Brenda (00:00:00) - Hello and welcome back to your. Yes, the Life. I'm your host, Brenda Winkle. I'm coming to you right in the middle of two beautiful retreats. Last week I attended and participated with the Pause Level two Advanced Breathwork training in San Diego, California. And oh my goodness. My heart and mind were blown wide open and I felt like I just was so healed by that experience. And like, I'm really, truly ready to step into the next version of myself. And today begins the Reiki one retreat in Beaverton, Oregon. So I'm just sitting down to share a little bit of this juicy, juicy retreat energy with you as I record this episode today. So. Here's the thing that I've been thinking about. It's been really alive for me as I attended last week's retreat, and I'm getting ready to lead this week's retreat, that when we get ready to make changes, a lot of times we have resistance over the change, and this is a really human experience. Many of us resist change, whether we mean to or not.
Brenda (00:01:14) - And, you know, I can think of every time that I had change on my heart a lot of times at the beginning when I first really wanted changes in my life, I was too scared to make them. And I'll give you an example. I was unhappily married for 14 years and. Early in the marriage, there were signs that the marriage was not. Really very healthy for either one of us. And when I say early, I mean like two weeks in. But I was like a dog on a bone and more committed to making the marriage last till death do we part than I was making sure that I came out whole. And when I had that. Till death do us part as the prime directive, a lot of other things fell by the wayside, and this was a really conscious choice. This was not any kind of victim, this. There's no blame here. This was a choice that I made, that I was going to prioritize the the vows of marriage over anything else, including my own health, my own well-being, my own happiness.
Brenda (00:02:29) - And I would catch glimpses of myself kind of dreaming and wishing for a change. And then I would stuff them back down, and then I would pretend like I hadn't had that glimpse or hadn't had that thought or hadn't had that feeling. And, you know, I was raised in. A family that really, really valued marriage above. Well above anything else. As far as. Happiness like divorce was not an option in my in my nuclear family. That just wasn't something we we agreed to or, you know, condoned, so to speak. So when I got married, I just knew that based on my family of origin, that this was going to be the thing that I needed to live with for the rest of my life. And so I made it my sole job to do that. But every once in a while I would be like, I wonder what it would be like if I wasn't unhappy all the time because I was unhappy all the time I cried. All the time. Not cries of joy or tears of joy, and not tears of transformation and not tears like in a breathwork session, but like actual tears of sadness, of despair.
Brenda (00:03:52) - And yet, I wouldn't allow myself to even think about changing, because, number one, I felt scared to go against the societal norm that my family had taught me. Number two, I felt like a failure if I did. And number three, I was just so scared of the possibility of change I couldn't even imagine it. So when these glimpses came up and they did come up. I would kind of pretend for a moment that I was in a different situation with more happiness, and then I would just, you know, pretend like it hadn't happened, almost like it was something to be ashamed of and. You know, it went on like this for the first four years. And then at the end of the fourth year, things really took a turn for the worse. And I did leave and I left, and I actually filed for divorce in the state of Colorado, where we were living, and I thought I was going to make the change. But here's what I did. Did not know at that time about making changes.
Brenda (00:04:58) - We need support to hold the new vibration of the change, and if we don't have support to hold the new vibration of the change, sometimes it gets easy to revert right back. So I was intent on making this change last on following through, and I moved back home for a summer and back home with my parents in Nebraska, and I was walking around town one day after I had just accepted a new job in South Dakota, and I was planning to move to South Dakota in a few weeks, like maybe 3 or 4 weeks. And I ran into my my husband literally in an alley, and I was the only one there. It was just me and him. And he's like, why, why, why did you leave? And I felt so scared, I mean. So scared. Like terrified. Scared. And what I wanted to do was to turn around and walk the other way and go get around people and then, you know, just go off by myself. But that's not what I did because I was too scared.
Brenda (00:06:08) - So instead I told him. Where I was planning to go, and I told him what had happened and and all the things and, and,. I felt like there was so much pressure. I mean. So much pressure and I'm glossing over some things really intentionally. Happy to share them with you one on one. But for the sake of the podcast I'm glossing, I'm glossing over them. Not because I don't want to share them with you, but because there are two sides to every story. And I recognize that he has his own version of this story. And so I'm trying to be really intentional about not swaying you to think only my version exists, if that makes any sense. So at any rate, when I moved to South Dakota a week later, he showed up and there was a part of me that was absolutely shocked. Like completely shocked. I did not think that was going to happen. And again, I got really scared, but I didn't say anything. In fact, I didn't say anything for another ten years.
Brenda (00:07:19) - That's right, ten years. So after we moved to South Dakota, things, you know, they they took an upturn for a brief period of time. And then they, they got worse than they were before. And so my idea was, well, maybe, maybe if I ignore the thing that's really wrong here, which was the marriage, maybe I can avoid changing that and change everything else. And so we began this pattern of moving. And so we moved from South Dakota to the Kansas City area. And we lived in the Kansas side and Lenexa for a little bit. And then we moved to the Kansas City side, the Missouri side. I mean,, and that's where my daughter was born. And, you know, so this continued where I knew that this was not a fit for me. I knew I was unhappy. I mean, to say I was unhappy was, you know, like the understatement of the century., it was it was really a very unhealthy, toxic marriage and.
Brenda (00:08:23) - I just felt. I felt like I could make a change. And so if you're in your situation, whatever that is and you feel like you can't make a change, I get it. I know what that feels like. And yet still, even then, I would get these glimpses of what it might be like to change. In fact, one time when my daughter was like 18 months old, I was the only one taking her in for her pictures. I wanted to get pictures made for her at the JCPenney Portrait studio every three months of her life, because we live just right near a mall and it was just low hanging fruit, and it was so important to me to document her growth and development that I really had to fight tooth and nail to make that happen. But I did it. So one time when she was 18 months old, I got to the portrait studio. And my intention had been just to get her pictures made, and the photographer asked if I wanted to have pictures taken with her, like mom and daughter pictures.
Brenda (00:09:21) - And so I felt so guilty, like I was doing something wrong and very ashamed. But I said yes. And so I had pictures made of my daughter and I together when she was 18 months old, and it was one of the it still is one of the only pictures of her and I together by ourselves. And,, I didn't even have the courage to admit to my husband that I had taken that picture. And yet I looked at that picture, and I would dream of a time when we, my daughter and I might be happy and we might feel free and we might stop being scared. And I just hid it away at the in the bottom of her baby book. And I would just look at that picture every now and again and dream about what might it be like? What might it be like? What might it be like? To make the change, and then I would feel sad or embarrassed or something about making the change and stuff it right back down into the baby book and right back down into my heart.
Brenda (00:10:19) - Like this is not the change I need to make. And you know, life continued. And we found ourselves moving to Boise when she was three. And. I, for the first time in my adult life, found myself without full time employment and I was an at home mom. And let me tell you, it was not easy for me to be an at home mom. I'm very social. If you haven't met me in person, I'm very social. I love to be around people, I love conversations, I love companionship, I am more than capable of entertaining myself if I'm alone. But I really love companionship. And so for me to be an at home mom and not have any adult friends was very, very difficult for me. And I entered a depression. And so this was like in 2005, 2004, 2005, somewhere in there. And in the midst of this depression, my mother in law recognized that there was something off. And she said, you know those Mary Kay ladies down the street from me? They they meet once in a while.
Brenda (00:11:24) - Maybe you could become a Mary Kay lady and make some friends. And I was like, yes, please sign me up. I want to be a Mary Kay lady and make some friends. And so in 2005, I signed an agreement with Mary Kay, and I became an independent beauty consultant. Well, less than a year later, I was an independent sales director in the top 2% of Mary Kay Cosmetics. And I loved it. I loved working with the women that I was working with, building my team. I loved working with the other women in my unit, my director, my national sales director. These powerful, all empowered, strong, smart, brilliant women. I loved it and I, for the first time in my life, felt a little bit of freedom. I had some of my own money that was coming in because my money when I was a teacher before, always went to the household and I didn't ever know what happened to it, but we never had enough. So as I became a Mary Kay beauty consultant and had more access to my own funds and more access to strong, powerful women, things began to change inside me.
Brenda (00:12:34) - And I began to realize that I actually mattered. And I know that sounds a little silly to say. And if you've never felt this way, good. I'm glad. I'm really glad. And if you have felt like like my needs actually don't matter. It doesn't matter if I'm happy. It just matters that I do x, y, z because of these expectations. That's that's the life I was living. And when I joined the Mary Kay organization. For the first time, I realized that I matter. And that I was worth loving and worth believing in and worth being around these powerful women because I was like them. It was really the first time I felt that way. I felt powerful and beautiful and smart and capable. And the more empowered I became. The worst things went in my marriage. And it was it was very bad. And everyone knew it. Everyone in the Marion K organization knew it. And yet still, I resisted making a change because I was scared. Because I would have to leave the comfort, quote unquote.
Brenda (00:13:53) - You know, let's be let's be clear. Our comfort zones are not at all comfortable. Rachel McGrath, on the very first episode that I hosted, a guest on this podcast, when it was back in waves of joy, she said something that has stuck with me. She said, our comfort zones are not comfortable. They're familiar. And you know what? That's where I was. I was in this familiar zone. It was not comfortable. In fact, it was very, very uncomfortable. But I wasn't willing to leave it until I had the strength and support of women around me to hold the vibration that my needs, my desires, mattered. And as soon as they were able to hold and mirror that vibration back to me, I suddenly found the strength to create a life that really was for me. And so. In in 2007. In August of 2007, my five year old daughter and I. Moved out and we moved into a domestic violence shelter, and we stayed there for a while before we moved in with my parents, who had relocated to Boise during that whole time.
Brenda (00:15:06) - And it was the biggest change I had ever lived through. I mean, I had moved states, I'd moved jobs, I'd done all that, but I had never actually had the courage to really make a change in my life. And what I found in that process is I didn't have to have the whole process figured out. I just needed to know the next step. And so step by step and step by step by step by step, I rebuilt my life. When I left, I carried two suitcases and $400 and the hand of my five year old daughter. That's it. And over the next several months I got a teaching job, went back to work,, as a teacher, and rebuilt our lives. And we did it with a lot of support and a lot of help. When I moved out with those two suitcases, I knew I wanted to have a home of our own, but I didn't have the capacity at that time. So several months later, after living with my parents for a while, I realized I really needed to just take that next step.
Brenda (00:16:10) - So I just signed a lease and I figured, you know what? We'll sleep on the floor for a while. It'll be fine. I'm just going to I'm going to sign this lease. Well. I got a call from a Mary Kay beauty consultant and she was like, are you going to be home today? And I said, yeah, I'll be home after such and such. And she said, okay, good. Make sure that you're there from like 4 to 9. I'm making the time up. I don't remember what the time was, but a block of time. And I went to the house during that time. And you know what happened? They furnished our home. They furnished our home from top to bottom. We had dishes and glasses and artwork and furniture and a bed for me, and a bed for my artwork for the walls, a dining room table, a washer, a dryer, a lawn mower, toys for more, for Maya lamps, lighting, clothes for both of us.
Brenda (00:17:06) - I mean, these women came in and furnished our home. And gave us the next start to our life, and we could not have done it without the support. Of that Mary Kay community. And that was the first time in 2007 when I realized. We need support as we start to navigate changes, because we need people to hold the vibration of the change. We need people to mirror back to us our vision and not mirror back to us our fear. We can do that on our own, right? I mean, we're more than capable of getting stuck in our own fearful thoughts. What we need is people to amplify and hold the vibration of the vision of what's possible. Those Mary Kay ladies in Boise, Idaho. They call it the Treasure Valley. If you're one of those ladies listening, you changed my life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And so what makes me uniquely qualified to talk about change is I have done it over and over and over again since. So that was the biggest one, the very first one where I took a leap of faith and I just jumped into a change.
Brenda (00:18:32) - I did it again when I bought my house. I did it again when I had the courage to switch a job or take on another side job, or to start a different business, which was. I actually owned a photography studio for a brief period of time, a couple of years in there, and then I turned it into a Reiki business in 2015, and I if I didn't have capacity and someone helping me to hold the vision and mirror back the vibration for me, could I have done it on my own? Yeah, probably. But what I have done in the same timing and as well, no, definitely not that support in all of those cases made all the difference in the world. And so when we're talking about changes, the first thing we have to do is to make a decision that we are worth making the change that's on our heart. That's step one. And that's even before you get to the framework, the framework that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, I'm going to teach you in the masterclass.
Brenda (00:19:32) - So step one, it's actually like step zero. Step zero is you make the decision that you are worthy of the change. That's it. You make a decision, I'm worthy of this change. I'm not going to stuff down my desire for this change. I'm not going to step down my want to for this change. I'm going to actually give it some air and let it breathe and see what happens. That's step zero. And then I'll help you through step one. And I'll teach you step one through seven, which I've used every change I've implemented in my life. And it's the same framework that I teach my clients. And I'll give you just a little a little teaser. Step one is all about the habits that we have. Are the habits that you're living with right now going to support you in your next evolution? For most of us, that answer is no, because we can't make a jump to the new level with the same behaviors that we have at this level. And so we'll talk more about that, what that means in the masterclass.
Brenda (00:20:36) - But I've used these seven step frameworks including step zero which would be eight step. Every time I made a major change, whether it's to start a job at an opera company or to quit a job at that opera company during Covid, or to move across country, or to start a job in a new state when I have seven years to retire in the other state to start my business. Every time I've I've needed to make or wanted to make a big change in my life, I use this same framework. I'm telling you that it works because it examines all of the things. It examines our energy. How are we configuring our energetic vibration? It examines our thoughts. It examines our habits. It examines some really strategic things, like really getting clear on what you like and want and value, and then also some energetic things like, are you thinking negative thoughts that are pulling negative experiences into your reality, or are you thinking positive and expansive thoughts and pulling more of that into your reality? And of course, we're going to be,, adding a little bit of breathwork to this, because when we get into the body and we release the structured mind, we can make incredible strides very, very quickly, very quickly when we get into the body, because the body is where we store all of the stuck emotions.
Brenda (00:22:05) - So when we do the somatic healing, meaning healing in the body through breathwork or somatic coaching, we get so much deeper, so much faster. So I'll be incorporating a little bit of breathwork into this free masterclass two and I am so grateful and excited to be, oh my gosh, I have so many incredible interviews, I just I can hardly even talk about it. Caroline Gibson is a friend of mine and she's on the podcast next week. I have a beautiful friend named Amy Carroll who's going to be on the podcast in three weeks., Caroline Gibson is going to be talking to us about how to really hold the vibration of what it is that you want, and to step into the life that you want. Amy Carroll is teaching us all about relationships. She is a relationship coach, and she has some mind blowing strategies and energetic shifts that you can make to improve every single relationship, whether it's with a boss or a partner. I can't wait for that conversation. And there's some really juicy solo episodes coming up too, and I'd love to hear from you.
Brenda (00:23:14) - Reach out to me. Send me a DM on Instagram at Brenda Winkle. Are there topics that you would love to hear about? Because I want this podcast to be something that we create together that really meets your needs. So reach out to me on Instagram, let me know what you want to hear about and I'll create some content for you. So whether you are navigating a change that you are choosing like I talked about, or you're navigating a change that has been chosen for you either by the universe or your family or your circumstances, or these strategies, these steps will work for you. You know,, I'm 51. And I'm at the live stage where,, things are changing with my parents and my parents health. And navigating that kind of stuff is not easy. And so, you know, if those are the kinds of changes that you're navigating, I promise you, this framework works. If your kids are leaving for college and you're navigating that change, this framework will work. If you're navigating a health challenge, this framework will work.
Brenda (00:24:18) - If you're navigating little kids at home and you're dealing with issues around sleep, or maybe highly sensitive children that you want to make sure you expand their worlds instead of controlling or compressing them, this framework will work to support you to support them. So. I have told you a lot today that I have not publicly shared on the podcast. It's in my book. I don't know if you knew I had a book on Amazon. It's called Empower Her. It really needs to be edited. Just saying. I know that there's some little typos and mistakes in there, but if you're curious, you can hear the whole story by buying that book on Amazon. Empower her. And I published it in 2020, in November of 2020. And then I promptly stopped talking about it. It's time to bring that forward again. Thank you so much for listening to your yes filled life. You know, when I dream of this brand, your yes filled life, I dream of each of you standing with your arms up over your heads, yelling, yes, this is what I want.
Brenda (00:25:29) - This is what I dreamed of. This is what I knew was possible. This is how good I want to feel. That's my dream for you. And that's my hope for you. And that's the light that I am holding for you. Is that you get to have the life that you really, really want. Thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this episode, would you please go leave your five star review and consider sharing it with a friend? Thank you so much for listening. Bye for now. Until next time.
