How to Soar into Peace, Love, Joy, and Freedom

[00:00:00] We all have our challenges in our lives. And they’re all very specific to what’s going on with us. And the opportunity that we have is to look deeply into them and see what’s unfolding in the midst of the challenge that gives us opportunity for like the great awakening, the great freedom, the great joy, like where does the great come from right in the midst of that thing, being the exact same way.

Not when it’s over, people used to say, you’ll get back to your normal life. Like we’ve been saying about COVID, when is it going to be over? I want to get back to normal. And it’s like, well, you know, what would have been never is right. You can be swayed around for things to get back to normal. And, and, you know, I mean, let’s live our life now.

That’s what shows on like create a life you love living now 

Welcome to onward. Live [00:01:00] a live stream, focused on encouraging you to create a life you love living. Now let’s go beyond success to significance in clear on our, why is crucial. It requires doing the inner work, finding ourselves, getting to know ourselves, embracing our inner child, shedding social conditioning, and letting go of perfect.

We know obstacles make us stronger. We can dream big and take action. Believe you can. And you’re halfway there. I invite you to tune in every week and engage with me and my inspiring guests. Invite your friends. Let’s make time for what matters most in our lives. Let’s move onward together.

Hi everybody. . I’m excited to bring to you, Dr. Valerie, Renee shepherd. She and I met back in February at a diversity equity and inclusion event that [00:02:00] the Navy had. We were both speakers at that event and we just hit it off right away.

And she gave me her book, which I’ve been reading and it’s such a good book and we just have a lot in common. So I thought I’ve got to have Valerie on the show. So Valerie is a stroke survivor, a self-mastery expert. She’s a certified trainer and she’s the CEO of the Hartley center. And she helps people live with more courage, more confidence and inner peace.

And happiness using the wisdom in her multi award winning number one, international bestseller living. Happy to be me. And I’m going to bring Valerie in right now. So let’s see. Valerie. Welcome. Hi Emily. How’s it going out there? Everybody. Emily. It’s so good to see you again. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Great to see [00:03:00] you too.

Valerie. It’s you know, been a while since we w since we talked, but I’ve been reading your book and I just love it so much. I think I’ve messaged you about that. Like, oh, I love this. What you wrote. I love this what you wrote and everything just resonates with me. Thank you then. Yeah. So, can you just read a little bit about your background?

Do you mind telling us a little bit more and you know, you can go into why you wrote the book. Tell us a little bit about your history. I know you were raised by a Marine baby

career Marine father, mother, and the civilian department of defense high discipline household. We were, I didn’t have my hair high and type, but my brother did. And we were pretty much the military culture in the family travel a lot. I’ve lived in 10 states now and moved many, many times got all the benefits of that and how to some of the hardship of, of [00:04:00] that kind of a lifestyle is.

I kind of call Virginia home. That’s why I went to undergrad. I got my MBA at Syracuse university and I just received my PhD in consciousness and human potential. That’s awesome. Where’d you? Where do you, I didn’t even know that there was a, an ability to get a PhD in, in consciousness and human potential.

Is that kind of a new field? No, there actually are several different places that you can get one. So like Maharishi university and I got mine from gateway university. It just depends. You have to look for universities that are offering study in sorta like Noetic sciences something beyond typical science or mastery with the left brain cognitive self.

No. Gateway actually is a school for the study of higher consciousness. So they have all [00:05:00] kinds of courses that are focused on that. Even conscious entrepreneurship though, there are PhDs and in that, like bringing consciousness into a, maybe more traditional role of being an entrepreneur, which I like as well, but I’m into potential driving potential.

So like, I mean, I lived most of my life in my left. Hello. We’re in the same club. And can you explain the difference? So just tell us, what’s the difference between left brain, right brain. When I say I live most of my life in my left brain. And you agree, what do you mean by that? What do we mean by that? So I remember it by the L left brain stands for logic. So the logical brain, the left brain is more in control of our logic, our analytics, it’s our memory, and sorting and processing and analyzing.

Those are considered left brain skillsets, the right brain [00:06:00] and left brain can also be associated with. The divine masculine energy, the doing this, the getting things done, the making things happen kind of stuff is considered left brain, right? Brain is more responsible for creative pursuits, sort of the, you know, if left brain, if you think of it as very right edges, right brand would meet more coloring outside the lines, coloring at all, like seeing color feeling that sort of expansiveness of the non-linear aspects of life associated with the divine feminine, which is more of a weighting energy an energy of more things unfolding creatively coming together.

The vessel that holds as though, as the womb, those kinds of things are more associated with the, with the right. Yeah. So left brain is like achieving through pushing and [00:07:00] logic. And you know, and for me, military, like following the rules, staying within the lines, coloring within the lines, that’s, I mean, that’s kind of me and the doing, doing, doing, doing, and a lot of masculine energy.

I went to the Naval academy, six class of women to graduate you know, and then worked in a male dominated career. You had to kind of use that masculine energy in order to survive. Yes. And I think the beautiful thing is that we both have both. I mean, we all have both, so you have both masculine, you have feminine.

The idea is to know when you’re leveraging, which to do whatever it is your called to do in your life at any given moment. So if you’re like you and I, we leverage left-brain masculine. Almost all the time and for me, maybe even exclusively, right. It’s like, that’s what I was about because that’s what I understood was how I had to be, to be successful.

Right. [00:08:00] And where were you working? You were in, in commercial industry, right? I mean, wherever you well, I worked for nonprofits. I worked in corporate America. When I left corporate, I was a vice president. And so in those spaces masculine energy, especially the more senior levels I rose, the more masculine it was.

And as, as we discussed in our DNI workshop, the more white male it was. And then when you bring in the color ladder, I’m a black female, which historically sociologically is, is at the bottom. And so. Inside me was this energy of, I have to prove and struggle and strive and, and like ma make sure they see me, or I’ll never get anywhere.

Like I have to, I have to get out there and like show them what I’m made of. And so when the show and what I made of came together with everything else, it came in very masculine, very [00:09:00] driven. I used to say that I’ve got this drill Sergeant energy that I got from my father and not as a good, bad right or wrong just as it is.

And that was in there. And that was a part of how I expressed myself in lots of places that I trust. Yeah. Yeah. We have a Facebook user here that commented one of my goals this year was to stop operating so much in my masculine energy. It’s so hard since it’s what I’m used to. What would you recommend to somebody who’s trying to get more into their feminine energy?

Like what are some tips that you have for how they could do that?

So I’m demonstrating one of the tips and if you’re like, maybe you’re like say something, you know, keep going, whatever. Yeah. Talking. Why is she answering? She must not have heard [00:10:00] it. She didn’t hear Emily. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what, no, that’s not. What’s going on. I’m just dropping into my divine feminine, which is you notice my voice drops.

I don’t have to project quite as much. That’s a masculine energy making sure you heard me. That’s masculine energy, feminine energy is somewhat softer. Still can be strong, just in a softer variation of the theme, the feminine energy kind of waits to receive. Oh, did I hear the whole message? Is Emily finished talking before I get my blah, blah, blah.

And I mean, how many times are you in meetings and people are talking over you? Well, a lot of times it can be women talking over other people because they’re trying to be heard. And other times it’s men, because they’re talking over the women because there’s something going on. But so to answer your question, the feminine energy is a more receiving energy.

So one thing you can do is [00:11:00] exactly that count to 10 before you open your mouth and offer something, count to five. If that, if that’s, as far as you can get before, you’re like I have to speak. And if you start getting impatient, like, oh my God, if I don’t speak, they’ll think I’m an idiot. That’s coming from.

When you tell people I’m going to take a pause between the questions just so I can hear myself think many people are like, oh my God, that’s so nice. Like this person I would love to do this.

First thing is to just quiet yourself and the mighty mind will try and McEnany you into doing something and you can just take a deep breath. Breathing is one of the most powerful tools I use for all of my stuff. Breathe. Just take a deep breath, take three. If you can then take two more and then decide what comes next.

I think the other thing for, for the feminine is notice. When your language is betraying you, like if I’m trying to drop into my feminine, but all the time I’m saying I’m going to make it happen. I got to do more. What is this going to get done? Then [00:12:00] we’re in a hyper relationship with the masculine aspects of life which are doing and going and getting things done as opposed to, Hmm.

I wonder what would happen if I did nothing. I think I’m just going to just percolate on that for a couple of days. A couple of days, you didn’t say like a couple of seconds or a couple of minutes. So how does somebody, so what happens when you let it percolate or when you do that, I mean, how do you get stuff done?

Oh, it’s a beautiful dance between both. So what I’m talking about is balancing your masculine and feminine. So bringing your feminine energy up to meet your overactive or hyperactive masculine. So driving your masculine down, allowing your feminine to come up. So for someone who’s over indulged in the masculine, like I was maybe like you were Emily [00:13:00] hearing someone say, wait for two days, it’s like, oh my gosh, that’s my whole world would end, you know, doing nothing would give me anxiety, LOL, but it’s good advice as the Facebook user.

Yeah. And it’s not really necessarily doing nothing. I mean, that’s not exactly what I said. I just said, wait on making that one move, wait on making my major decisions. Maybe the decision having to have a decision every time a question comes in is very masculine. Feminine would be, huh? I think I want to let that roll around in my bones a little bit.

I think I want to love the question just as much as I love getting to an answer.

And so when you start to get that anxiety, if you’re, if you, you’re wanting to try to get more into your feminine energy, but you start to get that anxiety [00:14:00] breathing think is one of your tips, right? He gets deep breath. Yeah. And then to make peace with where that anxiety is coming from is you got to go into the anxiety.

So some of these are surface level tips and tools, then there’s the deeper level. So if it constantly keeps coming up, every time you try to relax into something, something’s pushing you, you’re relaxing into a new way of being, and then something keeps dragging you back. Like in the godfather, they keep pulling me back in.

So if that’s happening, then that’s a signal from you to you, for you about you, that you’re hooked in at a deeper level, which is no big deal. All of us are at some point. So you then want to go below the surface. And say, okay, what is this? So I had to do layers of sort of unpacking where I could see, okay.

The reason I’m pushing so hard is because I don’t think it’s going to happen. Why don’t I believe it’s going to happen? [00:15:00] Well, because it’s hard for things to happen for a woman. Where did that come from? Well, I heard this conditioning or I learned this, you know, like one of the things I used to grow up with is black people have to work twice as hard to get half as much.

Nobody sat down and told me that, but the signs were everywhere and I could hear the adults talking about it between themselves. So as a young girl, you know, children don’t have to be sat down and taught you some taught something. They just are picking up from the pings off of their environment. And so a young child would get an interpretation that says, oh, I guess I’m going to have to work twice as hard to get half of.

My brown skin looks like the brown skin of the people who are talking about this. So, so that could be conditioned pattern of responding to my world. That’s deep, buried, deep within me. So you, at some point to actually unhook and unravel this at the deepest layers are going [00:16:00] to get a chance to explore.

What’s rolling around in there. That’s why I talk about self-mastery, which I define as mastering you in your life so that you can explicitly manage whatever your life brings your way. And so the one of the pillars of self-mastery is self-awareness and that means not whether I like purple and I’m my favorite movie.

And, and what do I like to do on Sunday afternoons, but really like, where did I get these ideas? I have about myself, not necessarily about the world, but where did I get them about me? Because that’s, what’s dictating what’s going on in my world. Wait a second. How is what’s going on about you dictating what’s going on in your world?

I mean, look at all these circumstances that are happening that are outside of your control. I don’t understand. Why are you saying that you got to look at yourself when maybe it’s your boss or you’ve got a stressful job or, you [00:17:00] know, I could go and list them all. And you’re saying we got to look at ourselves.

Yeah. You know, I’m asking that because I’ve learned it.

Yeah. So and so by, I mean, that’s why the book, I got to a place in my life and I was like, look, we really did have conversations. Like, I’m a good girl. I’ve, I’ve done all the good girl stuff. I go to church. I say, my prayers, I do my work. I help other people. I make contributions. I go to, you know, I have my long list of what qualifies me as a good girl and what qualifies somebody else as a good guy.

And. Still some of the stuff that was showing up was yucky and the dynamics in the universe are such that there are laws that govern the universe, spiritual laws, somewhat like physical laws. The law of gravity is a physical law. It works 24, 7, 365. Whether [00:18:00] you like it or not know where to not understand it or not, or if you even believe it or not for you for like this book, working with the law, working with the law, these are the laws of the universe.

Exactly. And I mean, for how many years did we not even understand the law of gravity? I mean, we didn’t even know it existed, but it still worked. Right. People just floating around until they said, oh, now I know what gravity is. No, we discovered how gravity works by watching an operation. So the laws of the universe stay.

In a number of different ways. The way things look on the outside are a reflection of what’s going on on the inside. And they’re in a quantum world, in a metaphysical world. The dynamics of you are what’s showing up in your life, not in the whole world, not in everybody’s life, but in your life. What you’re seeing outside is giving you some insight into what’s going on inside you.

And so [00:19:00] when I got clear on law of reflection, many people may know this from the secret law of attraction cycle of reciprocity, love karma. When you start to understand hermetic principles, Hermes transmit justice, when you start learning like, oh yeah. As above, so below as within. So without when you start learning these principles, when you see things on the outside that you’re going, I can’t stand this.

I don’t want this anymore instead of railing about them and that, and they, and they shouldn’t do this and he should stop saying that. And I’m a victim and they’re perpetrating. Which I was doing a lot in my life. I’m a victim of their bad behavior when I started noticing hum. Well, is it in me first? And that’s why it’s showing up out there.

And I started unraveling stuff inside me. When I raised my vibration, raised my consciousness, raised my perspective, how could this be different than what I, my mental mind is telling me is going on here. They cut me [00:20:00] off. Like this is a classic one and traffic, that person just cut me off. So maybe from the vantage point of where you’re sitting, it looks like that.

And remember your vantage point has all of your mental stories and all of your past wounds and all of your ideologies and your beliefs and what you don’t believe in all of that’s a part of you. So when you look outside and you see some. Driving fast in front of you. They cut you off a person who could be in the same position, have a car, do the exact same thing, but has a very different mental model, a very different idea of the world.

A very different relationship with actions and reactions might say, oh, look at that. Being in a hurry. I hope everything’s okay in that car. Let me put on my brakes and give them enough room to go ahead of me. And then there’s a whole spectrum of beliefs and activities in between. Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other day.

I don’t [00:21:00] share who it was or anything, but they were saying that they were in line in Starbucks, in their car and there was somebody ahead of them and you know, kind of a fancy car. And, you know, I don’t know, they were thinking these thoughts right about that person, you know, rich person, you know, got everything going for them, showing off in that car, you know, They went up to make their order and found out that the person in the car ahead of them had paid for their order.

How pretty? Yeah. And then this person who shared this story with you, how were they at receiving? Because oftentimes something comes up when we’re actually put in a position to receive, we want to receive, or we talk to ourselves about, I don’t want more, but then things show up and we actually push them away oftentimes more than we allow them in or I’ll speak for myself.

That’s the way I was living [00:22:00] before I opened up this body of work to come through me. Yeah, I think this person was just kind of feeling bad for like, was re-examining their thoughts? Like why was I thinking. What made me think that, you know, and, and kind of starting to realize that there’s, there are other ways of looking at things and, and I’ll share.

My example was, which was my job was stressing me out. And I knew for sure that when I retired, I was going to have all this free time to be in good shape. You know, all the, you know, go for a bike ride, go for a hike. My life was just going to be so much easier. And it wasn’t because I was busy. I was, and I had a coach that was trying to get me to meditate and she for 40 days straight.

And she’d say, what day are you on? I’d say day one, two weeks later, what day you on day one? Why? Because you don’t understand a busy, I got to get up and I got to get stuff done. And so I had to reel. I had to look at myself like, oh, it wasn’t the [00:23:00] job. It was my thoughts about the job. And then go back and look like an example of what you were saying, your conditioning.

Oh, My mom was always busy. And I kinda remember times where I be salted, do something like God do something and she was always busy. So that’s soaking into me. Right. Be busy, get stuff done. Yeah. That’s exactly. And for me it was not so much that I observed or experienced my mom always being busy, but her words, the words we, I grew up hearing with was, were the words I grew up hearing or about being productive.

You have to be productive. You’re not gonna run the street. You need to be productive. I mean, even when it was things like going to cheerleading practice or soccer practice, there were more productive things than that. That was extracurricular. That wasn’t really productivity. That was fun and play. Productivity is studying chores like [00:24:00] serving those are productive activities and the rest.

More frivolous. And so, you know, Emily, one of my, actually it’s a very hard realization, but I’ve been kind of making peace with lately is that I don’t know how to have fun as much as I I’m a laughter yoga instructor. I love laughing. I love improv comedy. I do a number of different things. I play archery.

I like the piano. And I find myself turning them into chore, like behaviors where I’m I have to I’m, I’m getting myself on a regimen and I’m doing it a certain level at a certain level, a certain number of times a week. And I, I can turn the most frivolous thing into a chore, check it off the list. It’s like, yeah, it’s like, it’s not, it’s no longer fun.

And then I find myself going, okay, That wasn’t fun. And it’s not the [00:25:00] activity. It’s not that, oh, Valerie needs to try more activities. I’ve had people suggest that, well, you just haven’t found the thing that makes you the happiest. And I know that’s not the truth. I know what is true is that my relationship with all the different options that I have tried, all the different options that are still present and available to me, my relationship with those options is a low vibration relationship where by not letting myself.

Play in them. I’m not letting myself, although I do this on the piano, I do let myself bang on the piano. I do just, and I don’t mean bang, but I mean, like I’m not playing a song, I just found the keys and it doesn’t matter what order they’re played in. And, and I’m playing predominantly with my left hand. I don’t use my right hand that much.

So I’m, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, on the piano with my left hand. So I can play there. And in other places but I’m learning or I’m still, and I’m still learning how to have [00:26:00] fun and how to cultivate joy in little bits and pieces of stuff here and there. And not trying to make it some big, important task or tour be productive.

So you have a PhD in consciousness. So why are you still learning? Well, one of them is my belief system. Another one. Curiosity. So one of the things I say that is the most important, one of the most important behaviors we can have on this journey of life is curiosity. And the curiosity in me is asking what more is possible, not from a place of lack or I’m not enough.

It was before, like, this is so painful. Why is it like I was always asking from a place of emptiness, not from a place of fullness. Now I’m asking from a place of, wow, this is juicy and delicious and what more is possible. So the curiosity is if I looked at it this way, what would I see? And if I tried it this [00:27:00] way, what would I do if I, if I studied this on top of that, what more could I learn?

And if I did this, could I serve more? So it’s the question. So love the question as much as getting to an answer, what more is possible, but also from the place of. I’m trying to see how I can say this in as few words as possible.

Say, what I feel like wants to come through is that the universe itself, this massive container that is holding all that is this massive container is constantly moving, shifting, growing the physics of the universe. As my dear friend, Jennifer Huff would say masterful teacher and owner of the wide awakening.

The universe is always moving up and out. And so are we [00:28:00] as a part of that, like when we try to make things stay the same, we’re actually operating against universal law. So if the universe is constantly changing as are we within the universe as agents within the unit, Then it only stands to reason we aren’t standing still.

And therefore there are layers upon layers of us layers upon layers of understanding to understand past conditioning, to potentially unravel parts of us that we’d like to dive deeper into and play more with. And those parts will shift depending on where we are in the evolution of our consciousness and the dance we’re having with our soul.

So at one point probably 15 or 20 years ago now I was only hooked into everything, needs to stay the same. Why? Because that’s where I felt safe. As soon as I figured something out, I didn’t want it to change because I didn’t feel [00:29:00] safe in change. James brought a pot, brought things. Made me question whether I was smart enough, whether I was good enough, whether I was lovable enough, whether they would see me.

So anything that was changed, brought up an opportunity for me not to be seen, not to be heard, not to be understood, not to be loved. And now I’m kind of like, well, the most important person to love me is me. I do. So let’s see some change. Like, let’s see what more is possible if we tweak this or tweak that.

And so raising consciousness is a, is an every day for the totality of my life dance. I’m digging it. It is fun. So, you know, with me, I’ve been like push, push, push, make things happen, right. Like achieve. And, and so I’ve been learning a lot about the laws of the universe and about manifestation and about co-creating with the universe and about letting it go and.[00:30:00] 

So I decided this year. Okay. My, my word of the year is being, I’m going to be more, do less. So like on breaks, I go lay out, I’ve got an big front yard. I go lay out in the grass, put my feet in the grass and look up at the sun. And I’m not spending my day. Just checking things off the list and more is happening in my life then would be if I was trying to push it to happen.

So if you can experiment with that, if you can like let go of trying to control and experiment with it, you will see when people say the universe is abundant and this kind of stuff. It’s like, you start to really believe it because it’s happening to you. Yes, yes, yes. And you can see the thing about pushing, believe it or not.

I’ve come to realize that pushing. In my life was a sign [00:31:00] of resistance. So what is it a resistance of when we’re pushing to quote unquote, make things happen, show them we’re worthy to do all that stuff. What we’re resisting is what is right? What is, is we can’t always change it. And when we’re pushing and fighting and this word fight has really gotten to be just something that makes my skin crawl.

I don’t want to keep fighting for things. I felt like I’ve fought many, most of my life to, to have what I thought was going to make me happy and then I would get it. And it didn’t. But fighting and pushing in our lives to, to, to make things turn out a certain way as a form of resistance of the way that.

The way they’re unfolding. Now that’s not to say we never stand up and say, no, this is not, this is, this crosses my boundaries or that we don’t say, you know, this societal dynamic I am against and [00:32:00] I’m going to do something about it. It’s not right. What I want to support. It’s it’s another one of those both ends.

Like I will release resistance. Like I’m not going to fight racism. This is a mother Teresa ism. I’m not gonna fight war, but I will March for peace. So I spend less time trying to quote unquote, fight racism and do more to build racial equity. And that feels like something more positive, powerful, and expansive.

So it’s the same principle in just our lives when we can let go of the resistance of what is and just. Move through in with less of our guard up, then we can actually drop into flow and all those universal laws are operating anyway, 24 7, 365. So I’d rather activate myself in flow, then activate myself in resistance.

Right. For sure. [00:33:00] So Shondra asks, are there specific questions you can ask yourself that call forth your divine energy and, or leverage the universal laws? Absolutely. So I don’t often ask questions if I’m going to call forth universal energy. I stated emphatically, so we may know these as affirmations, So, I like to stand in my, I am presence I am is from the Bible biblical term. So this isn’t about religion now, though, but this is a reference point. The name, the way that the divine introduced itself, I am that I am is the name of the divine in one body of work around the divine. I am that I am.

And so I am statements are very powerful statements and we have to be careful what we put after I am. So I [00:34:00] say, now I’m feeling hungry, not I am hungry because I don’t want to create a state of being known as I’m hungry, whether that’s physiologically mentally or emotionally. So you can use the same principle.

What is it that you want to create in your relationship with your spiritual self? So I might say things like I’m fully connected at all times to my higher self, the divinity within me, I’m fully connected at all times with my higher self, the divinity with. I might, I, I always say I’ve said this for a long time, even before I fully understood what I was saying.

God moves in through, around an ASMI now directing me to my highest good. And I am receiving, I didn’t even know what I was saying. I thought I did, but now I know the full weight of that. So yes, Shaundra. Absolutely. You can devise your own. They don’t have to be some specific body of words that I [00:35:00] give you.

You could ask yourself. So self higher self, always make sure you’re asking your highest self, because otherwise your wounded self might give you some ideas. They won’t be horrible, but they might not just be your highest and best. What more could I say? What, what works just for where I am in this moment, you’re having a difficult conversation with someone and you could say my divine mind is helping me feel peace and love.

In the midst of this difficult conversation, my heart is open to all the possibilities where right now my mind can only see closed doors. There’s so many beautiful ways and you don’t have to be eloquent. You could just say an answer is mine now. Yeah. Well this sounds kind of woo. Somebody might say right.

You know why? Yea for Wooah was, I don’t know if that you were going to stop there. Emily, where you going to, yeah, go ahead. So will just means it’s [00:36:00] not explainable by the five senses. That’s all. It doesn’t mean it’s way out of this world. It’s BS. It got a really bad rap because people started making a derogatory thing to say, woo.

But when you actually look deeper underneath the real true meaning, it just means not explainable by our mental faculties, that linear thinking. A plus B equals C and by the ideas that we have to understand it with our five senses or it doesn’t exist, it’s sort of like in the linear world, it’s seeing is believing that’s the scientific structure of how we test hypotheses, improve them to be true or false seeing is believing.

And then there’s the Noetic sciences perspective, which is believing, is seeing. I wouldn’t see it unless I believed in it. So if I’m not seeing it, I might have to shift my perspective about whether it could possibly exist. I [00:37:00] might have to go deeper into faith and less into intellect, faith, right. Brain seeing is believing.

Got it. So you were at something here when you were submitting some information to me. Like if you want more peace stop taking the monkey. Yes, I did without me doing it, but I guess I did. That sounds like me. Yeah. What does that mean? So I just have to shout out to a former boss, ed guard. I reported to him at Proctor and gamble and sometimes when I’d be in his office, lamenting how all the things that were just not right and how people weren’t treating me and not, it’s like, there’s just too much to do here.

And I was, you know, caving under the overwhelm and he would say, you know what? Your problem is in a very loving and kind way, one of the best people I’ve ever worked with, or for you got to stop taking the monkey. [00:38:00] And he said, it just like that. And I was like, what on earth? Like. Okay, can I have a decoder ring, used to have a sign on his desk that said training is happening now.

And he would bring that off of his desk. We’d be sitting at a round table. You bring that off of his desk, you got to stop taking the monkey. And I’m like, okay, tell me what that means. And it just means get the monkey off your back. And most of the time when, like there was a monkey on the back, I was the one who put it there.

So, and that behavior showed up as we might be all sitting in a meeting and somebody would come up with an idea and then we’d say, okay, so who’s gonna, who’s going to start the ball rolling. And nobody would speak up and say, Ballery deal, raise your hand. And we’ll be sitting there going, I’m not gonna raise my hand.

I’m not going to raise my hand. I’m not going to raise my hand. Well, what’s that resistance. Valerie’s not raising your hand. And the next thing Valerie would do is raise your hand. And part of that was driven by the conditioning of, they won’t like. I won’t be successful. I won’t get promoted. I [00:39:00] won’t get better assignments unless I take the crappy ones.

I had a whole mental story about that, but don’t the monkey means. Notice when you are creating your own overwhelm notice, then the monkey on your back is of your own design. So like another example, Emily is when people say there’s too many things on my plate, I’m so busy and being busy has become like a red badge of courage.

Like I’m so busy. Yeah, but why? Well, there’s just so much to do well, who said that? And then when you going to have questions, what usually happens is the person realizes the busy-ness in my life is of my own creation. The overwhelm in my life is of my own creation. If I feel like I’m stressed and behind schedule it’s because I made the schedule.

Yeah. And I had, I had a deputy once who had her issue [00:40:00] was, you know, she felt like she wanted to help people, right? So you could have that pleaser Salvatore, right. Where you want your in your mind, where you want to help people and you feel like that’s your responsibility. And, and so I got a God or one of those barrels of monkeys.

And I said, you know, imagine if you really imagine when you say monkey, but if you just imagine Pete someone comes at, Valerie comes in my office, she sits down and she tells me all her problems and this challenge, and I say, okay, leave it here. I’ll review it. I’ll see if I can help you. I’ve taken your monkey and you’ve left.

And imagine you’ve got an office full of monkeys, all running around, kick them out. Exactly. And you know what, Emily, this, I don’t, I don’t mean for this to be pointed or negative, but the truth of the matter is just like, there are people who have people pleasing tendencies. There are people who are very.

At not being, not taking the monkey. And in fact, some of those people are very adept [00:41:00] at noticing who in the office or who in the family, or who in the friend network or who on the soccer team or in the PTA noticing who is the one who always takes the monkey. And they sit there very beautifully and don’t say a word.

And sometimes they might even say, well, Valerie, this is one of those things you like doing, isn’t it. You want to jump in and, and take care of it. And I really had to work hard. I mean, it I mean, I can still feel some energy that fear coming up. Yeah. I can still feel it. It’s okay. You yeah, of I’m saying now.

Yeah. Yeah. Valerie, isn’t this what you do. Yeah. But no, I’m not going to do this one. Wow. I mean, I can feel the energy too, for me. It’s like, it’s, it’s a little uncomfortable, but the more you do it and realize that. It feels better actually. And the job still got done somehow and life didn’t stop and tell us [00:42:00] about, I want to hear, oh, let’s see.

Yeah, I can talk to you forever. I want to hear number one about like what you’ve learned from your stroke. You’re a stroke survivor. And then I want to hear about your book. Okay. They’re related. Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t believe that I could have gotten through this almost seven years of post stroke experience of my life, if it weren’t for the teachings that I capture in the book.

So the book was written and was supposed to be released in August. Thank you. The book was supposed to be released in August of 2015. The stroke happened on June 5th, 2015. And a lot of people think when they pick up [00:43:00] my book, that they’re going to see a whole bunch of stroke references in it. There’s not one reference to the stroke in the book because the book was done, it was just waiting to be released.

And so there’s, there’s nothing in the book that’s specific to having a stroke or catastrophic anything. There are a lot in the book about the things that we’re talking about, the way our lives end up looking like our lives are being our lives and the way we might resist what’s in them and how to go about living them.

And the stroke was an opportunity. There was a brain hemorrhage. There, I think the numbers are brain hemorrhages are like less than 20% or like 15% of all strokes and. The people who have brain hemorrhages many or most, or I would say most of them are pretty debilitated afterwards and many don’t survive.

Wow. And so my experience has, [00:44:00] is, has it’s ongoing debilitations and we’re doing all kinds of things to, to play with that them. And the steps in the four step process that’s in my book are what I believe have helped me get, as far as I’ve gotten, I was, I was at an event this past weekend, in fact.

And I started shooting archery as an attempt to rehab my right side. I’m right. I’m right. Side dominant. And so the whole act of having to pull a bow back and try and shoot with. Is a way of getting some muscle memory and loosening up some of the spasticity and just working with the nerves and all the dynamics going on on my right side.

And I was at a, at an event this past weekend and there was a emergency room nurse there. And he was watching me move around and stuff in the space. And he said, so is it Ms or Parkinson’s? [00:45:00] And I said, neither, it, it was a brain hemorrhage. And he said, his face got really wrinkled up and his eyes got really big.

And he said, what? And I said, it was a brain hemorrhage. And he goes, oh my God, like, what are you doing still here? Wow. That’s my, this is an ER room nurse. And he said, he said over and over that day have never seen this before. It’s a miracle like you’re walking around. I know lots of people like you, who, if they’re lucky, they’re able to get into a wheelchair.

So as much as I’ve have lots of aspects of my life, that aren’t, I’m not active in anymore or right now, for now you know, to me, that’s like, oh my God, the end of the world, and to others who are looking at me, it’s amazing. So I had to learn to walk again. At first I thought I was going to have to learn to speak again, but my speech all dropped in and I believe that was because [00:46:00] of the teachings that I carry and walk and talk.

When I first woke up and I tried to speak and it came out like jibberish instead of freaking out and going into no, no, no, like where’s my voice. And I kind of remember very vividly saying. I’m a speaker, a teacher and a healer and I cannot speak. And then I kind of went, oh, well, if Stephen Hawking can do it, I guess I can too.

And then I went back out and I woke up like a day later. And when I woke up, all of my speech had dropped in. Now I still feel like I slur my words. I still have a phagia. So there are times when the words aren’t coming. I can’t, I can’t get them. And there are times when I stutter a little bit. Most people don’t hear it as much as I do.

So I still have residual effects, nerve damage, nerve activity. I won’t say damaged nerve activity, hyper nerve activity. [00:47:00] Spesticity all kinds of stuff on the right side of my body, from the tip of my head down. My toes. I have trouble walking and standing because my toes don’t lay out perfectly flat.

And when I’m walking or standing, I have to talk to them. So one of my physical therapist said, talk out loud and your body will hear you. That’s why it’s so important that we be careful what we say our bodies, because our bodies hear us. So when you’re telling people, oh my hair, oh, I can’t stand this donut up on the center of my stomach.

I can’t stand how my feet, like whenever we’re saying that. And I used to for years say my bad knees, well, well, I have my knees conformed to that idea. So I talked to my talk to my feet and I say, okay, toes, lay out flat when I’m going down the stairs. Cause I get scared and I hang on, I talk to myself and I say, relax.

Shoulders back hips under eyes up every time, every set of stairs, I’m saying the same thing over and [00:48:00] over shoulders, back hips under eyes up. It takes a lot of energy. I will tell you that mental energy to like stay on top of it. And you know, what more is, what is more important than my relationship with myself and my masterfully created by the divine earth suit that my soul gets to travel around and the planet earth that’s awesome.

Just carries the tips and tools and tricks and the process to help people do this no matter what they’re facing. So maybe, you know, for some people it’s not a brain hemorrhage for some people, it’s a miscarriage for other people it’s they lost a limb for other people. They’re coming back from battle with PTSD.

For other people, it’s a loss of a child. It’s not a suffering Olympics. Like some people hear me talk about the stroke and they say, oh, I feel so bad that [00:49:00] I have any complaints at all. Your life is so difficult and I’m like, it’s not that’s please don’t do that to yourselves. It’s not about that. It’s not as suffering Olympics.

Like I have somehow more suffering than anybody else. We all have our challenges in our lives. And they’re all very specific to what’s going on with us. And the opportunity that we have is to look deeply into them and see what’s unfolding in the midst of the challenge that gives us opportunity for like the great awakening, the great freedom, the great joy, like where does the great come from right in the midst of that thing, being the exact same way.

Not when it’s over, people used to say, you’ll get back to your normal life. Like we’ve been saying about COVID, when is it going to be over? I want to get back to normal. And it’s like, well, you know, what would have been never is right. You can be swayed around [00:50:00] for things to get back to normal. And, and, you know, I mean, let’s live our life now.

That’s what shows on like create a life you love living now, now this happens or that happens. And if that happened in the midst of, in the midst of all of this, he doesn’t mean she’s acting a fool. This job stinks, like in the midst of all of that, let’s figure out, okay, who do I have to be in myself to have all of these things fall into the right rhythm for me?

That’s the other part of that too. Emily is we can jump on bandwagons a lot. And I think that comes from our psychological and sociological need to belong. Like, and that goes all the way back to caveman days, tribal days, where it wasn’t safe to be alone. So we always looked for, you know, who can we hit our cart to because there’s safety in numbers.

And as true as that might be, and as buried as that might be in our [00:51:00] limbic brain, which is responsible for the, what people know as the fight flight freeze syndrome is true, is that might be, we’re not in danger, 99% of the time in our lives. We’re not in danger. So we need to notice, Hey, I’m letting the limbic brain running.

I don’t need to belong. Like I don’t need to agree to something that I don’t really agree to. Just so I feel safe. I can actually just be quiet, zip it. Don’t nod your head in the affirmative. If that’s not what you believe, don’t say thumbs up when you’re like, nah, I disagree. You don’t have to run into the void and like teach everybody and you really need to be true to yourself.

Do you really need to be willing to? So it’s a real dichotomy. It’s a real paradox of life that we so much want to be long. And at the same time, we want to be seen for who we are and for our uniqueness. [00:52:00] And so we have to nurture both activities going on. Yeah.

It, like you said here, your life is happening for you. Happiness is an inside game. No matter what the circumstances we can find happiness. If we look inside. Yes. And I would offer that looking inside is an, when not enough, it’s a when and it should be a hundred thousand times a day. Yeah. Answers are already inside.

You like metaphysically speaking, you already came here knowing what your journey was going to be like. So why look out there for the answers, the wake into them on the inside, allow yourself to get quiet enough that you can hear [00:53:00] something besides your mental chatter and all your intellectual knowing and allow your heart to speak, which speaks to the soul voice, the intuitive voice and travel on different.

But it’s built from the inside out. Like, and that is something that I didn’t know how to do because I’d get up, you know, wake up, get, get up, get dressed, get a shower, you know, maybe go to the gym, go to work, get Cal, all my tasks, go take care of my kids, do this, that, that finally crash and go to bed, not creating any time to hear that intuitive voice.

And it’s interesting because what you’re describing was me as well. Although I had some, you know, some time in there for champagne and oysters on the half shell and you know, a couple parties here and then with my girlfriends. [00:54:00] So that’s still, that life was still driven from the inside to a large extent.

The places that it was being driven from were low vibration, low consciousness fear. And what I call the false self others call it that as well. So it’s not original to me, but the false self, the shadow self, you might’ve heard that term. Like it’s the self that is created through the twists and turns of our lives, the situational dynamics that we interpret.

And then we turn that interpretation into meaning something’s not right, or something’s not good, or something’s not lovable, or something’s not valuable, or something’s not cherished about us. And the situation may not have had anything. And most of them didn’t have anything to do with us. What other people are showing us is who they are, what their conditioning has been, how they think about life, how [00:55:00] they have relationships with other people.

And we take it on as though it’s something about us. They wouldn’t treat me that way. If they loved me. Well, actually. They might not know what love is. And so the way they’re treating you is just the way they know how to treat you at this moment in their life. Not necessarily about you and your life. So we got to wrap it up in a minute, but Shaundra said, did you say limbic brain, please share more?

Yeah. So the Olympic, this is it’s the primitive brain. It’s at the back of the, it’s a back of your head near the top of the brain stem. And it’s the rep it’s known as the reptilian brain. So it’s got stuff in there. The reptilian brain is stuff that can be handed down. We’re now finding out through epigenetics that things can come in through our DNA.

So a familial PTSD could be handed down through generations. They’ve proven this with soldiers and [00:56:00] with others, their hypothesis around. Generational dynamics that have to do with it. The limbic brain is the fight flight freeze syndrome. It comes from there, it comes from a survival mode. And so the amount of time that we’re spending in survival mode can show us how long, how much time we’re spending in this space of if I don’t perform a certain way, I’m not safe.

And those are coming from this part of the brain where we stored experiences and memories that tell us w dangerous out there, and we’re not safe in our own skin. We’re not safe in our neighborhoods. We’re not safe around certain kinds of people or certain situations. Those messages are coming from stored markers in our systems.

That’s a non-scientific way of talking about it. Non scientific way of talking about it with, from someone who’s got a PhD in this stuff. So so thank you for simplifying it [00:57:00] for people like me. I appreciate that. I wanted to share you a couple other captions. You’ve got a gift here that with the link and this is to a free webinar.

What’s the webinar on? So it is this is how you soar and it gives you three very specific practical in your life today. It’s not esoteric stuff. It’s very practical. People talk to me all the time about how do I have the most magnificent life? How do I, how do I get everything I want? And I call that soaring, like soaring in life is having the most magnificent life.

And how do you soar in your life when they’re anchors holding you down? And so this webinars to show three of the places where people are trying to do it only, they can’t get very far because they have anchors from inside them that are keeping them tethered to the ground. So it’s about a 30, 30 minute webinar.

And everybody who goes to the URL, you can also book [00:58:00] in a quick conversation with me after you’ve seen the webinar. And maybe there’s some more that I can help you see that it’s possible for how you apply those three steps or others. Awesome. And then you have a Facebook group. I do the bliss collective.

Yes. The bliss collective is a group of. 700, some odd strong at this time. So it’s a nice intimate group and we are a community on a mission to create a movement, to have more peace, love, joy, and freedom on the planet, starting with ourselves. So we are all committed to looking at ourselves like what, how can I be more peaceful today?

Because then there’s more peace on the planet. How can I bring more happiness? And how can I be more compassionate, more tolerant, more loving, more caring, more giving. And we look at the principles in my book and from other places, and there are Facebook lives in there and all kinds of stuff. And we are in [00:59:00] community to grow ourselves into a higher consciousness in service to ourselves and the planet and that’s free.

Oh, awesome. So as the webinar yeah. And your, and your book costs a little bit, but it’s worth it for sure. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. If there’s anybody who feels like they. Can’t afford the book to buy it at Amazon or even buy it on my website. It’s 25% off at my website. If you don’t feel like that’s something you can do, that’s okay.

There is a link on my website and I think it says from my heart to yours and it’s a free downloadable PDF. It’s a, it’s a 300 page PDF. So it may take a little bit to download depending on your speeds for downloading, but you’re more than welcome to get it free or to share it with someone else free.

Thank you, Valerie, for being on my show. And I can see why you survive that stroke because you still have a lot to give to the world and you still [01:00:00] are giving a lot. I appreciate you, Emily. Thank you so much. So, so kind and generous to say I’m so glad that we met. I learned so much from you and thank you to everybody who joined us.

Yeah, Shaundra said that’s so kind of you to give that book. Sure. Is. Thanks, John. Thanks for us. Thank you everyone else for being here. Appreciate you. Yeah. Thank you everybody who joined us tonight, Elizabeth, I know you joined us. And you said when we were talking about the monkeys, another phrase I’ve heard is don’t run into the burning fire.

Yeah. Oh boy. I done that. Yup. Yup. So thank you so much, everybody for watching. Thank you Valerie, for being on my show, 

thank you everybody. I appreciate you guys. And I look forward to seeing you guys next week. Hopefully if you can make it, I’m going live just about every Wednesday at seven 30. I’m not going to go live over the summer. Some of some of the summer I’m taking some time [01:01:00] off for self care and. The other thing is, is that on 25 may is going to be my three-year anniversary for this show.

And I think I wanted it to be episode 200, but I think it’s going to be 1 99, so, oh, well, close to 200 episodes. And you know, being that achiever that I ha have been in my life, I, I have tended to not celebrate my accomplishments. And I’m definitely celebrating three years of podcasting because it takes a lot of work.

 Thank you everybody for watching. And hopefully I’ll see you guys next time.

Onward live is sponsored by Emily Harmon, coaching and consulting. Visit my website, Emily harman.com to learn more about me and my coaching programs. I’d love to help you create a life you love living. Remember every adversity is our own personal university. Sometimes the lessons are difficult and we [01:02:00] must learn from our experiences.

Vulnerability is your super power. You are lovable and worthy, and we discuss these topics and more because professional is personal. Thank you for joining us and engaging with me and my guests. I look.