[Intro] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm so glad you joined me today. I'm your host, Corinne Powell.

I help people pleasers find happiness, embrace courage, and experience peace of mind through inner child healing. If you're desperate for change and not sure how to make it happen, I'm here to guide you along the way. In this space, you'll find motivation to live a life full of joy and resilience. 

We will talk all things inner wellness with spirituality interwoven at times.  Being a mom to three, parenting will be a topic of conversation for sure. So happy to have you.

Enjoy today's episode. 

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Hi, friends. Today's topic, I hope will feel relevant to you.

With the times that we're living in, I wanted to touch on fear, and if fear isn't something that you feel like you relate to, then just feelings of panic and anxiety. Because I actually used to live full of fear, panic, and anxiety. I wouldn't have known that's what it was, and I was very accustomed to it, and so I was living unconsciously in that way.

I grew up within a family of origin and with a community of people as friends who were very much allowing themselves to be, to allow fear to dictate their lives. And it was very natural for me to form core beliefs with that as a big part of them. So the lens that I saw life through was a lens of fear.

I thought people were out to get me, that God was out to get me for sure, that life was happening to me and not for me. And I basically felt like I was just needing to somehow survive this existence. I remember many times as a child and as a teenager, just wishing I could be taken from this life.

I really was surviving life, and it was very difficult internally for me. It was a very lonely, depressing place to live within my body. Now, I had learned these behaviors and had learned to live this way because it's what I observed, it's what I was around.

And unfortunately, that's not just my story. So because it's not, I wanted to speak into this. And I've come to this place that I enjoy life, that not every day, but a lot of times I feel like I'm thriving. I'm not just getting by. 

And in the moments when I am just making it, I know that it's not forever going to be that way. I give myself that compassion and the permission in that space to just get through those times when they are challenging, when they are very difficult.

And perhaps you're in that place right now. With the current events, you may feel like it is very hard to find joy and peace in this time. And as much as I want the joy and the peace for you, I also want you to know that it's okay to be in that place where it's difficult right now.

Now, if it's always difficult for you and you feel bleak in general, well, then no, I'm not suggesting that you should have to feel that way all the time. I'm not wanting you to have to be in that place all the time. There is help available to you.

And I'm always going to encourage you to reach out and find the support you need. But say that you have the euphoric highs and then the moments that are low. Well, I know that's a part of the package, the human experience or the journey to recover and heal from traumas.

So in that way, I can relate. But basically, I just wanted to touch on how, yes, I used to live in fear and with a lot of anxiety. But that was based on the underlying beliefs that I was carrying, which then determined the way that I viewed life.

And also, it was a big part of how I was thinking. And because we have the ability to manage our minds and manage our thinking, it's very valid to start evaluating the thoughts that you think. What is your self-talk like? For me, I was allowing an inner critic to dictate how I viewed myself.

Now, because I grew up around very critical, judgmental, condemning people, it was natural, very natural for me to absorb that type of thinking. So an inner critic began to start raging inside of me. And in order to quiet that voice, I had to allow myself to become aware of what those thoughts even were.

So if I stepped into a room and felt very uncomfortable within my body in that space and unsure of what people thought of me or how they perceived me, I have an opportunity then to either allow those concerns and fears to create that social anxiety or to take the thought and look at it, say, “okay, I see you're afraid, Corinne”, like really acknowledging what my feelings are and what my experience has been. And “I understand that some people won't like you, Corinne, but there are some people that will like you”. So I'm giving you permission to be yourself in this space.

And because I do so much work within myself and with other individuals on helping the inner child to heal, I am often going to speak about and within myself refer to the inner child because I know that when I step into a room and I feel those feelings of anxiety, it's really not always my adult self who is feeling that way. It's the echo of my past, the little girl Corinne, who perhaps walked into a room and felt those feelings of fear but didn't have anyone to help her self-regulate. Nobody taught me, “hey, here's what you can do in this moment”.

Nobody asked me, how are you feeling? Oh, you're feeling afraid right now? Oh, that's so normal. I know that feeling and it's uncomfortable, but I'm right here with you and you don't have to go far from me. We can do this together.

And then after the event, talking through that experience with the child. That's what I would do with my own children, but I didn't experience that when I was growing up. So now I'm having to re-parent parts of myself and it's complex and simple all at the same time.

The more you practice it, again, I use that word practice because this is something I'm repeatedly doing. The way that we do life, the patterns we set, the mindsets we carry, we've repeated those scenarios or those things over and over within ourselves. So if I'm going to change my way of thinking or change my patterns and behaviors, it's going to be through practice, doing it a different way.

Doing it hopefully in a way that's actually benefiting me and helping me to heal and recover. So I focus on what does my inner child need, how can I see that part of myself, give attention to it, speak the compassionate words, and be the supportive adult that that part of myself needs. In addition to that, I'm aware of my thinking and I'm choosing to substitute certain words and phrases for something that's more compassionate and kind.

I don't want to be the critic. I don't want to be the shaming voice. I want to let go of the self-blame and the self-judgment and choose compassion and love. This doesn't mean I need to deny things that are really going on, but there is so much within life that is all about perspective and we get to choose the perspective we're going to have. Yes, certain underlying beliefs help form our perspective, but we always have the opportunity to change our beliefs. 

And so I hope that these little bits that I've shared with you can be helpful because we are all together in this walk of life and I know that there is a lot of reason to be afraid and to feel panicky. But there's also a lot of reason to be able to feel joy and peace within. 

[Ending] I want to close out today's episode by thanking you for being here with me. We've made it to the end and I hope what I shared has been helpful.

If there is anything I've mentioned that you want to talk about in more depth, I would be so glad to connect with you. You can always find me on Instagram ⁠@corinne_changeradically⁠ or go directly to my website, changeradically.com⁠. Of course, within the show notes, there's other ways that you can connect with me. And if there is someone that you think would benefit from this podcast, please share it with them.

To help my podcast get more growth and reach more people, please subscribe, review, and rate it. And until next week, I'm wishing you the very best.