Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life

Finding Courage: The Journey to Authentic Self-Expression

• Dr. Julie Merriman • Season 2 • Episode 12

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Ever wonder why some days you can't find the right words—or courage—to express how you really feel? The answer might lie in your throat chakra.

Dr. Julie Merriman takes us on a deeply personal journey through her decades-long struggle with authentic communication. Beginning with her childhood abandonment when her mother left with a rock band in the 1970s, she reveals how early rejection created patterns of conflict avoidance and people-pleasing that blocked her throat chakra for years. This energy center, located at the base of the throat, governs not just how we speak, but our ability to express our authentic selves in every interaction.

The consequences of a blocked throat chakra extend far beyond occasional awkward conversations. For helping professionals especially, an inability to express needs and boundaries directly contributes to burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. Through vivid descriptions and honest self-reflection, Dr. Merriman connects physical symptoms like recurring strep throat with energetic blockages, demonstrating how our bodies often manifest what our spirits cannot express.

What makes this episode particularly valuable are the practical, accessible techniques offered for balancing your throat chakra. From simple practices like chanting "hum," wearing blue clothing, and mindful breathing to deeper work identifying core values and clarifying your life's purpose, these tools require nothing but commitment to your own authenticity. Dr. Merriman's approach blends traditional chakra healing with modern therapeutic understanding, creating a holistic pathway to finding your voice.

Ready to speak your truth? Subscribe to Soul Joy wherever you listen to podcasts, and visit juliemerrimanphd.com to sign up for weekly emails with bonus materials that complement each episode. Your journey toward authentic communication—and the soul joy that comes with it—begins with a single honest word.

Speaker 1:

Hi y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. This week we are still exploring the throat chakra, although I took a little sabbatical, but we're still hanging on to that throat chakra. We're taking a deep dive into authentic communication because this is a very necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care. All right, hey you, how is it going? Like I said, it's been just a hot minute. I took a little sabbatical, unplanned, but here I am back at the microphone, so welcome. I appreciate you taking a hot minute to hang out with me and allow me to chat about something near and dear to my heart, and that is preventing burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma in the helping profession and really for everybody, because that impacts everybody. But before we get to the topic today and today we're really going to take a deep dive into finding the courage to use your authentic voice. But before we get there, I'm really excited.

Speaker 1:

My beloved and I are preparing for our 30th wedding anniversary. Y'all, I remember meeting him. I mean, it seems like yesterday. I've never been so bowled over and brought to my knees by meeting a man in my life. It stands to reason that we are still together and still very much in love. But for the 30th anniversary. My beloved is slipping into a tux and I am slipping into my original wedding dress and we're going to do a quick vow renewal. And Sarah Seaton, my photographer, check out my website. She has been my go-to gal for quite a few years now, whenever I need a photo shoot, but this extraordinary photographer is going to do a photo shoot of our vow renewal, which is really fun. Cliffy, my oldest, he's. He lives in Montana. He's not going to be able to make it, but Blaker's my youngest who will be here. And the two boys stood up with us. When we got married, they were our two attendants. So, anyway, I'm very excited about this. We're gonna do our quick vow renewal and then we're gonna hop on the tractor, which we did. The first time we left the church in a tractor, and this time we're leaving the church in a tractor, coming back to the ranch for a nice little barbecue with our original wedding party. Everyone's still around and it's just going to be such a blessing. So I'm really excited about that. So that's what's going on in the Merriman world this week.

Speaker 1:

So okay, professional helpers, this podcast is dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of this career that we've chosen, as I mentioned, burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. And, as I also mentioned, I've taken a hot sabbatical, so this podcast could be a little bit longer than usual. So I'm hunkered down and here we go. I have been working on developing my voice through working on my throat chakra. Now this has been going on for a number of years, but it's always an evolution. Let me begin with how I came to do this and then, as we progress, we'll go into the why.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to take you into my story of rejection Now. I'm very raw and honest with y'all. This is not a pity party, as my daddy would say, by any means. This is just an honest observation of my life and you know why I'm doing what I'm doing right this minute. So it's a personal story, but I share it in the hopes that it inspires you and helps you to curate your authentic voice.

Speaker 1:

So, way back when I was 10, 51 years ago, good Lord, my mom my mom is still with me. I love her. She's a hot mess and we see each other. We talk daily and see each other weekly, but mom took off with a rock and roll band back in the 70s. It was a different time y'all.

Speaker 1:

Without sharing the personal details of my mom's stories and struggles, as that is not mine to tell, suffice it to say that at an early age I experienced ultimate rejection. My own mom gave up on me so it felt. Now there's a lot more to that story. If you read my book Soul Joy, I talk about that some because it impacted me. I mean it's who I am, it's part of my story. Now, please know, I believe in Mama's own way she wanted the best for me and did what she did because she believed it would be best for me. But I didn't understand that back then. I didn't know.

Speaker 1:

But being abandoned by the person I trusted the most set me on a path of great independence and really distrust y'all. I mean the independence wasn't like it's a good thing. I learned not to trust others. If I wanted something done, I believed I had to do it myself because I decided I couldn't trust anyone but me. I promised myself that I would take care of things myself before I'd allow anyone else to hurt me. So I know that sounds a little sad, but I mean it all is evolving and I believe it makes me a better therapist.

Speaker 1:

But this became, if you believe in narrative therapy. It became a story, my story, if you will, and avoiding conflict was a tool. That became a tool for me. I already had a propensity to avoid conflict, but now that became a very important tool. If I didn't speak up and I didn't cause conflict, then chances were I wouldn't be rejected right, especially by my family. I learned to suppress my voice. You'll see where this might be going. I'm sure you've worked with clients like this, or, if you're not in the helping field, you have your own story. I mean, none of us have come to adulthood without some rejection in our life. So I was not outspoken and I was very hard on myself and in not being outspoken when other people took offense at something I said or did. Now this followed me. I'm not just 10 as I'm talking about this. This followed me into adulthood, into my 30s even.

Speaker 1:

But if someone took offense at what I did or said, I took it personally to the point where I might brood for days. Now I wouldn't be overt in this, it would would be very covert, I would go inside, but I'd never address the offended either. So I wouldn't address how I might feel offended, I just wouldn't talk about it. Right, I would deny it, run away from it, dissociate from it. And this was out of fear. I would suppress it all. Out of fear, I would suppress it all.

Speaker 1:

I did everything I could, subconsciously, to try to make everyone like me right. If they like me, they're not going to leave me. I wanted to avoid that rejection and abandonment at all costs. Well, I'm not going to edit that out, but I got an unknown caller. Well, I'm not going to edit that out, but I got an unknown caller. So, anyway, I did everything I could to avoid being rejected and I could make most of my peers. I couldn't make folks understand what I was doing. Hell, I didn't understand what I was doing. It was just a time of, you know, I just lived in a lot of fear of being rejected. I don't know if any of y'all can relate to that, but in doing all this, I became relentlessly hard on myself, pushing myself when, let's say, I was sick because I had strep throat quite a bit. Going back to my childhood after mama had left, I did. I had strep throat quite a bit up until my teens.

Speaker 1:

A blocked throat chakra, which is what I was experiencing, will lead to things like strep throat. It was an extraordinarily symbolic episode of my suppressed voice, the strep throat. As I went through my therapy training starting in 1994, I realized that all of this stuff that I had gone through early my story started early, we all do right Contributed to a wholly blocked throat chakra and y'all I'm going to tell you that's a miserable energy to live with that stuck throat chakra, and I've worked with a lot of clients over the years and I'm not an outlier. A lot of us walk around with a cemented throat chakra, if you will, and that causes a lot of our energies to bottleneck right. If you think about our throat, it gets small right there and a lot of things get stuck in that throat chakra and then you exacerbate that by fear of abandonment or rejection. I mean you're setting yourself up for burnout, compassion, fatigue, vicarious trauma and just unhappiness.

Speaker 1:

So please know, if you have a developed throat chakra, you are a masterful communicator, both verbally and non-verbally. You know your purpose. How beautiful is that. You're a creator in the arts and you know, as I always tell my students that I'm training to be therapists counseling is an art with science. Our theories are our science, but there's a lot of art that goes with counseling your gut instincts and just how you deliver things. But with a really well-developed, balanced throat chakra, you're in your artistry and, more importantly, we're not only a good communicator. The other side of that coin is we're a good listener. All things needed in the helping profession right. Be a good communicator, be a good listener. A developed throat chakra is going to help you prevent the burnout and the compassion fatigue because you're getting your needs met. You're speaking up, see.

Speaker 1:

An open throat chakra allows you to speak your truth, albeit in a way that is inviting and not hurtful. This is also the gateway chakra to eliciting the rise of kundalini, the coiled serpent of energy that rises from the base of our spines and flows up to our crown chakra. That's all yoga stuff. Look it up. Some great YouTubes take a kundalini yoga class. Release some of that energy. We are energy beings and this stuff is real.

Speaker 1:

A blocked throat chakra, on the other hand, if you don't have that open throat chakra, you might talk a lot but you don't say a lot of things that are truly meaningful, or you might not listen. Well, I don't know if you've been around folks that just blah, blah, blah, blah they. They will take 30 minutes to say something that could have been said succinctly. Two minutes, that is a blocked throat chakra. And with a blocked throat chakra, silence might make you really nervous, and so you overcompensate by talking more. I recognize myself there. Y'all, I used to be more like that. Over the years my throat chakra has gotten balanced and that's not so much the case. But I can remember being I remember in high school when, my god, I went to like eight, nine different high schools in three years. I graduated my junior year and I can remember every time I'd show up at a school I'd be so flipping nervous. I would just, you know, just, brah, just be talking all the time. Um, imbalanced throat chakra, you know, just be talking all the time. Imbalanced throat chakra.

Speaker 1:

A blocked throat chakra means that you might have issues with your throat or mouth, perhaps thyroid disease. I can think of some people in my life that have had thyroid disease and knowing them, that makes a lot of sense. Mouth sores, dental issues, perhaps a loss of your voice when experiencing a cold. Other symptoms could include acceptance and telling lies, maybe participating in gossip. There's a chance that perhaps you have trouble expressing yourself adequately, maybe you're too harsh with words or perhaps you, under you, underutilize words. A blocked throat chakra inhibits you from expressing yourself when you feel that someone has done you wrong, or even I mean and that's sad, because we have every right to be heard and seen if we feel like we're hurt or if we feel like we're joyful. And a blocked throat chakra can get in the way of either of those and y'all. Again, it leaves you prone to burnout and compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma.

Speaker 1:

So how does the throat chakra impact our authenticity? Because that is one of the biggest gifts we have to live in, our true authenticity, completely and totally comfortable in your skin. You know, and not given a fly and flip, what others think of you. And I'm again back to if your throat chakra is balanced, you're not going to be crass and rude. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about releasing with love. If you don't like what you're seeing here with me, it's okay. I'm going to release you with love because there's lots of other places for you to be and me to be. If someone is your people, if those are your peeps, things are going to resonate.

Speaker 1:

So here's how the throat chakra impacts authenticity, communication and expression. Right, the throat chakra is the center of our ability to speak our truth, express our emotions and communicate our needs. It's going to impact your self-awareness. A balanced throat chakra encourages self-awareness. This allows you to connect with your inner truth and express your authenticity in a very authentic way.

Speaker 1:

You've been around people that aren't living in their authenticity and express your authenticity in a very authentic way. You've been around people that aren't living in their authenticity. I mean, I know I can just feel it. When I'm around someone that's being fake and not being authentic and genuine, I get uncomfortable. My skin feels creepy crawly. I just cannot relax around this person. There's a fear of speaking. When our throat chakra is not balanced, it can manifest as a fear of speaking out. It can manifest as social anxiety, difficulty in expressing our thoughts clearly. It can impact authentic relationships, because the ability to communicate authentically is crucial for forming genuine connections and building strong relationships. So these are very important things to the essence of our life and balancing, getting that throat chakra unblocked and balanced is eminently important.

Speaker 1:

I work very hard with my clients on their throat chakra balancing because I know how important that is to everything else we're working on. So grab my book if you want to know more. Book an appointment with me if you want to work on some things my book, if you want to know more. Book an appointment with me if you want to work on some things. And I'm going to invite you to subscribe to my email list to get the weekly podcast emailed to you, which includes the bonus PDF that I create for you each week. All you have to do is hop on over to my website, wwwjuliemerrimanphdcom. Sign up for that email list. I've also got all my counseling stuff on that and I've got a link to the book. Okay, that's my commercial.

Speaker 1:

Let's go on to the activity that I've created for you to help you balance that throat chakra. Okay, so I'm going to take a big drink of water here. I want you all to get comfortable and remember we're talking about that throat chakra. The color is blue. That goes with the throat. Um, I want you to just take a big, deep breath and exhale and just get centered. Just envision blue radiating around your throat as I'm talking about this activity.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, finding the courage to use your authentic voice. To find that authentic voice, you have to reflect on your core values, strengths and passions. You want to align your voice with these elements to ensure that you are leading your life authentically and staying true to who you are. And you're not going to know who you are if you haven't taken time to reflect on your core values, strengths and passions. So let's park here just a hot minute. So let's park here just a hot minute to deeply reflect on your core values. This means these core values, rather, are the fundamental beliefs that guide your decisions and your actions.

Speaker 1:

Consider your inherent strengths Now. These are the talents and capabilities that come naturally to you and enable you to excel, and I would invite you that bring you joy. It doesn't rob you of energy when you're in these strengths, it energizes you and brings joy. And in exploring your passions, y'all these are the activities and subjects, again, that ignite your enthusiasm and drive, just like the strengths. When you're in these passions, you're energized. Right Time just flies. You're in the zone.

Speaker 1:

It's important to stay in touch with these elements. I think we get too busy doing life and forget to focus on things that help us be in life the being. We're so busy with the doing so, the more we are in our authenticity, the more we're going to be in our being. See, when your voice is aligned with these foundational elements, your authentic voice feels genuine and stems from a place of deep conviction, allowing you to remain steadfast in the principles that are true to you. And have you taken the time to really do that? You know, I'm in my 60s. I'm really aware that maybe I've got 20, 30 more years to do all the things I want to do. I mean, yesterday I was in my 20s and it seemed like I had forever to get things done. I'm hyper aware of trying to live in my passion and find those sparks so that I can be in my authenticity. Do that for yourself now. I don't care how old you are. I don't care if you're in your 80s I mean, we are never too old to be in our passions and do the things that really bring us joy so we can live out of our authenticity. And taking this a bit deeper, in your authentic voice you well, when you're to be in authentic voice, you want to carefully craft a message that clearly articulates the impact you aspire to create in the world. So that looks like this what positive change do you want to inspire? It doesn't have to be mountain moving. It could be like I want my goats to have the best alfalfa around. I mean whatever. Just know that for yourself.

Speaker 1:

What difference do you hope to make in the lives of others or within your sphere of influence? By defining your desired impact, you provide a clear direction for your communication, and that's powerful. You need to take the time to explicitly clarify what you stand for. What principles are non-negotiable for you? What values will consistently inform the messages you convey? Articulating your beliefs with conviction will establish trust and y'all it allows others to understand your perspective. Trust and y'all it allows others to understand your perspective. Don't you respect people that you know where they're coming from?

Speaker 1:

I'm sure you've been around that really authentic person that just inspires you. You can do this for you and you simply have to ask yourself what knowledge, inspiration or call to action do you wish to impart? By focusing on the value you offer to others, your message will become more relevant and impactful, fostering a really deeper connection. So that's very true of the clients we might be serving. It's very true of our family, the people who are our friends. But, most importantly, it's a question to take to yourself and really think what am I doing with my life? Am I living in my authenticity? Let me truly reflect on these questions and see what I want my voice to sound like, because your voice creates your life. I mean, that's your thoughts and what you're putting out in the world and that's where you manifest and it comes back to you. So these are important things to really consider. So, these are important things to really consider.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so what can you do, besides what we talked about these questions, to open your throat chakra? What are some techniques and activities? Well, I would invite you to join a Toastmasters Club. Learn to speak in front of people and set aside judgment. Okay, meditate. Of course you can meditate on opening your chakras. You can find specific throat chakra music or guided meditations online. I find YouTube to be a great resource. Chanting Related to meditating is this thing called chanting, and I've talked to you all about this before. The word hum aligns with the energy of the throat. If you do that long enough, you can really feel the energies break loose. You can repeat this mantra as a meditation, or you can adopt it into your daily life as an affirmation. Hum it to yourself as you go through the day.

Speaker 1:

Sing Singing in general is really good for you. All of us are drawn to music in a way that resonates more powerfully than spoken speech. Think about when the right song comes on, girl man. It can just change your whole day. This is a great way to open your throat chakra. So sing your little heart out. If you don't want others to hear you do it alone in the car, hop in the shower.

Speaker 1:

I'm, I'm relentless. My kids, when they were little they were so cute well, really being smart asses, but they're cute. Looking back, um, I remember cliff going mom, mom who sings that song and I might say, oh, the beatles, he'd go well. Well then, let them sing it. I love to sing, um, and it's not always on key, but yeah, it's okay. Use your voice. And that's my next thing. Use your voice if you know you're gonna need to um, perform or something you know you're going to need to perform or something you're going to have a hard conversation.

Speaker 1:

Practice beforehand, stand in front of the mirror and rehearse. Practice can help you come up with a diplomatic and helpful way of saying things rather than coming across as crass or hurtful. And y'all, wear more blue, wear more turquoise haze. I know it's when I'm recording this. It's summer here in Texas, and summer is when I break out my turquoise Love turquoise and those hues are great for your throat. When you wear a certain color that amplifies a particular chakra color, that's a good thing and, as I said, the turquoise color blue happens to be tied to your throat, so wear some turquoise around your neck. Okay, I mentioned affirmations a little bit, but affirmations are very important for all kinds of things, but as you're trying to really live out of your authentic self, repeating positive affirmations, focusing on self-expression and communication, can reprogram some of those negative thought patterns and encourage authenticity.

Speaker 1:

Mindful breathing I've been doing this before. I knew it was even thing I can remember at four or five years old mindfully breathing, trying to work through something. But mindful breathing, practicing this, can help calm the nerves nervous system and create space for more open and authentic communication. And just a couple of more listening. We talked about that. The throat chakra y'all is about active listening as much as it is about active speaking, and this is equally important for understanding ourself and others. And then, finally, identifying and releasing behaviors and thoughts that are not supporting well-being can help clear blockages in the throat chakra.

Speaker 1:

How beautiful is that? Okay, everything we talked about, friends, everything we talked about and gonna cost you a penny. All it cost you is time, which I know that's probably the most expensive currency there is, but the more time you spend on yourself, the more authentically you're gonna live and the more comfortable you're gonna be in your skin. Authentically you're going to live and the more comfortable you're going to be in your skin, which brings soul joy, and that's what I wish for everyone Soul joy. So okay, all righty. That is it for today. Subscribe to my podcast wherever you listen. No-transcript.