Episode 33: Self-Love, Addiction, & inner Power w/Whitney Walker

The Heart of the Conversation

In this episode, I sit down with Whitney Walker, host of the Women Waken podcast and a dedicated guide for self-discovery. We explore the profound journey of moving from the shadow of addiction and unlovability into the light of unconditional self-acceptance. Whitney shares her personal evolution through bulimia and substance abuse, revealing how these struggles were actually misplaced searches for the love she eventually found within herself.

The transmission we explore:

• Addiction as a Mirror: Understanding how external dependencies are often "placeholder" attempts to fill an internal void of worthiness.
• The Sovereignty of the Self: A deep dive into the age of the "trailblazer," where we stop looking for external permission and start trusting our own inner brilliance.
• The Power of the Divine Feminine: How stepping into one’s own femininity and unique perspective allows for a more expansive and less "black and white" approach to life.
• Rewriting the Internal Narrative: Practical insights on maintaining self-love even when old patterns of negative self-talk attempt to resurface.
• The Wisdom of the Experiencer: How our personal struggles qualify us to be guides for others, transforming our "crappy situations" into medicine for the world.

Time Stamps:

• [00:00] Unlovability and Addictive Patterns 
• [00:01] Welcome and Show Intro 
• [00:05] Defining Women Waken 
• [00:08] External vs Internal Love 
• [00:11] Overcoming Eating Disorders 
• [00:14] Navigating Substance Abuse 
• [00:18] Spiritual Awakening Journey 
• [00:21] The Trailblazer Concept 
• [00:25] Trusting Inner Guidance 
• [00:28] Embracing Divine Feminine 
• [00:31] Shifting Negative Self-Talk 
• [00:35] Moving Beyond Binary Thinking 
• [00:38] Sovereignty in Healing 
• [00:41] Transmuting Pain into Medicine 
• [00:45] Reclaiming Personal Brilliance 
• [00:49] Advice for Seekers 
• [00:52] Age of the Trailblazer 
• [00:54] Closing and Appreciation 

Links to find Whitney Walker:

Website: Www.Womenwaken.com

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-women-waken-podcast/id1580972247 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7BHbXG9uSqxaBz5XrWNJ8z?si=Om9EVDMBRjqO42F4SI6AYg 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/womenwaken/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WomenWaken

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-walker-16b77794/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqyxriSmwfLueB3fn-FthWw

Link to Transcript of Show:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mNqGhRO8Cosf_V49DB1CC132WtFwHtzG/view?usp=sharing

Apply to be on the Show:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdo3jzeiCYLsDQMnfZbar8GlhJOjWGAFLtMlsZI2L8XwZ_IMw/viewform?usp=sharing

Find Elisha Elsewhere on the web:

https://linktr.ee/elishalightangel

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I was always fighting for the friends who were cool because I didn't think I was cool enough. I didn't think I was attractive enough, desirable enough. I didn't think I was lovable. So I wanted to be loved by everybody who didn't want to love me.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello, and welcome to That's Just Human, a podcast that explores all aspects of life, living in a human body and dealing with life's obstacles. I meet your host, Elisha Light Angel, and by day I'm a massage therapist. But like you, I live in a human body and I have a plethora of human experiences, and I like to chit-chat about my own experiences as well as others. Today I'm really excited to be bringing on a guest. We actually are doing a pod swap. So I'm on her podcast and she's on my podcast. But we met because I started listening to her podcast, and it was one of the first ones that I really got into. Everything resonated and it just helped transform my life at the time that it came in and have a nice little positive go. And it was very refreshing for where I was, and it made me want to do more podcasting on my own, which was an idea I've had for a while, but definitely didn't step out on the ledge for years after the thought process. So this is my friend, Whitney Walker, and she runs the Women Waiting podcast. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She specializes in addiction, eating disorders, trauma, and spirituality. She also works as a recovery coach and a spiritual guide. Currently, she's living a nomadic lifestyle, and she's like traveling on the road, still doing her podcast for years. She's a real badass. She incorporates spiritual concept concepts in her work, which include the return of the divine feminine to our world and moving from a place of fear into love, relief seeing self-destruction and rejection to embrace unconditional self-love and acceptance. So these ideas are the concept of her podcast, Women Awaken, her business and her vision for the future. So Whitney created the Women Awaken podcast, a holistic guide to wellness and abundant self-love, along with an accompanying YouTube channel. So you can check out all of her work. We'll go over it again at the end of the podcast. So please join me in welcoming Whitney Walker. Thank you so much for being here. Yay! Thank you, Alicia. I'm so happy to be here. This is very exciting. I know. What a beautiful day. And then on a Capricorn new moon that we are recording this video and the audio, bringing it to you. So I really have enjoyed listening to your podcast. Uh, it really dives into a lot of spiritual concepts. And I'll get into some spiritual concepts, I'm sure, as part of the human experience, but here I really like to dive into um just different people's life experiences because we're all sharing the fact that we are humans, and we have different things happen in life, and we get to experience and perceive in so many different ways, and whatever we're going through, even if it's a completely different experience, the emotions behind it or the feelings that we go through and associate can be the same as somebody else. And so that's the beauty of this. And you have quite a story of transformation, and I'd like to dive into some of that today.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah, absolutely. That would be fantastic. And everything you just described, I feel like I've pretty much recognized that that's the basis of my sole purpose is to use my experience to then share it with others in case they might relate, they might gain some guidance, some comfort, some support from it. And to me, that is what makes me come alive, right? That's why I love podcasting, is because you get to speak and you don't know whose ears it will fall on, who might say, Oh my gosh, that just totally changed my perspective. Or, oh my gosh, that I feel like they were talking to me, right? And you've probably got gotten this, or at least you will. I've been podcasting for several years. It took a while to get feedback. And as I've shared, you were my very first feedback I've gotten from my audience that for a long time just felt like I was talking into the void, but I knew I was like, I got to keep doing it. And then I get an email from you that says, I love your show. It's so great, and all these wonderful things. I was like, oh my gosh, someone's listening. But I've had feedback, you know, where people say, I felt like you were talking to me when you were saying it, and I felt like you knew exactly what I went through because your experience was just like mine. And that is what I aim to do with my life's work is just to offer that we're all in this together and that there's nothing that any of us can go through that's so foreign or strange or quote unquote bad or terrible that there's not another human who can't offer support and understanding.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Absolutely. I I love that, and I think you're doing a wonderful job so far. So keep going. I am. We both are. We're on we're on the truck. Can't stop now. Obviously, you know, we don't get to these rock and positions in life without a little bit of a rocky path. So would you like to dive into some of your history and um your rocky path that has brought you to where you are now?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny because I've been doing so much of this lately, Alicia. And you know, we spoke about this before we hit record when you're just on my show before this. Is that I'm not sure how old you are, but I just turned 40. I think we're around the same age. And so I've been thinking a lot about wow, I I think I'll live pretty close to 100. I don't know. But either way, I'm I'm kind of nearing the midpoint of life, right? The first act might be kind of done. And the other day I actually kind of had the sense, I was like, I feel like this is intermission because I shared with you, but this was a really hard year last year. I lost my beloved soul dog. We were companions for 14 years, and I've kind of been adrift since then. Like, what's my next path? And then I realized, like, well, maybe this is just intermission between act one and act two of my life. And how cool is that? But it has allowed me to say, you know what, let's take a look back. And of course I do that often. I'm a therapist, so I like to practice what I preach, and I found benefits from my own therapy during these 40 years. And so I'm very, very big on reflecting and see looking back, seeing patterns, noticing some of the challenges. How did I overcome them? What still has to be overcome? What are some of the greatest hurts? What are still some themes that come up, right? But there's such a power in owning, like, damn, I did that. I did four decades of life. I lived through it, I made it through it. Some of it was really difficult. And then I look forward and I think, you know, I'm not gonna have a lot of these same challenges next time because a lot of the challenges in the first half of your life are just getting to understand who am I and what is this whole life thing? And what do I think? I know what other people told me to think and to do and to say and to believe, but what do I think? Right? We have to develop that, we have to understand it, we have to get comfortable with ourselves, which might have been my number one struggle in the first half of my life was I don't think I like this. I was I was bullied a lot from a young age. I felt different. And I was like, I don't want to be different. I want people to like me automatically. I want them to see me and just like me. And I felt like I had the opposite effect on people. I was bullied for how I looked for being ugly, and I was kind of weird and spastic like I am now, and just kind of a different person. And people aren't always that nice when you're different, right? Life is a little harder when you're different. And I'm not I'm people are more and less different than others. I'm not saying that mine was the hardest path, but I know that I just felt very upset that, well, I don't want to be this. I just want to be someone that people are really nice to, that they like, that people are attracted to. I get attention, boys like me. I literally had the opposite. It was so hard for me. I had to force myself into friendships and to be in the cool group, which I never really was. And I boys never liked me for the first like two and a half decades of my life. And I was like, this blows. This isn't what I wanted. So I basically began to reject myself. By the time I was 14, it was like, this is awful. Because I would go starting in middle school, every single day, somebody would make a comment about how gross I was, how disgusting I was, how ugly I was, how much nobody liked me. And I look back now and I see it as, you know, I really believe that we choose our experience when we come into this life as a soul, because the amount of bullying I received was very disproportionate. Like I thought I was an ogre. I literally thought I was like the most disgusting human ever because people treated me so bad. But I think it literally was karmic or whatever you want to call it, because it it was teaching me something. And I've actually heard this that when we come into this lifetime to grow significantly spiritually, we will often experience a sense of rejection or ostracization from our peers. We have to experience this sense of abandonment. Because something about that really triggers the spiritual growth of, well, if I am not a part of, how do I learn to still love myself? Right. And also, how do I learn to manage public scrutiny, people criticizing me, but still finding a way to love yourself? Because when you can do that, as you get older, and this is the other gift of getting past the first act and into the second, you start caring a whole heck of a lot less what people think of you. Because you're like, listen, I've been called everything in the book. I don't listen to people anymore to tell me who I am. I know who I am. And when you become that, you become untouchable because you're not doing it out of a sense of pride or insecurity, which is actually very dangerous. And we have a lot, a lot of that. People who are hurt like I was, but they don't know how to handle that hurt. So they turn it into ego and they learn how to be mean and try to overpower others to get a sense of relief, right? And we could get into all that, but I won't. But I think most people know what I'm talking about. If you've ever been in a toxic relationship, it's often in that dynamic where somebody wants to put you down to feel better. And that's because they don't know how to handle their own wounds, their own hurt, right? But I and I hit a certain point where I realized, and I think people who go through that kind of rejection and bullying and scrutiny go one of two ways. They either do that, they bully others to feel better, or they take everything out on themselves and they just become very self-deprecating, very victimized. And that's where I was. I was just in this dark hole by the time I was in my 20s. And I literally felt like this, it was like my self-esteem was a muscle that was just totally as weak as can be. It had nothing to it. I just, I walked around in like this slump, right? And and people would often tell me, they're like, oh, you're really fun and you seem confident. And I was sometimes, but then when I thought about all the bad things that had happened to me, I would just kind of slump energetically, emotionally, and just go back to the kind of an Eeyore mindset, right? Where it's like, nothing ever's gonna work out for me, nobody likes me, that person doesn't like me. That it was just wild. Like this talk I had made up, this voice in my head that was just such a nasty negative voice. So I turned to means to escape that. I was a total escape artist by the time I was a teenager. I was a rebel, anyways. I was a rebel from the time I was born. I was just like, what the fuck is this place? I don't like, oh, can we curse on this? Sorry. Yeah, okay. I was like, what is this place? This place is weird. I don't like all these rules. I never liked rules. So, but when I was young, I would break rules and do weird things. And my friends' parents would be like, What's wrong with you, kid? Like, just do what we tell you to do. And I was like, I don't want to. So I was always kind of rebellious. But then when I got older and I was really hurting inside, then I really wanted to rebel, you know, do things to just kind of be like, fuck you, world. I don't give a shit. And I I turned to the the first thing that happened was I was introduced to substances in middle school. And that's when I was being bullied. So I was like, well, this is fun. I feel like I get to escape, right? From this all this, because the thing about I think that bullying is one of the most underestimated forms of trauma because you're you're literally being subjected against your will. There's nothing you can do to avoid what's what's being launched at you, what the experience is, and it's demeaning you, right? The only difference between that and being physically traumatized is the matter involved. It's not actual physical, but words are just as powerful. They're just different energies, right? So, with that kind of pain, I just I didn't know how to sit with it at such a young age. And I didn't have um people around me who are like, don't listen to them. Don't listen to them. Just you are beautiful, love yourself as you are. I didn't get those messages. So I was felt very alone. Like, well, I guess I just have to accept my fate as being like the really ugly gross person who no one's ever gonna love. And there's the problem because this is what so many humans do early in life because of this, because of messages from parents or peers or whatever it might be. When you create some of these core beliefs about yourself, I'm not lovable, I don't matter, nobody cares about me, I am not worthy. Those are so detrimental to our soul. And they, what beliefs do, my understanding, what I my work is about, is that beliefs become the foundation for everything you do. And most beliefs we have are created in the fundamental first foundational years of our life, up until like 10. That's when most of our ideas about life are created. And unfortunately, because of the world we live in, we live in a very still unfortunately fear-based society where most people focus on fear. No, we have to avoid rather than embrace and celebrate, right? Rather than know, you know what, everything's love and everything's okay. We've said, oh no, this is not a safe place. I heard recently, this is actually like a philosopher from hundreds of years ago who said humans seem to have chosen the fear, the importance of survival over the importance of revering life. And that has set the whole track for this the story of humanity. And that resonates with me because everyone just seems so afraid all the time. They and it's almost like taking time for joy becomes like this luxury thing, even though to me that's the whole aim of life. Anyways, back to me getting into drugs. Um, I just couldn't sit with the truth of what was happening. It was so painful. And I remember drinking for the first time, and I was like, this is amazing. I feel so peaceful, I feel cool, I feel relaxed, I feel like I'm outside of all that pain. And so I loved it. And so all through high school, I partied, I forced my way into like the cool groups and tried to, you know, I had a huge party at my parents' house to try and gain notoriety. And it worked, but my parents have still never forgiven me. It was terrible. Rebel, right? I was a total rebel. And you do stupid things, you know, you do stupid things when whatever you think matters. Again, your belief. When I was in high school, I was like, I will be happy if I can be popular. That's the biggest thing. I don't want to be left out of parties and fun stuff. Gotta force my way in. It's your belief, right? If I believed, like, uh, I just want to be friends with people who are nice to me, but I wasn't like that. Again, you have to love yourself to a certain degree to make good choices like that. I always dated assholes and people who were mean to me because I was fighting for their approval because I didn't think I was worthy of it. I was always fighting for the friends who were cool because I didn't think I was cool enough. I didn't think I was attractive enough, desirable enough, I didn't think I was lovable. So I wanted to be loved by everybody who didn't want to love me. And I spent decades trying to just get that. That kind of approval felt like heroin. You know, when I got the attention of this sexy, hot boy, and I was like, oh my gosh, he's talking to me. Of course he just wanted to use me. But that I interpreted as, oh, it means I'm good enough. So it spoke to that little wound inside of me, right? And then I developed an eating disorder because I was always a fairly thin girl. I was a dancer, but in my teens, I started turning to food for comfort. I became a binge eater when I was about 15 years old. And I'll never forget the first time I binged, I was really depressed the summer before my sophomore year of high school because I knew it was like going back to jail. I was like, I have to go back to this place where people bully me every day, where I'm the ugly girl. I hate it. This is not who I wanted to be. I had no sense of self-acceptance. I almost felt like it the more I rejected myself, the less it would hurt to be rejected. Again, this is why I do all the work that I do because I got everything so backwards and I was in so much pain, and I don't want anyone else to feel that, right? And I can't stop that, but I can at least offer, right? We can at least offer. We can use what we've been through to say, hey, I hear you, I see you, I get it. It's not the end of the world, I promise. You can get through this. You get the idea. So I was traveling, I was in New Orleans, my mom's from New Orleans, I was visiting family, and we'd gone out. There's Bourbon Street and downtown and Frenchman Street in New Orleans, the cool place. My cousin took me, my older cousin, and we got like these, they have these fancy, like frozen coffee drinks. So I had this coffee drink, and I was up until like 2 a.m. And I was alone in their living room with the kitchen, and I remember thinking, like, oh, I should go eat something. That will make me feel better. And it was like Alice through the looking glass. It's like I stepped through the looking glass because I started eating and I and I just didn't want to stop. And I realized, like, God, it just feels so good to eat and to just, I can I have control, I can choose whatever I want. I can go through all their cupboards and get all the good foods that I'm not supposed to have. And it was just like this magic, it was my little world, right? With me and food. This sounds weird to people who don't understand, but if you understand food addiction or eating disorder, it really does become like your own safe little world of control and a way to feel a sense of joy and pleasure that is reliable, right? And it's pretty much the same with any addiction. Replace food with any other thing: sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, you name it. It's all love. All can be addictive. So after that, it was like my mind fragmented and I no longer knew what it meant to eat normally. I didn't know how to just be like, oh, I'm hungry, I need to eat. It was always this, like, oh, I want to eat, but I I would it would be nice to eat more because more feels good. Eating feels good. Well, quickly enough I gained weight and I wasn't happy about that. So then I developed bulimia. I won't go too much into that because it's a really devastating, um, really destructive force when you get into all that, but it's real. So I talk about it because it's real, it exists. I started doing it, and it's scary. It's also very dangerous. For anyone listening, if if you know that's something you're going through, please reach out. I'm a mental health therapist. I specialize in eating disorders. There's many of us out there. There's ways to get support and help and guidance. There's a way to get out of it, but it's a scary thing. And the weirdest thing about an addiction is you really do feel powerless at a certain point, right? Once my eating disorder developed, I had no idea how to stop. It wasn't like I could be like, oh, this is weird. I don't want to binge eat anymore. I literally felt like I could not do that. And I can't even explain why that is. Just don't eat so much. Well, again, addictions are all the same. It's kind of like, which I also stopped drinking, when people are like, well, just have one drink. Just don't drink so much. It's like, oh, isn't it that? No, it's not that easy. Right? Because what what I believe happens in an addiction, what happened with my relationship with food is you start to see food as a source of love. And love is just another word for God divine source. Because literally all of us want is to know, have a connection with life, love, God's source. That's it. And when we believe we found it in something external to us, something physical, we will create this strange dynamic with it where we think it's our source of that sense of comfort and love. That's the only way I can explain the ridiculous draw. Like it literally felt like the food was like pulling to me. Like I would be sitting, like, you know, literally like a somebody who is addicted to drugs, like needing to get their fix. I couldn't sit, once I decided I wanted to binge, I couldn't sit still, I couldn't get the idea out of my head until I did it. Right? Now I don't have that. And I I I've talked about this a lot, Ulyssha, and I know that because you've struggled, had your own issues with Yeah, I also with buenia.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

So I understand the addiction of it and the the way I mean at my worst, it was like three or four times a day. So literally, you're doing your life stuff, but there's this second track in your head that's 100% on thinking about food. When is the next time I'm gonna be able to get to eat? What is it gonna be? How much can I get? And then how am I gonna purge without letting people know? Like thinking about that. But I really like what you said too this concept of like um that's where we find love. And I never thought about it like that. But yeah, a lot of my life I have felt unlovable, and so then it's um this compulsion. To eat. And then after you've compulsively ate to the point you feel absolutely miserable, you feel guilty and shame. And then all that comes flooding. And then you find yourself in the bathroom. And then the cycle repeats. Till it gets to a point when anything that, for me, anyway, that was emotionally shaking me up, I would do a binge and purge. And um, even if I didn't want to, even if I wanted to keep the food down, like I my emotions were so out of whack that the first thing that happens is I have to run to the bathroom. And then I would feel better. And um, even with some reflection in my life, like the the feelings of not feeling lovable, and then you're like, oh, we find love in the food. And um so so it's all going back to this form of love. And then a lot of times I reflecting back on the moments that it was like that huge compulsion, I did feel that there was something in me that was so unlovable, so awful, and I just needed to get it out. Like it was that purging out of like how bad I was viewing my own image of myself.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah, absolutely. That explains it perfectly. And that's also so fascinating how anybody who engages in this thing called bulimia has that same, the same tenants to it. That's what fascinates me about addiction, is that I've now become so curious about this force that I named, because there truly is this force. There's thing that compels you, this thing that pulls you, this thing that makes you insane. When I was bulimic, I felt insane. Because you probably know when you like you said, here, and these again, these are the tenets of addiction. This is why it's difficult to be in a relationship, nearly impossible with an addict, or really when you see an addict, it's very confusing because once it hits, once they realize, like, oh, I want to binge, get my fix, go drink, they cannot be fully present. They're just going through the motions, like uh-huh. And just like you said, they're planning. Where will I get my food? Where can I eat my food? Where can I purge my food? How much time do I have to do it? What how will I get cleaned up after? Will anybody notice? We're getting this whole picture played out in our head. We're making all the plans for it. We're not present. And then when I would do it, I felt absolutely insane. I remember one time, you know, I was in high school when this developed. So my mom knew all about it. She had an eating disorder growing up, she was anorexic. She almost died before she had me. She was in the hospital. So it was an interesting thing because she never really got better. She just got married and then needed to get healthy enough to be a wife and a mom. But it never, she was never supported and really like, hey, you need to learn to love yourself. She never got that message. A lot of our parents' generation didn't get that message. It was like, oh, what's that weird thing you're doing? Stop it and get your shit together. Not like, hey, what's going on? Why are you having these destructive behaviors? Why are you suffering? What's going on? So I would tell my mom that I was doing this. And I remember one time I was going in for a binge and she stood in front of the fridge between me and the fridge. And I literally, it was like I was a freight train. I was like, she's like, Whitney, please don't do this. You're trying to stop. And I was like, you need to move. Because there was no force on earth that could get me to be like, oh, you're right. I just won't binge. Once you've decided, it's like a again, it's like a freight train. You have to, craziest thing. So that now fascinates me because I don't have that and I don't know why. I mean, I know why. It's because just what you said, if you think of it as love, when you love yourself, then that, I mean, to me, not to go too off on a tangent, but I always use it as like, I don't believe in the devil, I don't believe in heaven and hell, but I do believe in the sort of caricature embodiment of those energies. To me, any addiction is the devil energy, which is conditional. And anything that is love is unconditional, right? When you're in an addiction, you are not free. You have become controlled by your addiction. I want to feel at peace. Well, that means I have to go binge and then purge, and then I'll have peace. Conditional. When you learn to love yourself, baby, you're good. You're like, it's a Sunday, and I'm just happy. What a crazy thing. I'm just fascinated by it now. And I want this to be more of my work and my life because I still have that in other areas. My main one now, I don't know if you ever had any issues with love or connection, but I still have a very hard time believing that I'm lovable by men because I had a strained relationship with my dad. So the same pull I felt to food is the same pull I feel towards men who don't or who don't want to approve of me, right? Men who are kind of like aloof or a little bit like, oh, could I, would that I be good enough for them? These are all illogical, you know. I'm a wonderful person. I know that. I deserve a wonderful man. But there's something about these men that I feel like I bet they they may not like me. It's like I feel that same force. So there's something there. There's something that we create when we believe that something holds. I think it's just that we believe something has something that we don't. That man, if he tells me that I'm good enough for him, that gives me something that I don't have. I used to believe that about food, but now I don't believe it. So I don't feel I have the most beautiful relationship with food, and I never thought I would. I literally spent so many years, I did everything in the book to try and resolve my eating disorder. And I do believe that everything when it comes to healing, it's like brush strokes. Because I went to outpatient programs, therapy, I did all the workbooks, I read all the books, I did all the things you can do to release bulimia and overeating, binge eating. And then one day I realized I don't binge anymore. And it was literally like almost, it felt like an exorcism. Like whatever used to be in my body was gone. And I was like, that's fucking awesome. How can I do that with men? So that I only look at other people as like, oh, if we're meant to connect, we will. If that person, if we're on the same level, we'll naturally gravitate together. I still too much look at it like, ooh, I need that from them. I don't like that. So I'm like a little detective now to figure that out, right? Because it gets me in trouble. I had a relationship last year that was really hurtful. I was betrayed because I was dating a man that I knew was a liar, but there was something I wanted to win it. I wanted something from him. Anyways, I won't go too much into that, but I think it just highlights the whole nature of addiction. We've decided a long time ago that there was something very wrong with us. We're not lovable, we're whatever. I always felt like I was just at the rock bottom, just a piece of shit. So of course I wanted other things to make me feel better and to tell me that that wasn't true, right? Because I felt like I couldn't tell myself that until this was my turnaround. I was bulimic, binging, overdrinking, all of that. And I went to a lot of therapists. And then when I was about 26, is when I decided I was going to be a therapist. Because I I'd gone to therapy and I was still struggling a lot, but it helped a lot. I had made little strides, right? I had made some revelations. I'd had revelations about, you know what? I don't think it's true. I didn't believe it yet, but I knew the concept of I think that I'm just as worthy as everybody else. I think that I'm worthy of a loving relationship. I think that I'm capable of having a healthy relationship with food and my body. It's amazing how things progress. Never underestimate the power of the process, right? Because most of us, if you're like me, I'm very impatient. I'm like, no, I want this done now. Can I just can you just fix this right now? Can I just get like, can you cut something in my brain and then I won't be bulimic? Is that possible? Like, I wanted that quick fix always. I mean, that's why I was an addict. Talk about a quick fix. Like, you know, I became addicted to pills towards the end of my using and drinking, and that was great. Cause you just pop a pill and I was like, oh, I can just check out and feel you know, euphoria. Anyways, it is a process, and we have to. That was first the inception point of my process. Sometimes all it is is hearing a quote or a phrase or a concept, and you're like, wait, what did you just say? What was that? And again, that's why I love podcasting. You never know the power of one thing you might say that someone's like, wait, did you just say this? You never know. That's all some people need, the inception point, and then the work comes. Okay, well, if you said that's possible, that would be my end goal. How do I get there? And we start working towards it. So I had some of that in my early 20s, but I was still a freaking mess. You know, I was drinking too much, I would sleep around again, trying to gain validation, get self-love. And here's what stopped me in my tracks. I got this book. To this day, it's one of my favorite books. It's called Doing the Thing. And it's uh it's a way to learn to love yourself, basically. And the I my therapist recommended it to me, right? She well, she I was living in Seattle at the time, and she said, You need to go to this bookstore. It's she said, It sounds like you want to have a better relationship with yourself. And I was like, Yeah, but I don't think it's possible. And she's like, It is. Go to this bookstore, it's called East West Books. They had all these books about spirituality, and I had always been hip to, you know, quotes and stuff that were inspiring and like you are worthy just as anyone else, and all that kind of stuff, right? But I'd never I was very turned off, as a lot of people are to religion because we're given this idea of religion as a doctrine that is kind of put on you and you have to take on someone else's beliefs. For me, I'm not a fan. I honor where everybody else is, it does a lot of great things for a lot of people. I just never aligned with a formal conventional religion. But I read these books, and basically all they were saying is you and everyone else are all the same. And the I the things you believe about yourself are just that. They're beliefs, they're not necessarily true. And you can recreate your beliefs and become a happy, brilliant person. You can let your light shine. That's what the book was about. It was like clear the stuff off so you can be a light to the world. And I was like, that sounds dope. I want to be a light in the world. And I remember I did a yoga class around this time, and I was, again, I was just having such a hard time, just feeling so low and down on myself in my mid-20s. Like, what am I gonna do with my life? I feel so worthless. I feel so much less than everybody else. And I remember being at yoga, and there was something about I was like, Whitney, all you have in this moment is just you and your body. I can't, it was a dark room, it was hot yoga. There was like there were mirrors, but it was dark. And I was like, what can you what can you give just with this? And I was, and I could just feel my heart. And I pictured like this light coming out of my heart. You know, you do chest heart openers in yoga. And I was like, well, what is more powerful than that? Like, even if I was, you know, the least attractive person in the world, which I often felt like, just give your heart. Like that's all that's the being kind and loving to others. What could be better in this world? And you can just do that like a butterfly. You can just fly around and be loving. Like, again, that sounds dope. And just something shifted in me in that moment where it was like, that's what matters. Not how I look, not how impressive I am, not how many people like me or approve of me. What matters is right here, and I don't need a damn thing for it. I could go walk naked in a field and I would still have this. I could lose everything and I'd still have this. And that was when my spiritual journey began because that's the essence of spirituality. Everything you need is within you. Everything else is just a beautiful tool to experience the physicality. But your true self is right here, and it's the most powerful force you'll ever have. But again, it's a process. So I went from that enlightening moment to then like probably getting blacked out drunk the next night because I was depressed and whatever. So don't give up. Anybody listening, like it really is. You walk and you fall down, right? And but that's the power, is all that matters is you get back up. Resilience, right? So I kept going and back to this book. When I opened it, the first thing, doing the thing, and it the first thing was a quote that said, trying to love yourself from the outside in is a doomed prospect. And that just hit me like a bus. It was like, oh, that's what I've been doing my whole life. My whole life, I've been trying to get everything to look right on the outside because I thought then I could love myself. If I was pretty enough, if I got enough attention, if men wanted to date me, if people liked me, if I got a good job, if I succeeded at a career, then I would like myself. But that's a ridiculous notion. And then I realized, yeah, because all of that is just anything external, it holds no, well, you can't hold any of that water if you're a bottomless bucket. Because if you don't love yourself, you're not gonna believe you're deserving of any of these things you get. The world is full of people who have everything you think you could ever want and are still miserable. And then you have people who have next to nothing and they're beaming, they're beautiful. It's true. So that's what was really my turning point, but I kept hitting these blocks, and that's why I got sober. I got sober at 29 because I was like, you know what? Screw this. Like, I'm trying to heal, I'm trying to love myself. And the one thing that is really obviously not helping is getting fucked up and drinking and using drugs. It just, I remember one time my therapist, every week I'd come in and have a new story about drinking and how it, you know, did me dirty. And she was like, Alcohol doesn't seem to be be a very good friend to you. And that also stopped me. I was like, it's not, it's it's a pretty terrible friend. It always seems to get me in trouble, bums me out. I get hangovers, like, really is not doing me any favors. So, but it, but and to anybody listening who's ever considered not drinking or thought maybe they might not want to anymore, it can be hard if you're really attached to it or if it just has a big part in your life. You know, alcohol is really attributed to a lot of celebration, a lot of beautiful events, big events, getting together with others, communing, connecting with people, socializing, right? And it's getting more and more commonplace, but it can feel kind of odd if you're trying to date or you're trying to make friends and you're like, oh, I don't drink. And people, a lot of people don't stop drinking because they're afraid of that stigma, right? So that's what I felt for a few years. I was like, well, I should probably stop drinking because all the things I want to achieve are much more likely if I don't drink. Number one being loving myself, right? I knew that alcohol was definitely not helping me love myself. Maybe after the first two drinks, right? That's why addictions are so annoying. Because after the first two drinks, you're like, I feel so light, I feel so good, but that's never where it ends. Then I would end up, you know, many a night I ended up curled up in a closet and a friend would find me sobbing, you know. I'm not mocking myself. I love myself and I I know how much that girl was hurting, but it's it's just so sad that that's where it would always spiral into. So finally I made the choice to stop drinking, and that changed everything. And that was really where my awakening began. But to speak of, you know, what were my challenges that led me to do this work is it was it? It all comes down to trying to cope with my core beliefs that were brutally painful through addiction, food, eating disorders, body image issues, drugs, alcohol, sex, getting attention, all of that became my vices. And again, to anyone listening, I know I keep saying that, but I think it's so important. I remember when I had all of those kind of firing at once. And I literally felt, you know, someone who's like tied to a board. And I was like, how will I ever break free from this? When I first got sober, I also had gotten addicted to Vicodin. And getting off of pills was the worst experience ever, which is actually what made me a hundred percent dedicated to being totally sober because it terrified me. I felt like I was losing my mind, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't focus. Eventually that leveled out. But I remember going to see a psychiatrist because I needed to. I needed to get some stabilization, I needed some medication. And he's uh he said, you know, you're gonna have to do some work because it sounds like you don't have a very good relationship with your body. And I remember thinking, like, what are you talking about? A relationship with my body, like what a relationship? I'd never even thought about it, right? I was just like, what? I, you know, I have to binge eat, I have to drink a lot, like my body's fine. No, it's not. So back then I didn't realize the mind, body, soul connection, right? That your body, this poor thing, is often the collateral to our addictions. Like, oh, don't worry about that. Just, you know, drink all this every night and take all these pills, your body will be fine. No, it won't. It won't. So he said that. And he, the the other things he, you know, he was saying other stuff to me, like, well, you have to work on this, work on that. And I remember looking at him and I said, the only way that I'm gonna get rid of all this noise in my head is if I have a lobotomy. Because this is a mess. My brain felt like a freaking war zone. Like I felt like I was never gonna be at peace unless somebody, again, like clip some things in there. But it wasn't true. It just took time. It took time, and from then I began, I call it the long walk back to yourself. When you decide to get sober, it means that you've stopped trying to run as far as you can from who you are, which is what I was doing for the first 29 years of my life. I decided early on that I did not want to be me. So I tried everything to escape being me. And I ran and I ran and I ran until I realized they call the silver cord that keeps your you connected to your soul. You can people can be disembodied souls. That's why if you you meet somebody who doesn't seem very ethical or very they've let their soul go. You have to allow your soul into your space. It will never leave you completely, but it will not fully be embodied with you if you're consistently abusing it, not you know, don't have a if it's a very toxic atmosphere within you, your soul will kind of move aside and be like, I'm gonna wait over here. And then you really are just a body working as an ego. So it's a long walk back to yourself and allowing your soul to come back, feeling your heart, recognizing that your body is a being, it deserves to be treated well. Your mind is not your enemy. Your mind and your thoughts were created by you, and it can be recreated into a beautiful, harmonious state. I know how hard that is, and I still have days where I'm like, ugh, it's a mess in there, real yucky. But I've learned how to recognize you can let those thoughts go, you can reprogram all sorts of ways to do that. CBT is a beautiful way through talk therapy, but also that's one of the ad advantages that they found through a lot of people doing psychedelic and microdosing therapy, is because that can really help to recreate these neural pathways. Because again, once you've done something for so long, it's just so rutted in there. You know, that's why I felt like, no, there's no way that this crazy is gonna go away. But it did. And I came out the other side, and now how I just turned 40. So that means it's been over 10 years that I've been totally sober and that I've been working towards peace. Peace and freedom are two of my favorite words. Joy and love, of course, too. So beautiful. But when I think about the healing journey, uh, when you begin to actually do the work and stop engaging in self-destructive behavior, you start to notice something, which is that your self can be a sanctuary. Whereas at once, it might have felt like a war zone, like a very dangerous place, a very unpleasant place. And again, that's why people want to escape. But when you make your home, your sanctuary, baby, you can be anywhere and you'll be good, right? Like a turtle. You're just like, heck yeah, this is all I need. And how powerful is that? How powerful is it if you can regulate without me doing anything? If you can find composure, if you can find peace within, you can do anything. So I made that my focus, and I still do, right? I have days where I'm off. I'm by no means perfect, you know, and I'm not even, it's not working towards perfection. It's just to me, the number one drive is greater freedom. Because to me, freedom means that I'm not crippled by thoughts of, oh my gosh, what did that person say? What does that person think of me? Am I good enough for this? Did that guy not like me? Is it da-da-da-da-da, right? That feels like imprisonment, right? I did a whole series on my podcast. You know, I am a tarot reader, right? And I did a whole series. The eight of swords in tarot reminds me of addiction and self-limiting beliefs. Self-imposed in prison is what the eight of swords is, because most of us put all these swords around us where we say, Oh, I could never be successful. I could never be loved because of this, this, this, and we keep ourselves prisoned. In that card, the eight of swords, it shows a woman blindfolded and wrapped up, and she has eight swords around her. But in reality, she could take off her blindfold. Nothing's holding her there, she's keeping herself there. So I did a podcast about each of the eight swords. And what I have found is that when I got sober, I still had those eight swords around me. But what it did is I took the blindfold off and I said, okay, is this true? And that is such a powerful question. A fabulous book is by Byron Katie, and it's called Do uh Doing, no, that's a different one. What is it? Um, The Work by Byron Katie. And it's about asking yourself these fundamental questions. Which is that true? Is the number one. Is that true? Look up Byron Katie, you'll see it. She's amazing. She actually has a wild story. She had a she had a stroke that made her feel complete and other acceptance and peace. And when she came back from that, she was like, Like, oh, everything else is a lie. Everything else is just your brain telling you something that's not true. Is that true? And that's one of the hardest things to do when you've kind of gotten stuck in victimhood, like I did. Because I was like, oh, I can't do that. I can't because I'm not good enough. It was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Exercising the self-esteem confidence muscle. Is that true? Is it true that you're not good enough? Is it true that you're not worthy of love? And I had to say, no, it's not true. I just say it. It feels like it though. It really felt like it. Like, no, it feels so true. And it took years for it to genuinely not feel true. Where it was like, no, I feel it. I feel my sweet, beautiful heart. I feel my loving body that takes care of me. I feel this connection, right? The awakening is what really brings you to be able to let go of that stuff because you're like, I'm so connected with my guidance, with my angels, with the divine, that if they love me, I know I am with them. I know that I'm lovable. And it, but in the beginning, that's the hardest part where you literally are like crawling before you can walk, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:04

I'm curious on your journey through awakening and having to shift your mindset and reframe the beliefs and the stories inside of your own mind. Um, for me, I know there's like a place where you get where you haven't fully gotten rid of a thought process, but you're kind of there. Like maybe 90% of the time, this thought no longer appears, but then it'll creep up. And so, like a lot of mine in my life, especially like with body image and stuff, and looking in the mirror and going, man, you're so ugly today. Like the it and like just tearing my own self down. And you know, I don't currently have any of those thoughts. It took years to shift my own internal environment. Like now I can't even imagine thinking that about myself. But I do remember at one point, it was the beginning of my awakening journey, and I most days didn't have that thought, but I did this day, and I was going out um shopping with a friend, and some cashier at the store looks at me and says, Wow, you are so beautiful. Like I'm telling myself the complete opposite story in my head, and here's a person to confirm from the universe the truth that I should be telling myself in my head. And so I've noticed I'll have moments like that where I start to revert back into an old patterned thinking, and the universe is like, no, no, we're working yourself out of this. Let me show you the this mirror, I guess, of holding somebody else's perception to you to be like, this is you are actually worthy of love. You are actually great just the way that you are.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Oh my gosh, I love that so much. That's so beautiful. I love when when the spirit, the divine, comes through another person and literally offers something that you're like, oh, wow, thank you. I was hoping for that. It's it really does just show that everything is so connected. Like she was just mirroring back what you're ready to believe about yourself and to know about yourself. And she was like, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna help you out a little bit. The universe will help you out a little bit when you've shown that you're ready, right? Absolutely. Because probably at one point you might have just not believed her and been like, oh, well, thank you for the I mean, at least that's what I would do. Like, people would be like, Oh, you're pretty. I was like, Oh, you're lying. You just feel bad for me. That would be my first thought. You're lying, you just feel bad for me. You want to like pump me up, you liar. It's crazy. But then I started to like now I try to take compliments. Sometimes I still have, like you said, I get that initial, like, oh yeah, right. Like, oh, you're just being nice. But it's like, thank you. Yes, thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Yeah. Well, we're coming to the end of our time, and I think that we dropped lots of nuggets for anybody out there, especially anyone that's relating with body issues and addiction and all of that. So, um one more question for you to answer. If you could leave the audience with any bit of wisdom from your life, it can be like something that we talked about today, or just some other kind of wisdom that you have. What would that be?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Well, I think it is the idea of wisdom. The one the thing I would offer everybody listening is that again, we're also busy seeking things outside of ourselves, right? And even wisdom, right? We look to others and we think, well, they they know more than I do. They know this. But remember that the greatest wisdom that you'll ever find exists within you. Because I really believe that each human here has their own unique light that's meant to shine, which means that that's akin to wisdom, to guidance. You have guidance. Everybody's a guide to others, and you you have to listen to your own guidance first before you can ever really give it to another. So the next time that you're having a sense of, gosh, how will I ever do this? How do I ever leave this addiction? How do I ever have a healthy relationship? How do I ever make the move to get the job that I want? Listen to yourself first. A way to do that, a good stepping point, is just to be in silence and to recognize that you are here. Put your hand on your heart and realize, wow, there's this whole body that's working to keep me alive. That's phenomenal. But there's also something beyond that, something within me that's eternal that has all the secrets of the universe. Every single human being has access to all universal wisdom and knowledge. Those who speak it, it's just because they've gotten to a point where they can be a channel for it, but we're all meant to be channels. So even if yours is just a little whisper of, I love you, or you are safe, or just some nugget of knowledge that is your own, right? You're gonna get a message that's like, wow, that was really brilliant. I had some of those moments along the way too, where I would have this revelation of sorts. And I was like, where did that come from? It came from my own connection, my wisdom, right? So just remember that if you are on your path to self-love, to self-acceptance, to greater peace and freedom, don't forget yourself, right? We all I know I've benefited so much again through therapy, through podcasts, through books, through friends, through community. All those are gorgeous. But again, the greatest insight you'll ever have is sitting right there just waiting for you to listen.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

That is beautiful, and so much truth to that. So if my audience would like to find you, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 50:46

You can find me all sorts of places. I have my website, womenwaken.com. I have my podcast, Women Waken, which Alicia was a guest on, and her episode will be coming out soon. And I have Instagram, you can find me on Instagram at WomenAwaken, Facebook, Whitney Walker, all that good stuff. And if you find me on Instagram, if you add me on there, send me a DM and I'll pull you a card, which I'm also happy to pull your audience a card if you want me to. Let's do it. Because you were kind enough to pull one on my show for we have this new moon happening right this second in Capricorn. So yeah, can I pull a card and see what message wants to come out? Absolutely. All right. All right, so we're gonna pull one card for everyone listening. Whenever this episode finds you, whenever these words find you, this is a message just for you. May we have one card, please, for the highest good and greatest guidance for all who may hear it. All right, so one card, please, for this beautiful moon. Ooh, look at this. So we have seven, seven of cups. Talk about addiction. This is debauchery on this card. This is a special tarot deck. It's the Thoth deck, so it adds like different phrases. But what this really means is choices. It's the also the benefit of recognizing your gifts and abilities is you start to recognize there's no one path for me, right? Another whole part of addiction we didn't talk about, or limit error or limiting beliefs, right? I have to do this. And if I don't do this, I'll be a failure. And then again, ask yourself that crucial question is that true? Nobody else can tell you if that's true except for you. But try to realize that when you open yourself up, the Seven of Cups is all about fantasies and possibilities and options. It's it's typically called the buffet, the buffet line in the tarot deck. It's like, maybe I want a little of this and a little of that. Maybe it doesn't have to be all this. What do I want? Remember, we spoke about sovereignty, right? The idea of choosing for yourself, thinking for yourself, getting wisdom from yourself. Try the whole buffet of life and realize it doesn't have to be so black or white or so narrow the path. There's many, many paths to success, to brilliance. And guess what? This is the age of the trailblazer. And I obviously, women wake and I'm a big proponent of women stepping forward and blazing new trails because we could use more trails blazed by women who are sharing their concept, their ideas, whatever their femininity comes through for them, leading the way with that. So consider your various options and know that you are brilliant and deserving of all of them. It's what this moon is about, I think. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been a really great conversation. I like talking to you. We can talk for hours.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

It has been such a gift. You are a gift, Alicia. I thank you so much, and congratulations on this beautiful show. Oh, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

Well, if you're out there listening and you want to hype my show up a little bit, you can review me on Apple iTunes, give me five stars on Spotify. If you're on YouTube, you can hit that like or subscribe, leave me a comment. All of those things help the algorithm. If you know somebody that would resonate with what they heard today, please share this episode so that they can get the nuggets of wisdom also. And help get more nuggets of wisdom out to everybody as I do more shows. As you embrace your humanness, be kind, be you. And remember, everything is part of the journey.