Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life
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Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life
Fear: The Big Fat Liar
Fear is the silent thief that steals our joy, authenticity, and potential – and Dr. Julie Merriman isn't afraid to call it what it truly is: a big fat liar. Drawing from her own journey through paralyzing fear to empowered living, she offers both personal testimony and practical wisdom for anyone ready to stop letting fear dictate their choices.
Dr. Merriman vulnerably shares how fear of rejection and abandonment kept her from living in her authentic skin for years. Having attended 13-14 different high schools before graduating, she experienced firsthand how unstable foundations and social rejection can damage the solar plexus chakra – our energetic center of personal power and self-esteem. This damage manifested as an inability to speak her truth, set boundaries, or fully embody her purpose until her late twenties.
The transformation came through dedicated inner work: therapy, energy healing, and the courageous practice of setting boundaries. "No is a complete sentence," she reminds us, emphasizing how owning your calendar and honoring your limits creates the space needed to examine subconscious fears in the light of reality. For professional helpers especially, these boundaries serve not just ourselves but those we work with, preventing burnout and compassion fatigue.
The episode culminates in a guided solar plexus meditation designed to help listeners visualize and experience healing their own fear-based energy blockages. This powerful visualization connects you to golden healing light, restoring balance and preventing future blockages. As Dr. Merriman wisely observes, "Most everything you need is on the other side of fear" – making this practice not just self-care but an essential gateway to living your fullest life.
Ready to kick fear to the curb and reclaim your joy? Subscribe to SoulJoy wherever you listen to podcasts, sign up for weekly emails with activity PDFs at juliemerrimanphd.com, and join Dr. Merriman on this journey of authentic, fearless living.
Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. Today we're going to get close and personal with fear. See, if we let fear constantly run in the background of our life, we are not fully living. Understanding the core issues of fear is a necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care, aka wellness. All right, hello, hello, welcome, welcome, welcome. I appreciate you taking time to hang out with me for a hot minute. It really, I mean truly, it means a lot to me, thank you. So let's see what's been going on. I think I told y'all about my goat babies. I have four Nigerian pygmy dwarf goats maybe saying that backwards three mamas and one daddy and one daddy and the moms. They had 10 babies, the triplets and then quadruplets. But man, the mamas seem like they need some respite. We enlarged their area where mamas could kind of go and have a little time to themselves as the babies. I mean, they got the zoomies, they zoom all over the place. And let's see my beloved Kelly is getting the fields ready for planting. Gotta grow some food for the cows. And you know, by the way I don't know if I've ever told y'all this we do from our pasture to your table we create some really delicious beef. If you're ever interested, reach out and I will give you all the deets on that. So okay, professional helpers.
Speaker 1:This podcast is dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of the career we chose, specifically burnout, compassion, fatigue and the ever so scary vicarious trauma. Today's topic is I believe fear is a big fat liar. I really believe it is. I can say honestly and if you've read the book, I've told you all about this I've allowed fear to paralyze me in my life. Told you all about this. I've allowed fear to paralyze me in my life. It's caused me to not live in my authentic skin and for me it was fear of not being loved and fear of being abandoned.
Speaker 1:If I actually spoke my truth, I thought others would reject me, and I probably had some experiences of that along the way. Not that they rejected me per se, but you know, when you speak up and have an opinion, other people come back at you with a hard opinion and if you don't have a really strong center of self, that can kind of throw you, and it took me a few years to grow my um, my my center of self, if you will, in my younger years, as I said, I had lived experience that did prove that. I yeah, I went to like 13, maybe 14 different high schools and I graduated my junior year. That was a four-year school. Um, we just had a lot of dysfunction playing out in the family during those years and then Daddy worked for Bell Helicopter and that moved him around some.
Speaker 1:But being a new girl every six weeks at a high school gives people a lot of opportunity to be mean. I mean, I'm not having a pity party here, I just, you know, I didn't have my gang and if I spoke my truth I really put myself out there and I just didn't have the. My solar plexus wasn't strong enough. My self-esteem, my self-confidence, my boundaries weren't such that I could confidently speak my truth and not take in how others reacted to that. Now, mind you, I believe my young brain interpreted some situations wrong, but that story is all lined out in my book. But but if it's wrong or right, as I talked about in last podcast, whatever meaning we're making of the fact that's happening creates the reaction within our body. So if, if my mind was right or wrong, it created something I was reacting to. I allowed fear to rob me of joy and a life fully lived for much longer than I should have. I bet I was in my late 20s before I really got my shit together and figured out that I could live my life very differently. My solar plexus chakra, y'all my energy in my solar plexus chakra it was just wonky, terribly wonky, and it robbed me of the self-esteem and even being able to truly identify and live my life's purpose. To this day, my therapist has to help me manage the energy of my solar plexus. It's the first to go when I'm stressed and she is fabulous about bringing me there. I mean, we do a lot of somatic work. As a therapist, I do a lot of somatic work, but bringing me into my body and feeling where the energy is hitting me the most, and it's always in my solar plexus.
Speaker 1:Over the years, however, I learned and chose to set healthy boundaries. You know that, yeah, not my circus, those are not my monkeys. I'm going to focus on me. No is a complete sentence. I don't have to be obligated. Yeah, all those things. I've learned to set pretty healthy boundaries and, most importantly and I work on this with my associates that I'm supervising, owning your calendar, and I've talked about this, but that's, and I think next podcast or the next we're really going to spend some time on time management because that's a huge piece of your solar plexus and it's a boundary. Time management is a boundary, but you've got to own your calendar. If you say you're not seeing people after five, buy gumball, don't see people after five. Calendar owning is important. See what I've discovered? These boundaries. People need boundaries, we need boundaries. I need a boundary for me, but also people that are in my life need my boundaries. Those are very important things to set.
Speaker 1:They allowed me to examine the fear that I was experiencing. I brought it out of my subconscious into the light of reality and I was able to experiment with things and I was able to show up true to myself, which really that's some throat chakra work. But we'll get to that. Saying things that others might not agree with became something I can do and I know I'm still lovable and you know sometimes people just aren't your people and that's okay. But I know that I can say what I need to say. Now. I always want to be socially appropriate. I don't want to be hateful, but I can say the things I need to say to my people and it's fine. And sometimes it might come out a little more prickly than I meant it to be, but I'm able to come back and soften things if you will. Y'all. You have to kick fear's ass. You just have to. It's a liar. Most everything you need is on the other side of fear, and I want this for you.
Speaker 1:I remember how miserable it felt to be ruled by fear in every move or decision I was trying to make. It took therapy, energy, work and dedication to me to move the meter, and I'm telling you, sweet souls, it was worth it. I'm comfortable in my skin now. You know I'm in my 60s and I've really left fear in the rearview mirror. Had I not done the work earlier in life, I'm not sure I'd be so at peace now. But it's never too late. I don't care if you're 85 or 25. It's work that needs to be done. So I just invite you to really think about that.
Speaker 1:Doing the work to bring fear out of your subconscious into the light of day and understanding how it's impacting you in life is very important. And knowing that very thing you're really scared of. What you need is on the other side of that. So that's the very thing you need to go through. You can't go around it. You got to go through it. So okay, before we go to the activity, I just want to remind you to subscribe to my email list so you can get my weekly emails where I send you the podcast and PDFs I create that go with the activity that I'm about to go over. Just go to juliemerrimanphdcom and sign up for my newsletter. So the activity today I call quick sip of water. I call is so clever overcoming fear.
Speaker 1:Fear blocks your solar plexus chakra energy, your solar plexus chakra energy. An old piece of advice says do one thing every day that scares you. Back to what I was saying. What you need is on the other side of that fear. So y'all, that means Anything that helps you confront your deep-seated fears and release limiting beliefs about yourself will help restore your solar plexus chakra energy, help balance it and, best of all, overcoming your fears will also help you keep another blockage from forming in the future. So this is a meditation and visualization. So get yourself comfy. If you're driving, come back to this later.
Speaker 1:But if you're at home or at a place where you can kind of chill for a few moments, please get yourself comfy, sit or lie in a comfortable position and place your hands on your solar plexus area. Y'all that's in your rib cage area, it's your high abdomen. Close your eyes and breathe deeply, using your diaphragm, allowing your stomach to expand. Forget trying to hold your belly in. We're breathing here. Your stomach to expand, forget trying to hold your belly in. We're breathing here. Expand as you breathe in and it collapses as you breathe out. Hold your breath for a count of four and we're going to exhale for a count of seven. Count of seven. Repeat this three to five times. Hold Exhale. Hold Exhale.
Speaker 1:Now, when, now, when you're ready, relax your muscles from your toes wiggle those toes to the top of your head. Feel everything. Relax toes, calves, thighs, tummy, chest, shoulders, throat, forehead. Just relax. Tummy, chest, shoulders, throat, forehead, just relax. And picture a glowing golden ball of healing light above you, kind of like a miniature sun. Visualize your solar plexus chakra as a round yellow wheel within your abdomen. Now connect the two with a beam of yellow energy. Allow your solar plexus chakra to absorb the warmth and energy of this miniature sun when you feel you're ready in the meditation. So for our purposes here, I'm going to count backwards from five, five, four, three, two, two and one and open your eyes, raise your hands over your head, wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes and stretch.
Speaker 1:Take a nice deep breath and honor and be present with your emotions. Think about advocating for your needs and wants. Think about advocating for your needs and wants. Think about listening to your gut level intuition. Think about cultivating a healthy self-esteem, where you make choices based on your needs and desires. Engage in activities that you find enjoyable. Where you make choices based on your needs and desires. Engage in activities that you find enjoyable, and all of this helps you to release that fear. So, okay, that's it for today. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, leave a review and, until next time, take care of you.