Embracing the Inner Journey: Navigating Mind, Heart, and Intuition in My Personal Story

I recently found myself in an all too familiar place. When you return to a feeling, emotion or memory, it can feel comforting in a sense. It’s not new which makes it a little less scary. That’s all great, until you get that gut punching feeling of “oh shit, here we are again”. Well here I am, sitting in this fog of fear and anxiety around my value in relationships. Yes, that’s relationships, as in plural, because once I started evaluating one, allllll the other relationships in my life started to come into question. Friendship, romance, motherhood, even the relationship I have with my clients. All of them went right under the microscope to be magnified and SPLICED.

The catalyst to this moment of self-rejection was an upcoming social event with girlfriends who I deeply love and cherish. I’m fortunate enough to have found a group of women who I am able to be completely authentic with and bare my soul in a truly intimate way. We have been preparing for this mini-trip together for months and now that it is right around the corner, something strange has happened. I started to notice this feeling in my whole body, like all of a sudden my skin is too small and too big at the same time. Thoughts started to rush through my mind, questioning everything that has occurred up until this point. Is the connection with these women as strong to them as it is to me? Are my jokes landing with them or do I sound dumb? What if we spend more time together and they realize I have nothing interesting to say? Was I the pity invite? Should I even be going to this thing? All of these questions rushed through my mind within seconds and sent me into a spiral of self-doubt.

I took a step back and tried to evaluate what was actually happening and how I got to this place. One of the ways I’ve learned to help regulate in these moments is by checking in with my body to see where I am feeling the pain, fear, uncertainty, etc. Apparently it was crawling through my skin like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it was largely in my gut. I have been opening myself up to trusting my intuition. For many this is a new practice, women especially as many of us have heard our entire lives that we must have data and logic behind every decision we make. I’m in my “fuck that antiquated notion” era, and working to shift the scale and give a voice to my intuition. So, when this fear was manifesting in my gut I listened and figured it must be my intuition telling me that I should not go away with my friends. What else could it be telling me? I’m supposed to be trusting myself, so start trusting your gut, Bre! Now, I am not one to make a quick decision. I’m more of the type to put a cute crochet halter top in my online shopping cart for a few months while I decide if I am the crochet halter top kind of girl. Eventually I either forget about it, it’s not on sale anymore, or I figure I must not really need it that bad. Sure, this can really hold me back at times, and it can also be my super power. This is where I move to my second level of checking in, this time with my mind.

We all have parts of us that make up the total you. The role of these parts is to keep us safe, and safety can look many different ways and can shift day to day and situation to situation. No matter what, all the parts of you are working in your best interest. What I like to do in these moments of doubt is check in with those parts and see who needs to be heard. That’s right, I totally talk to myself and listen to the voices in my head. The way this practice was introduced to me that really resonated was to imagine you’re in a board room and you are the CEO, surrounded at the table by all the parts that make up you. When I check in with these parts I actually visualize myself in my sexy shoulder pad suit, and at the table are all these versions of me. Each one has a seat and each one has the opportunity to speak if they need to be heard (it’s a big table). So, here I am asking if anyone has any topics for the open agenda, and low and behold the agenda fills up. All of those questions I was asking myself are replayed back to me, but this time I’m the CEO so it’s my responsibility to answer them. This can quickly get out of hand, but lucky for me I can remind myself that I am the CEO for a reason and a couple of my great leadership skills are prioritization and listening. I make the space to listen and ask the question, “Who needs to be nourished most in this moment?”. Sometimes this takes a lot of time and patience and I need to change the questions I ask, however in this specific situation there was one quiet but sure voice and that was a beautifully sad fifteen year old. I know her well as one of my dearest frenemies, she walks with me every step I take. She struggles with her self-worth, she is afraid of abandonment, and she is fiercely wanting to be heard. That’s when the question hit me, is this intuition or insecurity?

This was a profound question for me that brought some realization, yet still left me with more questions. I STILL don’t know if I’m showing up to this girl’s weekend or not. On one hand, I am strongly committed to the relationship with myself which means trusting my intuition. On the other hand, I recognize that young girl who wants to be heard and protected from feeling hurt. She is not wrong or bad, she’s just been needing a hand to hold for a very long time. This is when I remember that as the CEO I have a responsibility to all parts and I get to be as woo-woo with my parts with full HR support. This is the moment I move from mind to heart. That teenage girl who is afraid that she’s not loveable gets to sit hand-in-hand with this grown ass woman who holds the vision for her of her greatest life. The woman who gets to listen to her fears, understand where they come from, and promise to walk alongside her so she does not have to stay in isolation. To thank that part for being present and remind her that love and compassion are important both externally and internally. This does not mean that the insecure part is going away, nor do I want her to. She fully belongs and has purpose, AND I get to choose the type of CEO I want to be in my life.

Long story short, I’m going on the girl’s trip. I am confident that this isn’t a make yourself go and you’ll enjoy it in the long run situation. I know my worth and I know my friends love me. What I learned is I needed to spend a little bit of time loving myself, which is the absolute most important relationship. That’s what my intuition, my mind and my heart tell me. I’m also going to be checking in with that beautiful fifteen year old Bre, along with the other parts. Because what I know to be true in leadership and in life is change only happens when you recognize and take action. Sometimes our parts go unrecognized, the beauty of it is the board room will always be standing and you can always call a meeting on the fly.