When You Open Your Heart You Create Real Safety

Control can feel like protection until you realize it’s the very thing choking off your joy. We’re talking about flow as a divine feminine attribute, not as a vague vibe, but as a lived experience of alignment where your energy moves without constant resistance. When we’re in flow, we notice more synchronicities, better timing, and relationships that feel smoother because we’re not bracing for impact.

We also get honest about what blocks flow: heart armor. That “I’m fine” shell can show up as rigidity, perfectionism, guardedness, and a nervous system stuck in fight-or-flight. I share how striving to be perfect can make you seem unapproachable and can quietly wear down your health. From there, we shift into something practical and relieving: self-compassion as a real path to safety. Compassion invites breathing, curiosity, awareness, and a softer inner voice, which helps your body stop treating connection like a threat.

You’ll also try a simple mindset experiment with three containers of judgment, then we move into a guided, sensory visualization of your heart as a safe cottage. Closing everything keeps you sheltered but small. Opening the blinds and windows brings in light, fresh air, and space, a somatic way to teach your body that openness can be safe. If you’re craving more alignment, nervous system regulation, and a heart-opening practice you can repeat all week, this one is for you.

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Connect With Marnae

Website:  Awakened Academy

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Transcript

Why Flow Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hello and welcome to another podcast of Flourishing Femme. I'm Marnae Bocet and I am super glad to meet with you today and share some time with you. I have had a lot on my mind actually in the last few hours thinking which divine feminine characteristic keeps showing up and coming to the forefront of my mind the last couple of days, and so the one we're going to talk about today is flow. Now, when you think of flow, you may think of like a very flowing little brook or creek and how it flows, it moves, it's gentle mostly. And to think about living our lives in flow could have a lot of different interpretations. So the one I'm going to present today is the flow of energy in alignment. So when we are aligned in our divine feminine template, archetype, architecture, whatever you want to call that structure of creation. When we are actually in flow, we find that synchronicities happen more, deals just line up, we meet people at the at the most perfect time for some sort of an intention that we're working with. And it's like so when I think about flow, and that is a actually a divine feminine attribute, characteristic and value, I think when we are living in flow, a lot of times what is it that we bump up against? And when it comes to our heart, that's a lot of times where we get a little bit of resistance because we feel like we need to protect our heart. So we start to create this armor or this cage or this perceived protection around us, not literally around us, but it really is more around our heart. And

Heart Armor And Resistance

SPEAKER_00 4:20

the characteristics that we display when we have that armor around our heart, or we feel as if our heart is in this protective cage or protective space that it's really, really important for us to stay protected, to feel safe. A lot of times what we will experience is being very rigid or very controlling, very guarded. Um there's a lot of different ways to describe it. A very dear friend, thank goodness, because I took her feedback and I really ran with it and looked at it and contemplated and did a lot of self-reflection because she said, Marnae, sometimes you're almost unapproachable. What would create that about me? And with me at that time, it was this super just unrelentless need to be perfect, to have perfect hair, to dress perfectly,

Perfectionism And Being Unapproachable

SPEAKER_00 5:51

to have a perfect home, perfect children, to sing perfect, you know, and and of course that was that it was the to my demise because that eventually is what really destroyed my health. I also believed that I had to be perfect in order to be lovable, and so I I didn't ever dare be vulnerable or um open myself up to see to allow people to see any of my you know idiosyncrasies or things that I that might be annoying or whatever. I and I just remember back in the day where I just it was just consumed me. And that's one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about this work as well, is because I'm not that way anymore. You can probably tell because even in some of my podcasts, you know, some crazy little things like rustling of paper or me saying an annoying word several times throughout a podcast or whatever. And I thought about I was like, you know what, I just want I just want to let things flow, I want to be approachable, I want to be able to be vulnerable and go with the flow. Now, to not go with the flow for me at least would look like I would get super controlling, rigid, and become a perfectionist that need to be perfect, and I would have spent hours editing these podcasts, and I thought, no, I'm going with the flow and just letting it be as it is, and so again, I want to reiterate what it may look like to be in that lack of flow because if you can't identify when you're in lack of flow, then how can you change that, right? So another really big red flag is that you are not regulated, that you're in fight or flight, you're always needing to guard yourself and be in that feeling that you've got to protect yourself. And the goal here is to eventually, if you are already not in a relationship, to maybe step into and try on a relationship with a gentleman that could be that protector. And if not, if you're not there and that's not where you're at right now, there's other ways to feel safe. And there's other ways to find a way to still allow your heart to be open and receptive, and be gentle with yourself and move away from all of the other harder characteristics that are a little more masculine and still feel safe. When, and one of them that I want to introduce today is that self-compassion. When we can feel like we don't have to be hard on ourselves and critical of ourselves to, you know, move harder and faster and do more and get this done and that done. And when we can practice self-compassion, that is a way to literal to literally help us feel more safe. Because compassion is an energy that invites breathing,

Self Compassion Creates Safety

SPEAKER_00 10:34

invites love, invites acknowledgement, invites awareness, invites curiosity and self-reflection. And so there's this belief that if we are not performing, and I've talked about this in some other podcasts, performing and making more things happen and being more productive and more successful and being a heart a boss babe, and you know, all of that kind of stuff. I'm not calling that out as being wrong. It can just wear on us, it can wear on our nervous system, it can it can wear on our health. And I've experienced that. I know what I'm talking to at this moment about that very thing. And it pulls us out of the divine natural more cohesive flow of the alignment in alignment of who we really are, which we are divine beings of light. And if we have the plumbing of feminine, then that is a clue to us that that is our lead polarity. Because the divine feminine and the divine masculine are really about polarities, and when we can have balance in those polarities, then that can bring us into alignment and help us experience living our lives in flow for us as women, and that is when we actually are more creative and we're more powerful manifestors and creators, is when we can nurture that as our identity, when we can nurture our worth and our value and our identity as a divine feminine being of light, then things just align. You experience more synchronicities and you come into deeper relationship and connection, and we experience more love and we can offer more grace. And those kinds of things are, I believe, what all women really want to experience at the deep core level, and so how do we begin to nurture? Because that also is a divine feminine attribute, characteristic, and value. How do we nurture our identities and our worth and our value? And my suggestion for today is that we learn how to allow our hearts to play that beautiful role of opening and being receptive and allowing more light in because as we do that, we create a natural protective or protection, protective energy around us naturally, but it is a protection of high frequency love and authenticity, and that is a natural protection that we can actually experience around us when we can open our hearts and nurture our identity, our value, and our worth. Now, things that we do to not nurture our identity, value, and worth is to be very self-critical. And the opposite of being very self-critical is learning how to experience self-compassion. So here's a little experiment that I just would like you to, uh well, that I would invite you to experience with me. So if you have a piece of paper available, great. If not, just imagine three containers. So, and you can do this with a lot of things like self-betrayal or just betrayal in general, you can do it with rejection, you can do it with judgment. But for right now, for today's podcast, it's we're gonna go with judgment. Because the opposite of nurturing our identity, value, and worth is to be very judgmental of ourselves. So judgment is judgment all the way across the board. So you're gonna imagine three containers. In one container,

The Three Containers Of Judgment

SPEAKER_00 16:14

it holds the ways that we judge ourselves. In the second container, it's the ways we judge others, and in the third container is the way we feel judged or perceive that we're being judged by others. So which two out of those three do you have any influence over or control over? It's how you judge yourself or how you judge others. So this invitation is to look at the ways that perhaps you are very judgmental of yourself and practice a little self-compassion. So that also is something that I've been able to do, or that I'm working on, and inviting myself into the experience of reflecting upon how I could be really judgmental of myself with even producing these podcasts. And I was thinking about that the other day, and it was like, you know, if I would have stayed in the amount of self-judgment of myself about this adventure, and also been very worried about others judging me, I would have never launched these. Never. So that's where I did practice some self-compassion. I can't, you know, my own self-compassion isn't gonna change how others may judge me. But I practiced self-compassion and went, okay, Marnie, take a breath and let's look at this self-judgment. Is it gonna be the end of the world if you make a mistake or say some crazy things or sniffle three or four times in a podcast? Is that gonna be the end of the world? And does that really change the truth of who you are? And I'm like, no, it doesn't. I believe I'm a good person at in a lot of levels, I believe I'm a compassionate person, I believe I am of great divine worth, and that my identity is non-negotiable, and so is my worth. And so when you can kind of look at things like that, it brings in that more compassionate energy to create a big deep breath, relax into it, and okay, flow is doable over and above, rigid and controlling, and so structured that it's driving me crazy, and the need for all of that self-protection, and so I'm like, okay, so the next step is can I open my heart even bigger? Can I can I open and allow more light, more love, more acceptance, more nurturing of my identity, and allow even more light into my heart to create this beautiful protection around me that is a natural thing that just happens when you open your heart, your heart energy is can be so expansive, it can expand up to eight to ten feet around you and create this natural protection that is such a high frequency, it can't negativity can't penetrate through it. Um even coming from other people, and so I was like, okay, this is something I really want to share with my listeners today, because I was just contemplating on it so much, and I heard a beautiful imagery the other day that was really pretty simple, but definitely very inviting to imagine what it would look like for your heart to open. So I'm inviting you to join me with this imagery today, and we're gonna tap into some of the senses as I set it up. So I invite you to close your eyes and just imagine being in this quaint safe darling little cottage, and you're the only one in there. And as you're in there, you're gonna smell perhaps it's uh got a lot of wood in it, and some uh uh maybe fresh flowers, and it's

The Cottage Visualization For Heart Opening

SPEAKER_00 22:15

clean, and it feels very safe and uh cozy and um protected to you. And so look around your safe little cottage and just notice the colors that you see. Perhaps you can hear some things outside of the cottage, it could be some birds. Or maybe some perhaps a little breeze. And it perhaps there's some smells, maybe it's like some something fresh cooking, baking in the oven, or something like that. And just settle in and think, oh, this feels safe. But it also feels a little constrictive and not super expansive. And I wouldn't say really open. It feels a little enclosed because the windows are all closed, the blinds are closed, the curtains are closed. There is a little, there's light in there, but it's coming from some lamps or some candles. And imagine that you can tell that it's really a beautiful morning outside because you can hear the birds and you're aware of what time it is, and there's a little teeny bit of light coming in, maybe just through some cracks and crevices here and there from the a beautiful sunrise coming. And you think, wait, am I limiting myself to everything I could experience and feel and notice and observe that I'm safe and everything's you know, familiar and I'm not sure what's outside of this space, but what would it feel like if I open the north window? So just imagine going and north opening up the shades and the blinds just for starts. Just for a starter, just open the shades and blinds. Don't open the window yet. And notice the light that comes in and notice the what you see outside. Perhaps you see some beautiful mountain view and some green grasses and some great pine trees. And then you go, I'm gonna go try and open, or I'm not gonna try open, I'm gonna go and open the south window. Or the the shades or the curtains that's over that window. So you go and you open up the shades or the curtains of the south window, and you see a completely different view, and it starts to feel expansive, and you see more things to look at and observe and get curious about, and then you think, wow, what if what would I experience? What would I see? What would be in my view if I went and opened the West curtains and andor shutters? And so you do, and you look out, and there's even a different view, more to look at, more to experience, more to take in and receive colors, um, the view, and then you're like, wow, I am gonna go and open the east. The the curtains, the shutters, or the the blinds in the east, and you open it up, and this magnificent light comes in from the beautiful morning sunrise, and it just lights up your whole cottage, and you're like, oh my heck, look what I was missing, because I didn't choose to just open the shutters or the curtains, and then you're like, There's more, there's more, and remember, this cottage is like your heart, and so you're like, I'm gonna actually go open the west windows, I'm gonna open them up and see what that experience brings. So you open up the window and you start to smell the fresh breezes and the fresh air, and you can smell the pine trees, and you can hear the birds clearer, the birds chirping, and they it just brings so much joy to you. And you're like, oh now I really want to open the windows to the east. So you go and you open the windows to the east, and here's a whole nother experience of smells and sounds, and maybe even tastes. Imagine you could just taste that fresh air coming in through that window, and it just it just opens your ability to new things to perceive and look at and to notice and get curious about. And you still have this darling cottage that feels very safe, but you're opening up some more opportunities, some more experience, some more adventure, some more things to allow for your senses to experience. And it feels because of the flow of the energy bringing in the fresh air, you can feel there's more flow, there's flow of light, there's more flow of smells and sounds and fresh clean air. That's what we want to experience like through our whole being from top to bottom. And that is what it can feel like when we begin to open our hearts and to begin to bring down that hard armor or that hard box or cage that sometimes our heart feels like it's in, all because we think that's going to protect us. And we constrict flow because again, when we feel flow, we experience more synchronicities, more doors open, more opportunities open up to us, our creative energy begins to flow, we become powerful manifestors because we are ultimately creators, not just of babies, but of all kinds of different things that we can possibly imagine. And that is just an imagery that you could invite into your experience, maybe three or four times a week. And while you're doing it, begin to take big deep breath in. As you do the imagery, just remind yourself to breathe deeply because a closed down heart and a more rigid body and um constitution can cause us to breathe more shallow. And when we breathe more shallow, then we send the message that we're unfulfilled and we're going without and that we're um deprived, and that's scarcity mentality, and we don't want to be there. So invite more oxygen into the lungs and breathe deeply, especially when you get all the windows open in your cottage, and just get that allowing that visual and tapping into all of your senses is going to be a visceral body learning. It's called somatic body learning, and that can be an invitation for your heart to truly open, to begin to open so that we can experience more flow. Flow of energy. There's actually, I listened to a little presentation the other day that a gentleman talked about how that's actually a third um level of consciousness is to experience that kind of flow. And that it does create more synchronicities, more doors to open, more deals to line up, more things to just work out without bumping up against something, deeper relationships, relationships to go smoother instead of bumping up against resistance so much. So that is my podcast for today, and I I hope that you'll take my invitation to do that imagery several times this week and continue until you can feel that starting to open up. And the thing that's really amazing about this as well is it is a way of nurturing your identity because the truth of who you are is that you are ex the and the truth of what can be for you is that you can be expansive, and

Breathing Deeply And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 33:48

and that you are this being of light, and that you can share that light. And so I I just am super passionate about the this topic. So thank you for joining me today. It's been super fun to share this um possibility and these um ideas, perhaps, of experiencing a more open heart and allowing more flow. So I want to express deep gratitude to all of you that have joined me today. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the sacred time you took out of your day to join me. And would love you to check out my website at awakenedacademy.io. There's some tiny little mini courses there that you that are just very inexpensive that you can um tap into for more ideas and more invitations. And it's actually me and a very dear friend of mine presenting them so it's more visual and not just auditory with a podcast. And there's also, of course, that space where you can sign up for a time to meet personally with me for a personal discovery and an alignment session. And pretty soon I am going to have my Instagram account under awakenedacademy or just awakened academy up and going. Give me a couple of more weeks and then perhaps check into that and join me again for the next podcast. My goal is to um have two new podcasts every Monday ready and loaded for you to listen to. Also, if there is a woman that you know could really use this information and find value in it, please share. And also, I love feedback, so that's also welcome and invited. So my hope for you today is that you have a really beautiful day, a very blessed day, and that you can just look around today and see so many ways that you are blessed, and that so many things that you have to be grateful for. Gratitude really keeps us present, and that's my intention for today is to really focus in and notice how truly blessed I am and how many things I have to be grateful for. So I'm thankful for all of you. I'm gonna start out with that one, all of you who have joined me today and taken time in your schedules to journey with me in this adventure that I have going. Thank you and have a blessed day.