Hi! I'm Brenda

 My Story

It’s February 2007, and I've just arrived home from a leadership conference. “Finally”, I was just thinking to myself on the plane, “Finally I can create the life I dream of with my partner and daughter, friends and laughter, wealth and abundance, and travel while creating an impact in the world.” I’m feeling alive with excitement, expansion, and possibility. Beautiful, capable, and inspired. 

As soon as I pass through the security doors and see my family, my heart sinks. Not because I’m not happy to see them, but because I come face to face with the life of compromises I’ve created for myself. I already feel small. 

The joy I’d felt before morphed into tears of despair as I lay curled up on the floor of my closet, sobbing into a pillow. Again. 

I don’t recognize myself. I’ve lost myself putting everyone else first. I’ve lost sight of my hopes and dreams. Couldn’t even remember what they were.

I didn’t know what I liked, what I wanted, what I needed, or who I was. I just know something has to change. But today, all I can do is curl up in the closet and sob.

I grew up in a tiny town called Chadron, Nebraska. My dad was the college band director. My mom, also a professional music educator, taught private lessons. 

My parents were hard-working midwesterners and they often traveled for professional musical events. I got my love of travel from them.

When I was a little girl, I could feel others around me and sense what they needed. I always knew what everyone was feeling but didn't understand that not everyone could do that. I was told not to be so sensitive, that it was all in my imagination.

I held myself back, staying quiet, and observing those around me. Along the way, I stopped fully feeling my feelings because it felt so much easier to feel other people’s feelings. I fell into people pleasing and doing for others because I could deeply feel their pain, their needs, and their desires.  Part of me liked being the one that could support them. It gave me a sense of purpose and importance, helping them through their challenges. But what I didn't see is that I was finding people who would just take so that I could give. 

Being the daughter of musicians, it was easy to become a music educator myself. I wanted to be the best of the best, just like my parents. I honed my skills. Built my resume and became a well-recognized music educator. 

While I loved the work, I hustled for my worth. I chased opportunities, awards, and recognition. It was never enough. I hustled faster and harder.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped listening to my body and my inner knowing. I kept working but my body talked. I talked back with antacids, ibuprofen, and caffeine. 

I’d joined Mary Kay two years earlier to make friends and plot a course to a career other than teaching. I ended up finding myself in a community of women who believed in me far more than I ever believed in myself. Their belief in me buoyed me until I could learn to truly believe I was worthy of happiness, love, and fulfillment. 

The moment this all shifted was when I found myself on the closet floor in 2007. In that final time of sobbing on the floor, I had had enough. 

I asked for help. My Mary Kay sisterhood rallied with the support I could never have dreamed of providing resources and help, furnishing our home, loving me while I healed from the divorce, and offering friendship and community. Their belief in me saved me and taught me to believe in myself.

I rebuilt my life. I realized how much I had done for everyone because it felt easy to meet their needs. I could see how much I had given and overgiven my entire life to those around me, never thinking of my own needs, never choosing people who would reciprocate. 

I recognized that I needed to shift so that I could call in healthier relationships, friendships, and connections. It started with me learning how to recover from people pleasing, setting boundaries, learning to protect energy, and healing my nervous system. I’d disowned my own gifts of high sensitivity and empathy, intuition, and healing as a way to “fit in”. 

I decided to reclaim my intuitive gifts and then discovered energy healing, and went on my own healing journey. 

I studied energy healing and became certified in several modalities, learned to read oracle cards, and am a trauma-informed breathwork facilitator. 

Now, I am surrounded by people who respect and love me for who I am. And I love to give and nurture others in a way that is fueling to me. 

Now I give from a place of overflow, not depletion. I give from a full body YES and teach other people to find their own full body YES. 

Today, I work with the most beautiful, empathic, highly sensitive people who were probably told “Don’t be so sensitive” or “You’re too much”. 

I help you embody your sensitivity and turn it into your superpower. I help you see the ways that your big, beautiful heart has just wanted to love and serve. I help you find a healthy and fulfilling way to do that through healing. 

These days, when I’m in my closet, it’s to put on the clothes that make me feel beautiful and connected to my body. Clothes that remind me, I’m living my own Yes Filled Life.

Bio

Brenda Winkle is an educator, healer, speaker, and guide who helps sensitive and successful high performers find, reclaim and live from their full embodied YES. Through empowering her clients to understand whats theirs/what's not, establish the boundaried YES, and create heal to full capacity living, they are able to create their YES-Filled Lives and move through their days with more freedom, ease, and joy.

She is the host and creator of Your Yes Filled Life, a podcast globally rated in the top 5% of all podcasts.  Her mission is simple; to help people feel better and she has been doing so for the past 8 years.

She says, "Healing heals forward. The most important thing you can do for your family and the planet is to embrace your own healing. Healed people, heal people" 

Brenda is a certified trauma-informed breathwork facilitator, and trauma-informed Reiki Master, and is certified and highly trained in multiple energy healing modalities that she offers in her "Heal to the Yes" method.  Brenda is an empath, a highly sensitive person, and an intuitive. She was a music educator for 26 years and has a Masters's Degree in Educational Leadership.  Brenda is currently working on a certification in somatic coaching.