The Introverted Influencer

Beauty in the Breakdown

August 12, 2022 Erica Van Slyke Season 1 Episode 26
The Introverted Influencer
Beauty in the Breakdown
Show Notes Transcript

Suffering with lifelong depression and anxiety, I am no stranger to rock bottoms, but I can assure you there is always a gift to be revealed from the pain.

In today's episode, I am sharing how I  find beauty, faith  and even momentum,  when facing painful  life challenges.

My hope is that this message not only helps you to see your blessings in the midst of whatever  sh*t storm you may be facing, but  that you also  learn some tips for transmuting your turmoil into power.

Sometimes the universe pushes you down so that ,  ultimately, you can bounce back up - more buoyant, more triumphant and even better off -than you were to begin.

 **All my fellow mamas out there: I am a potty-mouth,  so you may want to listen with headphones on!**

If you found this episode helpful it would mean the world to me if you could share it with a friend or screenshot this episode on your phone, upload it to Instagram stories and tag me (@designingvibes).  This podcast is not monetized, so spreading the word is the best way to "pay me back" for my time and wisdom- so to speak.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the introverted influencer podcast. I'm your host, Erica. Vanke my soul's mission on this planet is to help fellow introverts grow their online influence and estate, a feminine flow and ease while battling the woes of depression, anxiety, and even mom guilt. I've somehow managed to build a six-figure blog without the use of social media and without sacrificing my mental health, if I can do it, you can too. Hello and welcome to episode 26 of the introverted influencer podcast. I am so freaking thankful. You are here with me today, and I really hope that you are finding these little wisdom drops helpful. So I have a bit of a confession to make. I am kind of, sort of feeling like a freaking lazy slob right now. I couldn't tell you the last time I have worked out or put a drop of makeup on<laugh> since my kids have been home with me for the past almost month. And I knew just within a day or two of my boys being home with me after summer camp was over that I was just really going to have to surrender, not sweat the small stuff, and just go with the flow as best as I could until school started. But hell freaking LH. They are finally outta the house this morning.<laugh> the new school year started today and I love my boys so much. It hurts, but kids can just be the freaking worst. Y'all<laugh>. I have legit break them up yesterday from a fist fight. Almost got my butt kicked while I was trying to work in my office and write out a Bo post and like that can just really bring your daily vibrational set point downs. So I am ready to start getting back to my Z place with longer meditations and also gradually ease back into my fitness routine because that's really not like my usual gym rat self, but this is a conscious decision. This isn't me just falling off the wagon. This I decided I was like, I could force it and I could do workouts here. I could run in the neighborhood, but I have to listen to my Haggard exhausted body right now, and just really ease back into physicality as it feels right for me. And this form of surrender kind of is a segue to this week's message. So I've mentioned this in a recent episode, but God, it just seems like so many women right now. And I say women because that's mostly who I'm around, are all just going major challenging life shifts, like big moves, divorces rock bottoms. And I am not an astrologer. So I cannot pinpoint exactly what's going on cosmically, but I know some is definitely happening on this planet. And I really could have even sworn that maybe we were in another mercury and retrograde, but that's not happening. So I don't know, but at any rate, I just think that so many of us are feeling worn down in that, but our old school, old world programming has taught us that it isn't safe to listen to our bodies and to listen to our soul's needs and slow down because that would actually be a sign of weakness. So we've got to suppress our humanness with stimulants and caffeine and just continue to plow through and outrun the lion, so to speak. And so we push and push and so press and ignore. And until we basically shove ourselves between a rock and a hard place where it just feels like there is literally no way out we've made our bed and we're kind of stuck in this existence that it's not conducive to our, our authentic needs. And it's almost the sense of being stuck in a reality where you felt like, you know, you've tried everything, but you accept that there's just no resolve. So you just gotta keep going on as is. But the problem is then ultimately we will hit some sort of rock bottom, whether that is things or people being taken from your life removed from your life or health problems, manifesting from just all the stress and the dysfunction. But in those moments, there can be beauty in the breakdown. As I think when I'm titling this, where, you know, something has got to give because you just cannot keep going on like you have, but I know that there are a lot of you baddies out there that can just go and go and go and go. You're like robots. And I think it's mind blowing. And, and I know in the past I've been like, dang, I want whatever she's on because it used to make me feel less than an envious because my sensitive nervous system and my lifetime basically of depression has just basically forced me into being very conservative with my energetic limits. That being said, I'm finding the blessing in it. I've learned to find the blessing in it, seeing how hitting so many rock bottoms with the depression and just the really sensitive, nervous system of mine. You it's just forced me to be a lot more gentle on myself and looking back on every time a major manifestation has come through in my life, it was typically after being forced into some sort of rock bottom and ultimately being forced to just slow down, listen to my body, get out of the fight or flight and all of the adrenaline and just surrender because I kind of just had no other option. And I feel like I've been bringing up surrender so much lately because as much as I would love to give you some more logical, practical advice on building a business and a life that you love on this podcast. And that was my intentions. I'm just recognizing, or maybe I'm just in that phase of my life at this moment where it's being made clear more and more, that anything incredible that I've ever done or accomplished or anything I've been able to materialize. That was awesome.<laugh> and mind blowing has not come from my own power and my own forcing, or even from looking outside of myself for answers from some marketing expert, some, you know, masculine entrepreneur that I, I don't resonate with. I wouldn't want to achieve success that way. Anyhow, it has always come when I get so tired of trying to do it my way, which is typically the harder, more convoluted way. Anyhow. And I just slow down. I get back into my body out of my logical over analytical mind, and I ask my soul, my inner child, what do you need more of? I've also learned to connect with my higher, more evolved future self in meditations and visualize how she would navigate a situation or even what her daily life looks like in comparison to what I'm trying to do and force into my present routine in reality. And essentially I try to get into a head space in a heart space. Uh, if not a head space, it's a heart space, cuz I guess being in my head is the problem. It more into my body and into my heart to allow space for a new approach, a new answer that I couldn't think of on my own, a more loving, divine, feminine perspective. And I'll be honest with you.<laugh>, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit, but for as long as I've been doing this work now and I step out and I have this podcast and I'm trying to present myself, like I know something to teach you. And then here I am recognizing right now that I'm not 100% there yet with the storm. I feel like I've been in for months now.<laugh> I realize that I'm still wobbly in my own practices and I've regressed a little back to over identifying a little too much with the ego and the over analytical mind that tells me, you know, if I could just be better work harder, overcome this, lay that dragon, then I'll feel more free or more lovable or more worthy, more worthy of teaching you guys. But what I've recently been reminded of is that it's been reflected to me and my results and my reality<laugh> is that all the fixing and the gripping and the reactive problem solving that is what is creating actually more chaos and more overwhelm. So circling back to the beginning of this episode, how I told you I've been in my PJs for the past few days and I haven't been to the gym in weeks when I'm typically very type a, but between the circumstances I've been struggling with the stresses for months now, the, um, fight or flight that I have worked myself in too. And then with the kids being home with me 24 7 recently and draining a lot more of my mental energy than I am used to<laugh> I know that's, um, that's privileged to say, but that is where I can say that I have created a life that suits me will say that suits my parenting style by having childcare. Anyhow, this was a conscious decision for me to try to spend time with my kids before they went to school. But<laugh>, it kind of backfired because it just seemed like with a combination of the stress of what I was already trying to work through and then the kids being home and the constant fist fights and the referee thing y'all have two boys they're two years apart and it's, it is rough<laugh>, but it was just, it worked me into the perfect storm for a breakdown of sorts. It wasn't anything dramatic where I had to go to a counselor at rehab or anything. It was just a breakdown where I was like, okay, God, I am exhausted. I'm over it. I surrender. What would you have me do with this time? And then there was also in the very limited meditations I was able to get in just kind of a, trying to reconnect with my soul, you know, hello, sorry. I've been suppressing your needs with like way too much coffee and energy drinks for so long. Did you just hear that thunder? Wow. You know, what are you needing from me now? And so I, I locked myself in my room, told my kids, okay, mommy has to meditate. And it's so cute because they understand that when they were toddlers and I couldn't afford childcare, I, I would still make it an effort to meditate and they would call it mommy medicating, which I thought was really cute, but it was just this perfect storm. Went into my room, locked myself in my room and went, I had to do like a hypnosis first to get into this place where I could relax and Get back in touch with my soul and my higher self. And when I came to out of that meditation, I grabbed my journal and scribbled out the words and it didn't feel like me and felt like my higher self. And it said, rest, rest, rest, trust, trust. I know most of us have been programmed to just suck it up and power through. But the thing is we have entered a news cycle on our planet, the age of Aquarius, where that doesn't work anymore. And if you just watch the news that is made obvious that this old more masculine paradigm is crumbling rapidly, it's falling apart. So in this paradigm, this new paradigm, it doesn't work anymore to ignore your feelings with a toxic masculine approach where you just suck it up or even with at the same end of the coin, the spiritual bypass just love and light and everything is great. You've gotta let that yucky Boulder on your chest, where the pit and your stomach feelings come up and be felt and acknowledged so that they can be dislodged and removed from your body. Ultimately it's up to you and you alone to decide you will no longer play in this simulated reality game. Step out of the fight or flight programming sink in your, into your body and allow, allow your soul to be shown a broader, more magical, way, more powerful perspective. That's where the best solutions come from. Now. If you're new to the spiritual community, now's the time you're probably asking, okay. So how do I do this crazy lady? How do I allow myself to fill these things that seem so horrible? If I allow myself even one second to feel that emotion I may die, it's so scary. Kind of feeling cuz believe me, I deal with anxiety too. It's it's Ugh, it's horrible. But here's the thing, what you resist persist. So even if all the mess you've managed to bury it down to the point where you're not even, it's not even existing in your conscious mind and your conscious thoughts, ancient wisdom has always known. This is that it will reside that heavy yucky energy will reside on your body and, and rec havoc on it. And not only your physical body, but your energetic body. So my advice to you is just to go ahead and rip the bandaid off, fill it and let it move through your body. And just be curious about the sensations you are feeling, be descriptive, describe it to yourself, breathe into it. It, the Des being descriptive about it and curious about it to me allows you two detach more from it so that you're more of the observer so that it doesn't, it's not as horrifying and personal. Now caveat, if you've experienced some significant trauma in your past, then you probably want to do this with the assistance of a therapist, but you've, you've gotta get it out for me personally. And one of the biggest rock bottoms I've ever experienced a powerful gift was revealed to me when I was involuntarily pushed out of my busy, distracting unconscious daily life and routine, um, forced away from friends, family, and I had to stay in a rehab facility where I had no choice, but to feel my feelings and observe the thoughts that I used to try to drown out with Klonopin and sleeping pills, cuz I was just so afraid if I felt them I would die. But what I realized is that allowing myself to witness and fill these scary things, it didn't kill me. And then even more powerful and transformative when I got far farther along on my spiritual path and not only learned to just be more of the detached observer, but when I learned to take it a step further and actually learn to be a loving observer, almost like a loving caretaker of sorts to my own fears, my own insecurities, my own shadow, my own hangups And just allow myself to breathe into it and love myself through it just where I was shortcomings and all. And at the end of the main keys to becoming the person, you know, you were meant to be and living the life authentically align to your own passions and needs is to first learn to love and value yourself just right where you are today at this very moment, regardless of the conditions you placed on yourself or you know, the accomplishments on your checklist that you have yet to cross off. And another lesson is that you can think that you've mastered this and then when you're trying to up level again in life and it's like, you're a freshman and again, a freshman again. And you've got to continually learn to shift back and remember what that, that wisdom that you have learned throughout your life and your spiritual journey like me, I feel like kind of ashamed that in some way I temporarily have forgotten this, but it's because I'm at a new level and I'm trying to up level again in life. So I'm kind of starting over and it's just my, to you grow my threshold of faith in this work and continually shift from fear to love. And before I wrap it up for this week's message, I just wanted to leave you with one final thought that I really, really hope resonates with you and, and can, um, help you if you're going through a rock bottom or kind of a bit of a breakdown right now, reframe, why is this happening to me to how is this happening for me? Sometimes the universe will push you down so that you can ultimately bounce back up more buoyant, more triumphed, and even higher than you were to begin with. Kind of like jumping on a trampoline. The momentum is in the rock bottom. Thank for tuning in this week. And I am going to go enjoy this thunderstorm. Thank you so much for stopping by this week. I make no money from these podcasts. So the best way you can support this show is by leaving me a five star review on whatever podcast platform you use or by sharing it with a friend or by screenshotting this episode on your phone, uploading it to your Insta story and tagging me in it at designing vibes, sending you my love.