

And and it's it's so unique to the individual and it's so nuanced. And I've I've had people say to me, um, their mum passed away, and because they had a very fractured relationship, people have made them feel like, oh, you're not crying about your mum, like, why aren't you grieving? And it's like, actually, I'm kind of relieved. And with my brother, I had people say to me, almost like, get over it, he's just your brother. And like, why is it bothering you so much? Like, why is it affecting you? Because they didn't have a good relationship with their sibling. So again, we we have these projections, and it's a case of, well, clearly you've never truly experienced grief at the ultimate level. Because if you have, you'll understand it's nuanced, it's individual, and it's so dependent on the connection that you've had. So, so for me, uh, it was it was the first, it was the first grief I've truly had on on a monumental scale that broke me. It absolutely broke me. Um, because at the time my mum was recovering from her psychosis, my dad was compromised, his child had just killed himself, and his wife was was sick. Um, so I I'd lost everything that day. I I had no foundations, and the one person I needed was the one person that had gone.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

So I so with when it comes to my identity, it's it was just a constant conflict in my body. And I remember going to like a couple of like medium type people or tarot readers, and over the those seven years, and they would often say, Oh, there's there's conflict, there's a battle going on inside you. And I remember just being like, Yeah, terrific. How do I solve that?

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Right, right, right. I mean, okay, glad you identified it, but how do we know from here?

unknown 28:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And that's that's what really annoys me about certain people that have read about this shit and haven't actually walked the walk because they'll point this shit out, and then you're like, Great, you've given me the answer, but not the how. Whereas with my clients, I'll I'll point this shit out and I'll show you fucking how. Um, so so yes, sorry, going back to the identity, it was do you know what I remember being such a victim with it at times. There was this the the world owed me. Like the world owed me big time because it's put me like I was like, God, how dare you, how dare you put me through this? How dare you take him away from me? You know, there was I I I really was in that victimhood for for quite a while. Um, I was so angry, so angry. And I remember doing things, saying things that looking back, I'm like, shit, I can't believe I did that. That that was embarrassing. That that's uh that's not cool. That's not cool. Yes, yes, but when you're destroyed, when you're in that survival mode, and you've got nobody to guide you through it, you end up going into that almost animalistic part of you that is so immature, that is so broken and lost. And so, yeah, I I just remember having a real sort of chip on my shoulder for years, and um, and at the same time, it's funny. I remember flying home the night he died. Uh, I knew in the morning, and I was flying home from New York, and I was crying my eyes out in the plane. I was writing to him, and um, it's quite funny actually. The guy sat next to me, fuck knows what he thought, because I was crying silently, I was sobbing for like six hours writing, and God knows, I I think I I could feel he felt really uncomfortable, and and I was like, I'm really sorry, but I just like and I just you know went to the window. And I remember another hostess, she came along and she said, Are you are you all right? Totally British of me. I'm fine, I'm home, I'm fine, can I just have some tissues, please? And then and then a couple of years later, a couple of months later, I was saying this story to somebody, and they're like, Why don't you tell her? I was like, Well, I don't want to be an inconvenience again. People pleasing, and you know what, Christina? I wish I'd said, Yeah, I'm fucking shit, man. My brother's just killed himself. Like, what the fuck do I do? And then bump me up to first class, will you?

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Hello, do something, give me something, don't do anything.

unknown 31:26

I know.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

So it's so funny that in the moment I didn't want to be an inconvenience, yet months and even a couple of years later, I was in this give me, the world owes me. Like the world owes me. Yes, like that's an insane identity to be carrying. But the whole time, even on that plane, I remember something saying to me, I know this is the worst thing that could ever. And it was, it was my worst nightmare made real. And uh, because I remember saying to him several times growing up as kids, like, don't ever leave me, like, promise me you'll never let girlfriends get between us. And he was like, No, I'm never gonna leave you, I'm never gonna leave you. Like, we're besties, and we were, we were like twins, but there was four and a half years between us. Um, so yeah, so it was almost like I kind of knew intuitively that one day he would put it.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

He would leave you. Yeah, yes, even from being a little girl, like he felt it.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

And I always and I sorry, I've gone on a tangent, but I also remember. Thank you. I I also remember growing up, um, especially as a teenager and an early 20-year-old before he died. I you I had this knowing, and that's the thing with humans. We have so much knowing in us, and we just don't trust it and believe it enough. Anyway, I had this, I had this knowing that I was like, why do I get the feeling that my first funeral is gonna be my worst? It's gonna be somebody really, really close. Yeah, it was crazy. This overwhelming sensation, and I just picked it on to my gran because I thought, well, she's the oldest, she'll go first, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_03 33:07

And I was close to her.

unknown 33:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

She's my only grandparent. And then lo and behold, my first proper ever funeral was my worst. And it actually was the one person I didn't realize, and it was my brother. Um, so it's so interesting that we have these knowings. And so at the time, I remember being on the plane, and even it through those years, something every now and then would say to me, It's like, I know this is the worst thing to have happened to you, but just keep fucking going. Just keep going. Um, and I and I did, and I just I was a mess, Christina. I was just like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna beat around the bush. I was a mess.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yes, understandably so, though. Like, understandably so. You know, it's so interesting when we have those knowings and those energy connections, or you know, it it it it it's and you try to like how do I put it? You try to make it make sense, right? So, like you're gonna be, it's gonna, yes, you go into logic, right? You're like, no, it's gonna be my grandmother because she's the oh it, blah, blah, blah. And then it's somebody you never imagined. So um, just not not not close, but just another annoying story just popped in my head. And I apologize. I'm like this, like when somebody tells a story, I'm like, oh yes, this, this, this, this. I I I know exactly because so a few years ago, uh about four years now, I was um living in an apartment. My friend that I had had, best friend had had since I was 16. Like, you literally come out of my apartment complex and go into her condo complex. We lived that close. We had been roommates, like when I lost, um I shouldn't say lost, when my wedding got called off, um, she was the one who took me in. You know. Um, and so she had just known me since, you know, uh for many years, and we'd done a lot of things. A matter of fact, she was one of the people that I traveled with to England. Um, yeah, we went to Scotland, England, and Ireland. And so this particular night, I knew like we were going different ways, right? Because I was leaving the church, um, but I was also exploring the fact that that I'm I'm a lesbian, right? And so I knew that was gonna bring, you know, an even bigger gap. Um, but I I I don't know, I just kept feeling like I need to call her, right? And so I called her that Saturday, she didn't answer. So that particular night I called her again and she didn't answer. And I thought, well, maybe it's because she knows, you know, she's seen, you know, my girlfriend come and go, and so she knows, you know, because we live that close. I mean she could easily see her come and go. And so I sent her a message and I said, you know, I know that we're on different paths now. I said, but I don't want you to ever think that I forgot the love you've shown me all these years. The loyalty you showed me. She paid off my wedding dress bill so I didn't have to see it. That's the kind of friend she was. She, you know, because it kind of wrecked my credit, it wrecked a lot of things for me. Uh, when I wanted this apartment, I found somewhere I liked, it was in a nice area. She gave me her whole bonus so that I could get into that apartment. Um so I I just I just kind of laid out the things that I you know I would never forget and that I will always love her and blah blah blah. Little did I know. She was gone already. She died that night.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

Shit. Oh, I've gone all tangling. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

For me to send her that message You know what I mean? Like I'm thinking we're just going a different path of life. I didn't know she was gone. And I get a call the very next day, and they say they found her dead in her place. 41 years old. Um I just felt like it was a knowing that I had. It was like my goodbye message. And I'm thinking though, that it's just you know, in my logic brain, I'm just thinking, oh, she she doesn't like my lifestyle, you know. I understand I I felt that way for many years too, so blah blah blah. But no, she was literally gone. So that just that knowing part, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

But that's an incredible story, and I'm firstly very sorry that you've had that experience. But it sounds like like we said with grief, it's all so beautiful as well. There's something, there's a gift, there's a gift in grief.

SPEAKER_02 37:40

Yes, yeah. You know, in go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

No, but but and and to say that you know, there there's a thing with that happened with me before the night before my brother died, and I didn't get to say those things to him. So I feel so like I've got warmth thinking that you you you followed that knowing, and you just spoke to her and said those things, and I just think that's that's a wonderful gift for both people.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Well, here's here here's the thing I don't even know if she I don't I don't know like where I can't remember where my message fell in. She may have already been gone by the time I sent it. She may have already been gone. Um But what I will say is because of the painful death of my grandmother, I had learned to give people their flowers when they were still alive and well. And so two years before that it just hit me. I made a huge post You know, about how much I loved her, how much I appreciate her, how much she had been there for me, how long we had been like sisters, like my big sister, blah blah blah. Like I did the whole thing, right? And so she did get to see that part. And so I I do feel like that was also annoying too, because I I I didn't often do those kinds of posts back then, you know what I mean? And so she was just quietly, she was like, Thank you, I appreciate it. But like, but I was like, No, I it hit me, and I feel like she needed to know how precious she was because I had her for 20 years, you know what I mean? Like I had this, she was a fiercely protective of me, you know, fiercely protective of me. And so um I celebrate her, I celebrate the fact that I got to have her for as long as I did, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:24

And you know, for me, it sounds like she was almost like a living, walking guardian angel, and that's how I always used to be my brother, and he used to agree. He felt like a living guardian angel, and and they're not always with us forever. And as much as I would give anything for him to be in my life now, I am so grateful that I got him for 26 years. We had the bonds that we had that most siblings do not have. I've not I've very rarely come across siblings that have have what we had. Um, and I'm so grateful I had that because so many don't get on. And again, I'd rather have somebody for a short period of time and it's beautiful and it's memorable, even if it is excruciatingly painful to lose them. But it's like it's like for years, I used to hate that saying better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Same. And at the time I was like, fuck this, I'm in so much pain. Yes, I'd rather have never loved. But you know what? Years and years later, and I'll and I'll say it now, and I've been saying it for the last seven years. Yeah, better to have loved and lost than never loved at all because it breaks it's funny, it almost like it does multiple things. It it's it's a paradox, isn't it? Where it it breaks us, but it also opens us at the same at simultaneously.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm so again, sorry for your loss, but I I I love hearing that you had such an amazing relationship with your brother. He was your big brother, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Your big brother, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

I love to hear it and um man, yeah, I I just love to hear. That's what I want to say. And and to those guardian angels that we had, right? Right. Cheers to them. Yeah, we love them before and after.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Absolutely, and and to to not have those memories now, I can't even imagine not having that warmth and that joy and that happiness in those memories that we have with them.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I know we've we we we've only got a little bit of time left, but I I want I want you to tell me how does two things. How does people pleasing affect self-worth, right? And emotional safety in relationships. Um, and then I want I want you to talk to us about freedom of self. So people pleasing.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, it's it's addictive, um, it's it's not healthy. And and I remember years and years ago being told that people pleasing was actually um a form of manipulation. And when I realized that, I was like, whoa, it kind of is like shit. Well, I don't want to manipulate people. That's I want to inspire people, I want to break people free, you know. Wow. Um, yeah. So so yeah, people pleasing is is sadly a habit that we we fall into either as children um or later on in life. Um, and how it affects your self-worth, I mean, it just makes it worse because you're constantly putting everybody else's needs first before yours, and there is no self, there is no worth, there's nothing left because you're just being giving, giving, giving, and you're not fueling yourself up. Um, and then sorry, what was the other part of that question with the safety relationships?

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Yeah, safety relationships again.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

So I've got I've got experience with that. Um, not proud of it. Um, but again, I obviously had some karma to work through in my life. Um, so I've had I've had a few few relationships and in them I've always people pleased. Looking back, I've always people pleased the last one, which was five years ago. Um, that was when I was really curbing that, like massively. It was like, wow, I'm rewiring this pattern. Like I'm not, I'm not self-abandoning anymore, like I'm not doing that myself. So for years I'd self-abandoned, particularly in those seven years after my brother died, um, because it made sense. It just made sense to self abandon. Um my time with everybody else's needs and be uh instead of mine. So for me, again, my experience is people pleasing and the self worth, um, connecting to the relationships. Because I was putting their needs before mine, I had no sense of self-worth, I didn't value myself, and therefore I didn't feel safe in those relationships because I wasn't meeting my needs. And the few moments I did meet my needs, the relationship disconnected. So then I was like, oh well, this is this is new. Um I better not put me first. Because it's gonna Yeah, exactly, because they're gonna leave me. Um I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel safe to be myself in any of these relationships because they would leave me.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yes, you know, yeah, no, I I completely, yeah. Same. Same, same, same. Yeah, when I when you start putting yourself together, they're like, What? I don't want this. This is not not where I came into this. Right. Now tell us about freedom of self. What does freedom freedom of self mean for you today?

SPEAKER_01 45:08

So for me, it's very much living is who you actually are, beneath the conditioning, the performance, that um the wounding, the the that survival pattern, that identity that you've created for yourself to survive, and then it's showing up um fully expressing yourself unapologetically. And it's you're completely authentic, you're in integrity, and at any given moment in life, you are showing up as who you actually truly are at your core. So that's that's what freedom of self is is for me.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

I feel like that's really goals. You know how people are like, oh, you know, somebody shows how much money they have, how many assets they have, what new thing they have, and people are like, oh, goals, goals, even in relationships, you're like, oh, that's goals. No, the goal is to be freedom, to have free ability to be yourself, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:09

To completely and utterly be you, to show up with without yeah, without that armor, without that pretense, without that performance, yes, without sugarcoating things, without it's you're totally unfiltered, and you're so in your truth, and you are so honest. Again, you are raw, you're messy, and you're goddamn real. Yes, because you are saying, This is me in my light, this is me in my power, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm done apologizing.

SPEAKER_02 46:43

Yes, yes. Our talk today has it it made me feel empowered. I love our kindred spirits, right? Um I want to share in the caption every way to contact you so people can work with you if that's what you'd like.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Um, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Okay, so we'll get your your contact information, all your links in our caption. Um, it has been an absolute pleasure. I'd love to, you know, sometime in the future, if you ever want to come back on, please let's do it. You learn to ask, I'm there. Absolutely. I love it, I love it. And so let's connect on all the platforms, everything, everything, everything, everything, everything keep in touch. Um, this has been a blessing to my day. Um, so I'm very grateful. Very grateful.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Thank you for sharing like a soul sister, a soul sister. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

So I'm giving you air hugs from across the pond. Um, I love hugs. I'm a big hugger.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Oh, yeah, yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Um but again, thank you for sharing so much of your story and what has helped you get through the changing our minds, realizing accepting our energy, how it affects us, even since we're little, and embracing that, yes, and embracing who we are. Um and I want to conclude this by saying, Um remember all those who are listening, that and no matter what flaws you have, you are deserving, you are lovable, you are worth every bit of the work it will take you to reach your best self. Okay? Keep listening, keep being amazing, and until next time, keep breaking those curses, right? Those cycles with excellence.