Stop Living On Relationship Crumbs - Rise Up Story with Shelley J Whitehead

A relationship ending can feel like freefall, but what if the real crisis is not losing them, it’s losing yourself? I’m joined by Shelly J. Whitehead, a relationship and couples coach and author of *Healing Your Heartbreak: 28 Days to Transformation*, to talk about the rise-up moment that changed how she loves, chooses and speaks up. We start with a story that still gives me chills, the strange way Shelly and I discovered our lives had crossed long before we officially met, and why that kind of connection can open the door to deeper truth. 

Shelly shares her “ground zero” after the end of her second marriage, and how grief, betrayal and abandonment can pull old childhood wounds to the surface. We unpack the core patterns behind people-pleasing, minimising yourself and taking crumbs just to feel chosen. Then she takes us to a pivotal declaration: choosing to always ask for what she wants and needs, and learning to phrase needs in the positive so a request doesn’t land as blame. You’ll also hear a practical identity tool, the “I am” exercise, to rebuild self-worth without outsourcing it to a partner. 

From there, we explore what genuine healing looks like in real relationships: boundaries, healthy anger, emotional regulation, integrity and the courage to stay present even when it’s uncomfortable. Shelly explains why not every relationship is meant to last, but every person can learn the skills of connection, presence and repair, which is exactly what great couples therapy and relationship coaching is for. 

If you know someone navigating heartbreak, divorce grief or a relationship reset, share this with them, then subscribe, follow and leave a review so more people can find the show. What is one need you’re ready to ask for, clearly and without apology?

To see more of Shelley's offerings follow her links:

Website: https://shelleyjwhitehead.com/

Instagram|: https://www.instagram.com/shelleyjwhitehead/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ShelleyJWhitehead

Transcript

Welcome And A Bizarre Connection

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hi, and welcome back to Rise Up Stories Podcast. My name is Vicky Ross, and I'm your host for today. And today I've got a lovely guest, but then again, every week I do, as you know. But today I've got Shelly J. Whitehead, who is a phenomenal relationship couples coach. She's an author of How to Mend a Broken Heart. She's about to launch another book, and she's all to do with getting over breakups, divorce, deaths, and also how to have very, very successful relationships. So we're going to talk some more with her later on, but today I want to talk about her rise-up story because that is what I love doing. So before I actually get Shelley to speak, I want to just give you a background because we've got a very, very peculiar background of how we know each other. So formally we actually met 2012, so you know, 14 years ago. Unofficially, we met about 45 years ago. So we we were in Regents Park, I got introduced to Shelley because somebody said, Oh, you're South African, and Shelly's South African, you've got to speak to Shelley. And we started chatting, and when we started getting deeper into our own stories, we realized that she and I went to the same high school in South Africa. We actually crossed each other on the quad, on the corridors, in assembly halls. We were in the same space for one year, because after that she moved to Pretoria. And what was interesting or funny or freaky or all of the above is we were saying, Oh, do you remember this person? And then she was saying, and do you remember this person? Because I was mentioning people that I know that she would know, and she of course knows them. And then because I'm Greek, she was going, Oh, and do you remember Louisa? And do you remember this one? And then she says, and that beautiful girl that died tragically, could catch a micropolis. And I just went pale and silent, and she looked at me like what? And I said, That was actually my sister, and she knew my sister. So it was just so so bizarre. And needless to say, since then there was an undeniable bond between us. I don't know. I don't know. There was obviously the common ground, but everybody, I'd like to introduce you to Shelley.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

It is so lovely to be with you, Vicky. Vicki is my safe place, my funny place. She's one of my friends who truly makes me laugh from my belly. And she's also my challenging friend. Wherever I am in my life and spaces, I can rely on Vicky to question certain things I might say or do that raise and bring in another level of awareness.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

And so we have a very special bond and a sacred space, a trusting space.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

What is friendship if not all of those things and everything? Honesty and truth.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

But you know that it's what whatever truth has been said, it's said with love and it's said to support and help. So, Shelley, of course, I know all your stories. All of them. Well, just about but I'm I'm really interested in the one, you know, because what I love about Rise Up Stories is the pivoting moment where people just went, No, this is not going to take me down. So tell us about your story. And of course, I'm going to interrupt you all over the place and ask you questions, but share with us. Share with us that story because you know what? There's somebody out there that will listen to your story and will be inspired to pick themselves up and to rise. And that's why I do this. This is why I love doing this, and this is why I love interviewing

Early Trauma And Core Wounds

SPEAKER_01 4:20

amazing people like yourself. So take us to your story.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Okay. So I'll give you a little bit of background and then I'm going into the story of the day my life changed. But it must start with a background so the listeners can have a little bit of an understanding of where I come from because it's relevant to that day. I come from diabolically awful early beginnings. My parents should not have been parents. And the one thing I'm very grateful for is that I've been a very different type of parent to my children. So I wanted to be exactly the opposite and their lives to be exactly the opposite of what I experienced. Emotionally and emotionally immature parents, let's put it that way, and stuck in their own traumas, which impacted greatly on my brother and myself. Of course, if we don't have the awareness, excuse me, of how the past impacts the choices in the present, we continue to repeat these patterns.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

And my patterns were about choosing ridiculous relationships.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Ridiculous relationships.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

There's a surprise. And they weren't open to growing. Gosh, it took a long time to discover that.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And you know, sometimes sometimes the reason we keep having the same, I call it an upgraded version of the same problem, that we keep doing that is because we still try to heal the original wound, which is the one that you had with your parents.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

And this is called the core wound.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

It's in relationship that we're wounded. And the magical thing is it's also in relationship that we heal. Yeah. So we can do a lot of personal development work, of which I've done tons of, you know, six years of couples training. I have two coaching qualifications. You know, the first one I did 20 years ago, and then I embarked on becoming a transpersonal coach, which is everything beyond the ego.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

And hypotherapy training and NLP training and this course and that course. But I have found that my greatest healing has come in being in relationship and choosing differently. So, you know, when I have people who tell me about their years of study and their years of personal development, while that is so beneficial to raise awareness, it's how we show up differently in relationships and how we can choose a partner who's open to helping heal those core wounds, not to perpetuate them.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah, otherwise you've just got a lot of theory and you've got no actual behavioral change inwards. So carry on with your story.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

So show me your relationships and I'll tell you about your life. Yes. Um I've been bereaved. First husband died. I've been dumped, I've been divorced. I understand betrayal from all sides. Yeah. I'm going to take you, let's fast forward, to the ending of marriage number

Ground Zero After A Marriage Ends

SPEAKER_00 7:52

two. Being dumped, which found me in a very dark space for three months. I turned into one of my clients because I work with individuals and I work with couples.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

And when we hit that ground zero, I can't go any lower. And a relationship has died, or if someone in your life that you really value and love dies, takes us to that same place of deep grief.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And we need to work through the grief. And there I was, three months of desperate work, no sleep, can't eat, came out of it very thin. Um and um with some resilience, because the one thing I do have is resilience, but a newfound belief that if I could get through that, I can get through anything.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

And I remember saying to my mother-in-law, who is still my mother-in-law, it's my late husband's mum. She's like my mother, and we're very close. She came to stay with me for six weeks in my ground zero operation. And I remember saying to her that what I felt I was going through, which was very insensitive for me, because she had lost her son and just said, I call her Gran. And I said, You know, Gran, this is worse for me than Simon's death. Only after that, you know, expression did I realize what I'd said. But it truly was because when someone is still living and you are in a space of disconnection, desperately wanting connection, they've departed from connection. And out of that, my book, Healing Your Heartbreak, 28 Days to Transformation was born. So six months later, in the very space I'm sitting in talking to you in now, which is my living room, which is large, we can fit in a group of 12 individuals and the facilitator. And a very dear girlfriend of mine that I did a lot of couples training with, Sue Went Jens, was here, facilitating a training. I was part of the group of coaches and therapists attending. And part of the process was to get up and to walk around the room and to meet everyone's eyes with a declaration.

The Turning Point: Ask For Needs

SPEAKER_00 10:18

And of course, I stood up, and the first person to meet my eyes was a man called Brett. And I said, and this is going to resonate with you, Vicky, I said, I will never, ever, ever. And I stopped and I stepped back two paces. And this was my was my big rise up moment. And then I stepped forward again. Instead of going into the negative of what I will never ever ever do, I went into the positive and I said, I will always, always, always ask for what I want and need.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

I love that. So I met every therapist's eyes in the group as I walked around the circle. Because in my life and in my teachings, everything is about seasons and cycles. And I circled the group in my state of winter, which is the grounding in the sense of self. So the first place I go in everything that I do, grounding in our sense of self. And in the deep connection to myself, I said, I will always, always, always ask for what I want and need. Because when we disconnect from the essence of ourselves to be something that we think is acceptable for the other, so that we can be pleasing to the other, so that we can always be loved. Yes. We've disconnected from the core essence, the connection to self.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

And the thing is, when we do that disconnection, that's when the love with ourselves stops, which is why we so desperately need it from other people. And it's interesting when I work with people how the idea of loving self is so odd, weird, uncomfortable, you know, because they see it as vanity, they see it as deserving, you know, I'm not good enough, or I it's too vain to love myself. You know, that we we are not taught as humans to be kind and loving to ourselves first.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

I would say, in essence, what you've just said there has been my very, very deepest work, my deepest dives into very different therapies over the last 10 years that I have done to come to this place of loving myself. And I have been brave and stepped into things that I would never have thought of before, to experience this very deep sense of knowing, connecting to, and loving myself. And it's not an easy journey. And in order to do this, there's the conventional wisdom out there, but at a very visceral, somatic experience of what I have done, it has led me to detach from all outcome, all judgment, and to let go of what I fear losing, to embrace the essence of yeah, I can feel what I feel without turning away from it.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

This is that's it is that idea that if I let go, if I surrender, if I release, then everything that validates me and gives me my identity is gonna go, and then I don't know who I am. And then if I don't know who I am, who am I and what am I loving and and what am I doing? But sadly, the opposite is true, and like you say, you know, it you have to get to that point where loving yourself is worth more than the fear of loss.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

When we are there, we can stand on our own two feet without needing to be rescued. You can say no, and you can respect what others when others say no as well, and you can emotionally regulate, you can feel safe enough to be vulnerable, and you can recognize when an environment is genuinely unsafe, that takes a lot of practice. Too much, and when it comes to your values and standards, you know what matters most. I know what matters most to me, and I am living in with you know in complete alignment with it, and I tend to my own needs with the same

Self-Love Without Outside Validation

SPEAKER_00 15:15

care I would offer to someone I love. This is all about grounding.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

So Shirley, sorry, I want you to expand a little bit more on that because I think this is a a very strong point, is that a lot of us, and I see this again, I hear it in my the classrooms retreats. People want somebody outside of themselves, usually a partner, and if not a partner, partner and friends, to validate their self-worth, to validate their existence, to validate everything about them. And I think this is why that attachment to people is so scary to let go of. Because if I let go of those people that tell me that I'm actually worthy, then I don't know if I am, because I don't know if I am. I don't know if I can love myself, I don't know if I'm good enough. So without those people and without my partner having to be everything, then what happens? You know, it's it's it's a really, really scary, scary place to be.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Well, that's what death is, and that's what an ending is. It brings us back to this big question of who am I without you?

unknown 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

And an exercise I do with all of my clients is the I am. And I remember being on a workshop, public speaking workshop with one of my mentors and teachers who's been profound. I did, you know, many years of training with Heidi Schleifer, my couple's training, and she has the most amazing TED talk about the bridge of connection. So if anyone listening, please go and look for Heidi Schleifer's TED Talk on the Bridge of Connection. And we had to do this exercise of the fruitful I am. And I was working with Colin, we were working in pairs, he's a minister and such a wonderful man. And she said, You've hit a point of like, I don't know. Colin and I didn't hit that point. You're filling a hot, you know, a whole A4 page. So, listeners, get your pen and paper, your A4 page, and fill it with all

The “I Am” Identity Exercise

SPEAKER_00 17:32

the things about I am about you. I am a loving mother. I'm a great cook. I'm a dog owner who loves dogs. I am an author who loves to share information till people change their lives. I am whatever it might be. The things that people say about you, the things that you believe about yourself, and digging really deep. I'm a lover of nature. I'm a good walker, I'm a good hiker, I'm a good friend, I'm a great friend. All of this and all of that, until you've filled the page, because it's so easy to do exactly the opposite. If we're looking for admiration in a relationship, we've got to be prepared to have the criticism too. Yeah. And it's not necessarily criticism, but somebody else's wants and needs can be very triggering for individuals because if they have a want or a need, and we're working from a foundation of I'm not enough, or I don't feel appreciated, or I fear being rejected and abandoned, it's going to affect our behavior and how we show up in relationships.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

When the partner expresses a need, and sometimes people do this mostly as a negative, you don't write, you don't call, you don't send flowers, as opposed to it makes me feel so happy when you stop and you buy me a bunch of flowers. I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled I am when you text me once a day to tell me you love me. Or when you call me just because you wanted to hear my voice. So phrasing things in the positive is an art form and a practice versus the negative. You don't always never.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yes, which everybody's experts at, they're all masters are doing that. So Shaley, you told me your pivoting moment, but what is it? Something inside of you went, no, I will not. This is not happening to me.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Ever again, ever again, and I will always, always ask for what I want to need because but what got you to that point? What made you realize in that moment in all of my relationships in the past? I didn't express my needs or wants. I was there to meet everybody else's needs and wants. So you were just happy to be chosen. I was happy to accept some crumbs to prove how worthy I was to be with, because as a little child, my role was to meet the needs of my parents.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I was too emotional with two emotionally immature human beings, and I ran around being the good girl, meeting needs. In fact, my new book, Love is a Skill, we're soon to publish.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

You know, starts off with me on New Year's Day, waking up in the space of incandescence. Now, Vicky, you're gonna remember this, and you're gonna remember that therapist friend Sharon, who was you know connected to the group that we were affiliated to and still are affiliated to. And she could see my desperate state when the marriage ended, and she said to me, How can I support you? What do you need? And I said to her, Can you please just call me every day to tell me I'm gonna be okay?

Anger, Boundaries And People-Pleasing

unknown 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

And Sharon, in one of our calls weeks in to this process of ground zero rediscovery, said to me, Shirley, can you just get angry? Do you see? Anger was never really part of anything I was ever allowed to feel. No, it's not, it's not a very good idea. I was never allowed to exactly, and I was never allowed to express feelings, especially anger in our family of origin. So I'd suppressed it. But you know the person I was dating that year, because you were at that beautiful birthday party that was a surprise for me, and lovely, lovely man. And he was a great lesson for me in my boundaries and in asking for what I wanted and needed. But it it arose with me being incandescent with rage one morning. And there was something he'd done, and this anger arrived. And it was just after that that we had this facilitation for therapists in the space. Because that was my defining of boundaries where I began, where I ended, where someone else began, where they ended, and what I wanted and needed. Yeah. And that's when I realized I had never asked, I had minimized myself in the past. I didn't want to be too much. Because if I was too much, you can't love me. You will leave me.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

This is what you experienced.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

The rejection and the abandonment. Yeah. The child being made wrong, never being enough, as my mother once said to this little girl that was once me, you will never amount to anything. And yet, that resilience deep inside heard her words and the favoritism of my brother, whom I love very dearly, and became something that said, You tell me no, you tell me I can't. What I'll show you how you leave my life, I will hit ground zero, I will do grief really well. You know, Vicky, I do grief really well. Oh, you did excellent. And I've got 20 out of 10 for my grief state, and I will rise and I will make it work. I will create something so valuable from this that we will help people in a similar state to change their lives. I will show you how you can rise.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Which keeps them stuck? Because I I mean, I've got my opinion about what is missing, and and this is the work that I do. But a lot of people, for instance, do what you and I have done. You know, we go down a new rabbit hole, it's got a new neon science. Come this way, we will solve your life. And you pay the money, and you go in and you dig the hole, and you go really, really deep and wonderful, and you do all of that only to kind of come out and go, well, that kind of worked. I'm further, but I'm still trapped in that emotion. So I I have my theories of what I do, but I'd love to hear what your theories are on how you help people and what our listeners can listen to and hear something to sort of follow and try out, or maybe a different point of view.

Reconnecting To Joy And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 25:11

So this starts with the disconnection from self. Because if we are truly disconnected from ourselves, we don't know what we want, but we go in search of something out there instead of coming back into what gives me true joy. Yeah, follow your passion, and what gives me true joy? It could be planting pansies, baking muffins, sewing wedding dresses, doing garden design. I met with someone this morning who came to, she's in my networking group and quickly looked at my garden because I preferred it to my neighbor down the road. And the joy of being in nature and doing gardens and her website is spectacular. Um because she's truly connected to that joy inside of being a gardener and garden designer. And we don't need to be a designer. I mean, I'm my garden is magical for me, and my greatest joy in the morning is being there with a cup of tea. And then my next joy, yeah, my next joy is knowing that I'm going to be working with someone today. So already today I've had a session. I'm telling you about my work because deeply connected to myself is all the experience and wisdom that's innately in me, but also the years of studying that enables me to work with anyone who's ready to change their relationships and who's struggling in a relationship. And I have that ability to help, but it brings me greater joy.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

You're just a natural at this, you're so so good at this.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

But it's also what I was trained to do from this difficult early beginning. So when we look at the big challenges that we've overcome, therein lies the magic. When we can truly connect ourselves, and we go, I love uh fixing cars, old cars, which I don't. I love vintage whatever. There are men who can do this, or motorbikes, or converting something into my husband, is an architect. You give him a challenging project on how to change space. He is in obnoxious joy. Everybody has something that they love to do once they start connecting to themselves, they don't go looking out there. There's training and there's ways that can grow what they love. I was reading a book about someone who's a herbalist this morning in Canada, and she said when she was eight, she wanted to be a farmer, but when she was 12, she knew she wanted to be a witch. I love her, and I'm reading this book called Wild Witchcraft about this woman who is in this community of living on the land and lecturing at universities, and she's really a key person of influence in her field. She's not a weird, wacky, tattooed, crazy person not grounded. If there's anything that can be grown and used to help and heal, she's the person you go to. And she says she's into conventional wits Western medicine, but this is somebody who knows how to cultivate land.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Yeah, I've I've always said, and and I think it's a saying that I learned from Michael Neal, and I think it's a Michelangelo saying, that it's easier to do what you love than to do what you think you will succeed in, or something like that. Because a lot of us will go, well, who how on earth can I live as somebody who just is going to give herbal tinctures to everybody? How how is that going to pay the bills? I I met somebody, well, I haven't met them, I've been told about them. They've got, I think it's three Angora goats. They make an absolute pack from running retreats where they're teaching people how to knit by their wool. They've only got three goats, they make the goats. He teaches people how to knit. He's he's got a whole lot of knitting videos and things and tutorials on social media, and he makes an absolute killing and lives the life of his dreams. Now, if you say to somebody, well, you're good at knitting, go and make a living out of that, most people will go, that's not gonna work. But that's because you don't think it will.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

So here's something years ago, I was feeling a little dull, and for me to be creative, to be inspired and motivated, I would say, are the feelings and states of being that are most important for me every single day. So you each individual needs to look at where do I feel creative, inspired, and motivated? What do I like to read? What you know, what am I going searching for? And I've just lost my train of thought there, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Well, but on that, I will ask people where do you spend your surplus money? Not the money for the so when you've got extra money, where do you spend your money and where do you spend your surplus time? There you'll see your passions.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

It's definitely in all of that. There was actually a thought trend that I was on, and I completely just lost it.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

But it goes back to what you said, which was your pivoting moment, is be brave to ask for what you want or what you need.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

You know, so if you do life. There was no way I was ever going to minimize myself again to fit into somebody's model of who I thought I should be. I clearly defined the I am that inspires, motivates, and where I feel most creative, what I want and I need in my life, and what my vision for my life looks like. Because when the old vision ends, or we don't have one, we've got to look at the different life areas, our physical and emotional health, a special relationship that we want with a special someone. Our career, our finances, our personal development. She is so active, single mom of a little boy, her relationship ended. But she's defined her home is important to her. These activities, the physical activity, the friends and the family, the people we surround ourselves with, and the feelings and the emotions, states of being that are most important for us to feel every single day. And when we can define that, we can start looking at the ways to, oh, that's where my thought was going on creativity. Years ago, Elizabeth Gilbert, who's one of my favorite authors, was running a little workshop. I think it was on Udemy, on creativity. And there was something that she said there that just rang so true. People were wanting to change their jobs to, you know, from being an accountant to being a caterer to whatever. And she said, look, the one thing I know in life, she's always lit, you gotta have a job. You gotta have something that brings in money. And it may not be your favorite thing to do in the world, but we need to have certainty in our lives. So there's the job that brings in money, and from there, we can go on to the career or the vocation. I'm just blessed that what I do is my vocation. I was born to do this. If I wasn't, and then you know, I was in advertising before, and I loved that. I love working with people and conceptualizing and then handing over the final product. So if I wasn't doing what I was doing, but I needed to bring in income, I would have a job that maybe wouldn't be my most inspired and motivated thing. But I know it couldn't be admin-based, it would have to be with people.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

So we've got to have a job that brings in money, and on the other side, there are things that we love to do, even if reading is

Daily Intentions And Creative Permission

SPEAKER_00 33:55

one of them, and you know, reading about certain things, filling a day, and I do, I have an intention every single day. What is my intention for today? Why is it my intention? How am I going to implement it? And at the end of the day, looking at how I accomplished it, what could have been better? Looking at all those interactions and analyzing them and then setting the intention for the next day.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

I tell you, for me, one of the things when I think about my day and my intentions, and it's it's now easy, but it used to be something quite quite difficult for me to do, was to kind of say, Oh, I want to do some sewing today. Oh, but I this and this and this is more important, and I would then have to give myself permission to drop something that is important in my mind, and it could be like, oh, you know, you got you got to do your washing or whatever. That's important, that has to be done, it's a should kind of thing, have to kind of thing, whereas actually all I wanted to do was just be creative and sew and you know, do all of that. And I started just allowing myself, not every day, not all day, but allowing myself moments in the day, moments in the week to build a puzzle, to do some painting, to do some sewing, and give myself that permission. And in the beginning, I used to feel a bit guilty and I used to feel a bit uncomfortable because I should be doing, I should be doing something else that is more important. And I just thought, no, I love myself to do what I want. And it's that's why I love what you said with your story that I will always do and ask for what I need and what I want. And I think it's also do allow yourself, give yourself permission to do what you need and what you want, that is feeding your soul and feeding your heart.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

But you can only do that if you're connected to yourself, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thematically, yeah. It took me a very, very long time to get there.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Me too, me too. I had a lot of theory, and I used to get so frustrated, it used to irritate the hell out of me that theoretically I could see what had caused the issues in my life. I could see what the wounds were, what the reactions were, who created them, why they created them, what happened to them, and oh wow, how damaged they were, and that's why they damaged me. I could it was all there, but inside the pain was still there.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

And it's finding ways to change that pattern. For me, it's been some very, very deep out there therapeutic work with very trusted individuals and doing things that I would never have

Deep Healing, Integrity And Better Love

SPEAKER_00 36:49

done before.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

You know, I've dived into the world of psychedelics therapeutically to do this. Yeah, yeah. Um I love Joda Spencer's work because it's always that reminder of living forward, not backward. Yeah, yeah. And I practice that and surrounding myself with nourishing relationships. And my husband now says to me, but you always know what you want and need. And I go, yeah, it's a practice, you know, what I want to eat, what do I want to do? And this is my year, you know. I I I label, I give every year a title, it's a whole journey for me, you know. That year in my book, This Love is a skill, the year of incandescence. And Vicky, you know you were on that journey with me. Because 2014 was my year of incandescence, yeah, and this is my year of wild. Nice. Oh and wild is my natural state. You know, when we come back into the natural state of being, it's because of these two things. And after doing a lot of, you know, body work and therapy, particularly with my one therapist, Elia, who's been a marvelous teacher for me. She's a biodynamic psychotherapist, amongst many other things. In connection to myself, my authenticity and my self-worth are in completely, it's a completely different state and space to the woman I was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, even five years ago, even two years ago. And there's deep integrity that runs through that. I had someone try and challenge this recently, someone who was part of my team, about integrity. And I'm so in alignment with my integrity and my authenticity and my self-worth. I'm not movable on that.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Good. Because the frustration, and I know that we all have it for each other, is that when I look at you right from the day that I met you and we became friends and all that, I always saw a very capable, very compassionate, very skilled, talented human being that didn't see herself in that way and behaved in a different way. Yeah, but the people pleasing. And I was like, Oh, for goodness sake, I wanted to slap you sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

And you know, watching, you know, ridiculous relationships. Yeah, because you were there, you know, you you you observed two of them. In fact, you were the friend who came to me at one of my birthday parties and said, What are you doing? Did use different languages, and I looked at you rather sheepishly and I told you what I was doing, which we will not mention on this program, but I feel, and I mean, you as my my trusted friend. You authentically know the space that I'm in, and when I say, you know, my authenticity and my self-worth. Oh, absolutely, absolutely very aligned, and this is where I've noticed the big shifts. You know, really, I'm in such a beautiful marriage. Oh, not without challenges and obstacles.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

No, no, you see, this is where people get it wrong. The thing because you've got a beautiful marriage, it never has an obstacle, there's never a disagreement or an argument, or you know, it that's not that that is not what any relationship, even your relationship with self, is about. It's about how wounded do you feel, how entitled do you feel, how hurt do you feel by the interaction, or is it something that you're going, oh, okay, so you see it differently, you want something else. I'm still okay, you're still okay, we're both okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

It's well, it's allowing for the difference, but also to be truly seen and heard. Not that there doesn't, you know, we don't have defensiveness or you know, challenge in this space, but it's this is what I need and this is what I'm asking for. How do we support one another? And it's a challenge, but this is where a relationship needs to grow, where the individuals need to grow. And when you have someone who's willing to grow with you, as uncomfortable as it can be at times, there's the magic. I can't be in a relationship with someone who's growth resistant and who is exiting a space because it's uncomfortable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Or doesn't want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Yeah, well, that's an exit because also a lot of people don't want to talk about it because they don't have the

Presence, Fear And Growing Together

SPEAKER_00 41:50

skills. That's why I work with couples. And also because they feel wounded. Yeah, I'm flying to New York to work with a couple who've been together, you know, over 10 years, um, to work with them next week. And you know, this is a lot of what I do, not just the couples work, a lot of individual work, but I fly around now to work with individuals who can't easily get here. I've got a space with them to help them to truly see and hear one another, to facilitate that change. And it's again detaching from the outcome because the process itself is the magic that facilitates whatever needs to happen in that space between two individuals. So, not every relationship is meant to stay together, not every relationship has what it takes to move into a future, but every individual has the capacity to learn to be present because presence is where you can give your full attention to what's in front of you without rehearsing or performing, you are completely present, your curiosity and your eye contact and anything else belongs back in your own world. Yeah, and it's in that space that I get people to see one another and hear one another completely differently.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

What's underneath a lot of change is fear, of always fear is the key one, you know, and it manifests in different shapes and forms, but it's all forms of fear. Shirley, uh, we could talk to you forever, and uh I definitely do want you to come back and for us to talk a little bit more more specifically about you know relationships and things like that. But I'm going to have more information about you in the show notes. So if uh anybody wants to go and look you up and maybe do some work with you or buy your book or do your magic, they can reach you easily. So thank you so much, my beautiful friend. I really, really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

To be with you. So lovely to be with you. Always, always.

Share, Subscribe And Community Invite

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Right. Thank you, everybody. If this uh sounded like who I need to share this with someone, somebody needs to listen to this story, please share the podcast. Also, subscribe, follow so that you will be notified when we have another program. And uh, if you want to join my community, I've got a beautiful membership community, and we do all things personal development with themed months and lessons that I provide. So if you want to join that again, uh links in the notes, and for the rest, here's to your success until the next podcast. And thank you for listening.