Wake up and Thrive
Bridget Covill is a Feminine Embodiment/ Relationship Coach, a wife, a mom of 4, and a Women's health RN sharing tangible tools to help you FEEL wildly turned on by life again. She is the CEO of Find Her Wild Coaching. In this space, we will apply holistic coaching tools to everyday moments that we deem hard. Instead of allowing these experiences to keep us stuck, we will lean into their lessons and let them wake us up. These tools will help you connect deeper to yourself, your purpose, and to the people in your life. Grab a cup of coffee, have something to take notes and keep an open mind. It's time....it's time to WAKE UP & THRIVE.
Wake up and Thrive
096: Empowering Your Intuition and Embracing Self Belonging with Julie Brumley
Discover the profound journey of overcoming trauma and fostering self-belonging with our special guest, Julie Brumley, a trauma-informed adoptee coach with over 15 years of experience. Julie shares her transformative story of confronting abandonment trauma and addictive behaviors, rooted in her near-abortion experiences by her birth mother. Through somatic trauma healing, nervous system regulation, and her extensive counseling background, Julie has paved a path toward radical self-belonging, which she now teaches others to follow. By sharing these experiences, Julie highlights the paramount importance of self-worth and belonging beyond familial ties and inspires others navigating similar paths.
We also delve into the fascinating world of Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, where Julie elucidates how identifying and managing inner saboteurs can lead to profound personal growth. She explains the difference between ego and intuition and offers practical steps to quiet the ego while strengthening intuition through body connection. With insights into grounding techniques and sensory shifts, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for anyone looking to live a more aligned and vibrant life. Join us for an episode that promises actionable strategies and heartfelt stories, all aimed at helping you wake up and thrive.
Julie is coming into my community membership this month to help us discover our saboteurs and how to move past it! You can join us this month for $50 off using code ALIVE. Check it out here.
Connect with Julie here.
Learn about ego vs intuition here.
Take your self-sabotage assessment here.
Let's Connect.
If you want to inquire about coaching and receiving support in helping you create stronger connections to yourself, your purpose, and those in your life email me your story here....bridget@findherwildcoaching.com
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Hello and welcome back to another interview on Wake Up and Thrive. I'm going to introduce my guest after the intro song and all of that, but I want to first just say I've been holding this interview and next week's interview very close to my heart for a while now, mostly because I was waiting to really introduce these ladies to my community. Julie, and then my guest next week is Becky. We all three met sort of we met online, but I really think it was just such divine timing on how we both met and we both just very quickly found out that it was a desire in both of our hearts to host a retreat. So all three of us have partnered together and we are hosting our first ever retreat this fall and, to our abundant surprise, it completely sold out with just our community alone. So my plan was to come on here and open it up to you guys, all of my listeners and, like I said, I was pleasantly, pleasantly surprised that we completely filled out with our past clients, and so we're in the talks right now of whether we will be hosting another retreat or adding another space so that we can include more people. So definitely, if you are a past client listening, stay tuned. I will be contacting you guys soon and then, secondly, if you listen to this interview with Julie, she's an incredible teacher. She holds so much wisdom, years and years and years of both lived and professional experience in this personal development, psychology, behavior analysis world. She's just amazing. And if you listen to her and you're like I want to learn more from her, then I really want to invite you guys to come in and try Fully Alive, which is my coaching membership community, and you can come in and try it for a month, see how you like it and if you don't like it, no questions asked, you can cancel anytime. But specifically this month, at the end of June, julie is coming back in to talk about what she mentions in today's podcast. She's going to talk about and walk you through your own self-saboteur assessment, and so it's going to be a really, really cool talk. I'm really excited for the ladies inside Fully Alive and I want you guys to know, my listeners, that there is still room at the table for you inside of this community. So all you have to do is click the link in the show notes or come find me on Instagram or send me an email, get on my email list and just let me know what questions you have, happy to answer them, and, yeah, would just love to invite you into this amazing community that we're growing. So, without further ado, let's jump in.
Speaker 1:Hi, my name is Bridget and this is my podcast, wake Up and Thrive. My intention for this space is to help women around the world live more awake, aligned and truly alive. I believe wholeheartedly that we are designed to live, feel and experience the full range that life has to offer, and in doing so, we can live fully turned on in all areas. My story began with sobriety and has since been an initiation into rediscovering parts of myself that I forgot about or had abandoned. Learning to reclaim all of who I am has been the greatest gift of living awake, and together we will go on a journey of helping you to do the same. You can expect to learn practical tools to help you connect deeper to yourself, your purpose and those in your life. All you need is an open heart and an open mind. So if you're ready, it's time. It's time to wake up and thrive. Welcome everyone.
Speaker 1:Back to another episode on Wake Up and Thrive. I have a new and really good friend of mine, julie Brumley. Julie is actually the first guest of mine that asked to pray before our interview and to me that really just sums up who she is. She lives her life in a way that truly seeks to honor God and his part in her entire story. She is down to earth, grounded, authentic, vulnerable, and all of those qualities align so well with who I am and what we do in the space, so I'm so excited to have her. I will formally introduce her in a minute, but quick backstory of how we met. I connected with her through Becky Oste, who has also been a guest on this podcast, and immediately all three of us hooked up and we are now partnering to bring our first ever in-person event. I will keep the details At this time. I'm not sure when our podcast interview will officially air, but those details will be out in the world very soon. But it has been so fun to meet with her on the regular, get to know her more on a personal and professional level, and she truly is just as transparent as you guys are going to hear. What you see is really what you get, so I just love it.
Speaker 1:And formally, julie Bromley is a trauma-informed adoptee coach who has been coaching men and women for more than 15 years to overcome addictive behaviors and heal the primal wound of abandonment. She has a master's in counseling and is also the CEO of Coming Home to Self, a company dedicated to helping adoptees heal. After her own birth mother tried to abort her twice, she found herself frozen in an unconscious trauma response for decades. Until she found herself frozen in an unconscious trauma response for decades until she found the power of somatic trauma healing. Now she uses somatics in her own work nervous system regulation, personal experience and as well as her master's degree in counseling, to help adult adoptees find their way out of their own trauma and into a life of radical self-belonging. That was such a great introduction. So, julie, officially welcome to Wake.
Speaker 2:Up and Thrive. Thank you so much. It is so good to be here on your podcast and be able to speak to your audience.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited, so excited too. Why don't you start with just giving a brief background? I mean, even reading your bio, my jaw just wants to drop because you've been through more than most people ever go through in a lifetime. But I would love to know in in your, in your experience, what really ultimately brought you into this work. And then, um, yeah, let me know a little bit more about what's alive for you today and what you've been working on with your clients, and we'll sort of go from there Love to talk about that.
Speaker 2:Well, I think what's brought me here today. It's a long road. I mean, I'm a seasoned woman in age, so I have adult children. That's a whole other thing, but I would say you said that I've been through a lot more than most people. I think the interesting thing to me about that is in the first seven weeks of my life I went through four different relinquishments. And when you think about that and I actually did I figured that out this last week because I have been listening to a lecture from a guy named Paul Sunderland on adoption and addiction, and I've worked with addictive behaviors for many years, and so I was curious about what connection he was going to make and he was bringing this up about the fact that adoptees, when they come into the world, they are. They enter into the world with PTSD, and that had never really dawned on me until he said that. And then he talked about how think about the amount of relinquishments that they experience, and for me it was as soon as I was born.
Speaker 2:Well, and then there was also the stuff that happened in the womb, which you already read about, you know. Like that she attempted to abort me twice, which that shattered my brain when I found that out in 2009. It definitely confirmed all of those feelings of I'm unwanted, I'm defective, I shouldn't exist. All those things that have been subconscious for so long surfaced and it was a really rough time for me, and I had small children then and I was I'd been married probably for 10, 11, maybe I can't remember how many years at that point, and it shattered my brain Literally felt like it went into fragments. My brain literally felt like it went into fragments. And so there was that.
Speaker 2:Then there was the relinquishment from her, which, basically, when I was born, they took me and put me in a nursery. I didn't see her, I didn't go back to her. I was born in 1973, right after Roe v Wade happened. So it basically they called before that the baby scoop era because so many adoptions happened, but after that that actually stopped happening as much, which doesn't make sense, to be honest, when you think about it and so I was attempted to be aborted 12 weeks after the law passed twice, so that just tells you something. So there was that, taken to the nursery, then from there was given to my foster family and was with them, because my birth mother never signed the relinquishment papers. They couldn't find her. She disappeared and they looked everywhere for her, and so I was in foster care until she actually showed up to sign the papers and that was, I think, four weeks after I was born. And so she signed the papers, left, and then my foster family said we can no longer accommodate her and gave me back to the state.
Speaker 2:So I'm an infant, I don't have words. So you can imagine and I didn't understand this, honestly, bridget, until about three years ago how much this had impacted my life, my entire life, and so, and then, right after that, I was given to my adopted family, right, and I was raised by them from seven weeks on. And I'm thankful for that, because, think about, if I had had boundaries as an infant, I probably wouldn't be alive because I would have pushed people away. I only want to be with my mother. I wouldn't have eaten, and, but I had to survive, and the only way I could survive was to allow the people around me to take care of me. So when I got to my birth mother, or my birth mother, when I got to my adopted mom, she told me I kept her at arm's length, even as an infant. She'd hold me and I'd push her away. I didn't feel safe, wasn't her fault? Had nothing to do with her. It had to do with what I'd experienced in the first seven weeks of my life, so that informs why I'm doing what I'm doing today. The sad part is I didn't discover that, like I said, until three years ago, and how that actually happened was it's just so sad my father-in-law actually passed away and started this kind of like domino effect, so it was all in 2020, which isn't surprising. Everybody had something like this happen in 2020. And actually it wasn't just him, it was my birth mother died in 2020. And that actually I need to backtrack. That actually was what did it for me, and it wasn't. It wasn't an emotional, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:What had you connected with your birth mother? Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, I connected. I found her in 2009. So when I said my head fragmented and all of that, that was when I had first connected with her, and so that was not the best relationship. To be honest, she, she was not the best relationship. To be honest, she, she in my, in my heart. I didn't feel this connection. I didn't feel very safe emotionally and she wasn't very healthy physically or emotionally, and so it was hard for me.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I did find her and at that point in 2009, she was on, basically, life support. And so my half sister that I have from her called me and told me, and my husband at the time said to me, do you feel like you need to be there? And I said I'm fine, I have said I have, I've forgiven her, I've looked her in the eye, I feel good. And he said, ok, well, why don't you call the hospital and ask if you can even be there? You know, because it was 2020. And I thought that was actually a really good thing, because I was having a hard time making a decision, which part of what we're going to talk about today is going to be how to do that in a way, that's you know.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I called the hospital and they said get this. Oh, we know who you are. And I was like, okay, so that was weird. And they were like your family, you would be welcome to be here. It's end of life and I live in Northern Virginia, so I'm not too far from you.
Speaker 2:They are in Seattle, and so I ended up flying there and being there when she died, because the question that the nurse asked me that was really pivotal for me was would she want you here? And without even missing a beat I was like heck, yes, she would want me there. I know she would want me there. So I'm not going there for me, I'm going there for her. And it was honestly one of the most selfless things I think I've done. I've never been with anybody. When they died it was, and I wasn't actually there when she died. That's a whole other story. I had gone home to sleep and come back, but and she died while I was gone during that time. It wasn't this emotional thing for me, it was like a. It was a release for me. Yeah, and then the only other thing I will say about that is it started me realizing I have unfinished business here and so, but I didn't know what that even looked like.
Speaker 2:So I called my past therapist, who knew a lot about me but didn't know all of this, and told him here's all this stuff that has just recently happened. And he goes Julie, you have a lot of work to do here. You need to go see an EMDR therapist to work through that trauma, the trauma that you experienced when you were pre-verbal. Then you need to do parts work, which you and I think have talked about that I love to dive into parts work. Yeah, internal family systems has has honestly changed my life. And then he said and you need to do somatic work in that order, say the order of change. He said EMDR. Now I don't know if he said it in this order, but I'm an Enneagram three, so I wrote it down in this order. All right, enneagram one. So I wrote it down in this order and did it exactly that an EMDR therapist, which I'd already done EMDR at this point, so this was the second time I'd done it. Um, I, an IFS part parts work therapist and a somatic therapist. So I found an EMDR therapist that did the first two and went through all of that in 2020.
Speaker 2:Then my, my father-in-law died. Then I asked for Christmas for 23 and me, because I felt like I I'd always wanted to know my heritage. I'd never known it and this is the thing about adoptees that people don't know. We don't know anything pre-birth. We're not allowed. We're not allowed our records. As a matter of fact, we have to pay for them. We don't get our original birth certificate and it depends on the state that you're in.
Speaker 2:I was named Diane at birth, so I had two names, and then was obviously renamed. Back in the seventies sixties, they basically thought here's a baby, here's your blank slate. But what they did not realize was that we weren't blank slates. We'd already been through multiple traumas at that point, and so just so fascinating to me now and that's why I have such a passion to work with this population because of how, finding out my heritage, I found out I was 50% Italian.
Speaker 2:I found my birth father, which I was not looking. He just he didn't appear. My half sister appeared. So I've gained this huge Italian family that I absolutely love and it all makes perfect sense. I am definitely that, and so it's just been like. So at the end, where it says radical self-belonging, right. I think what I've learned through that process is my belonging doesn't come from anybody. It doesn't come from the fact that I've found my birth family. It really doesn't. It did originally. When I first found them I thought, oh, I'm okay, my puzzle pieces are now together, I'm fine, but they're human. We all have issues.
Speaker 2:There were challenging things that happened in those, and it's only been three years, yeah, and so I've had to really navigate that and realize I cannot get my worth and belonging from them. They can't provide that. That's unfair. And so I've learned through this process how to offer it to myself. And that's where the somatic work came in, when I started actually working with Becky, and so that's how I got to this place and realized that this is something I have to. I have to repurpose myself, I have to start all over, and so that's what I've basically done. I've moved from working with addictive behaviors to really helping adoptees heal, and I literally just launched my program last week to do that. It's called Reborn, emerge from the Fog, because for us adoptees, we're kind of in this fog of denial for a very long time, and until we're ready which that's the big thing until we're ready to emerge, it's going to be really difficult to connect with the fact that that trauma impacted us. So that's why I do what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you. Thank you for being so open and vulnerable and sharing that part of your story so with so much grace. I mean so much respect and forgiveness and compassion for your birth family is just. It's amazing to even hear the entire, literally the story from the moment you were born until the day your mom, your birth mom, passed away Like that could be an entire movie. Julie, yeah, yeah, but you said a word that I think is a great segue into parts work, and we've never talked about parts work on here, but you said the word in 2009,.
Speaker 1:I just noticed how my mind was so fragmented and to me, the fragmentation is how a bunch many of us are walking around right now. We have all of these different parts of ourselves. This part. That's well, I'll let you explain, because I think you will do it more eloquently, but I would love you to just explain first of all what parts work is and how you went from this sort of fragmented state to now. And obviously we're all never complete, right, we're not going to be complete until we're up in heaven, but I do believe we are whole, just not yet. Not not yet finished, and so I would love you to to share the story from going from fragmentation to this sense of wholeness, and how parts work. Really helped you in that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would love to do that. So, like you talked about, I have my master's in counseling, and so parts work. Actually, the the theory is internal family systems. That's what it's called, so you can understand by hearing that phrase what that means. It's not our external family system or the system surrounding us, it's what happens within us, and so when you talk about parks and the fragmentation that happens in the brain, we develop coping mechanisms from the time trauma happens to be able to deal with things, and those parks are what protect us. Now, this is my interpretation. I'm trauma happens to be able to deal with things, and those parts are what protect us. Now, this is my interpretation. I'm not going to be reading from a textbook to tell you what it is. Okay, this is what I experienced, and so what has been really interesting for me?
Speaker 2:I can tell you about one specific instance, when I did this in EMDR. So when I did the parts work through EMDR, what she did was she had me basically encounter my parts and take me. First of all, she set up a safe place. We talked about where do you feel safe? And it was at a beach in Hawaii, because we used to live in Hawaii, and so I had this vision of me just sitting there on the beach, and that's where I felt safe and that's where I was able to meet these parts. And she had me name them. And so we started with my negative voice and we named her Mara, because that means bitter in the Bible, and so, and then let me think, so we started with her, and then there were other pieces that came up. One's name was Cece. She was my sensual part. Right now I can't remember. That's so interesting, but I named each one of those parts, the biggest one that I had to deal.
Speaker 2:This happened I was in a relationship and was told that there was no more empathy left for me, and I just remember feeling like, okay, so now, what If there's no empathy? How am I supposed to have a relationship? I don't even know what that looks like. And so this is the thing where the adoptee and a person who hasn't been adopted can relate. The adoptee and a person who hasn't been adopted can relate. Okay, so I went to this place of. Well, it must be something wrong with me if he doesn't want the connection with me that way. Okay, so let me figure out how to fix myself.
Speaker 2:I turned into pleaser mode, right, I went to that place of I have to do everything to try to gain this relationship back and for a month I literally voraciously listened to every Brene Brown book that existed, because I knew she was the shame researcher and she would help me get out of this horrible vortex that I was in which it really did. And then I had this session it was like for me a very groundbreaking session with my EMDR therapist. So this was the second, third time I'd actually done EMDR with her and she said we need to encounter shame. And so, as I'm sitting there and we're having this conversation, she says do you see her? And I was like yep, I see her. And she said what does she look like? And I was like Wanda from WandaVision, yeah, which is just great. But she did. She was in black and red, she was like flying, she had like witchy stuff going on and I was like what is happening? And I said I don't want to have anything to do with her, I hate her.
Speaker 1:So that's your relationship to that part?
Speaker 2:Yes, and she said you, you. She did it so much more gently, but she was like you can't hate her, she's you. You got to figure out how to love her. And she said it in a much more gentle way because here I am, in this place where I don't want to have anything to do with her, stay away from me.
Speaker 2:And so she worked me through, gradually, allowing her to come closer yeah and this is you're gonna laugh when you hear this she started to come closer and I started to feel a bit. I was really tense and my body started to relax as she started to become closer, because I started realizing this was protection. It was really out of love that Wanda was doing what she was doing, and as she got closer, she literally morphed into Elsa. Yes, it's just hilarious. I still call her Wanda, but, but we were able to. She sat next to me, we were able to have a conversation and there was kind of a resolution that happened, and so there is. What happens in parts work is you basically are able to encounter them, you're able to have conversations with them, you're able to learn how to be compassionate with them, and so that's where that all started, and I pause you just for a moment, just to sort of reinforce because that was my experience with parts work as well.
Speaker 1:Like I had always been told you can't heal shame in the same energy that it was created, right, you can't heal shame with shame. You can't shame yourself into change. We say that all the time on the space and yet I wasn't actually able. Like I got it cognitively, intellectually, but I was not actually able to feel compassion for some of my parts, like one of my. I actually didn't name my shame part I really loved. I've named my ego part, but those deep, vulnerable parts of us. It was the first time I actually was able to find and feel compassion for this part of myself and how.
Speaker 1:For me in relationships it was a lot of withdrawal. I would withdraw, I wouldn't look at their eyes, I would get really quiet and the intention was always that somebody would come find me Right and it worked until it didn't work. But I hated that part of me. I called it. I echoed what other people echoed. I called it dramatic, I called it manipulative. I called it. I echoed what other people echoed. I called it dramatic, I called it manipulative. And it wasn't exactly what you said. It was so beautiful that I just want to reinforce. It's not about getting rid of these parts. It's not about getting rid of your inner critic or this shame part of you. It really is about learning to be in relationship with them and be in integration with them and then eventually give them a new role.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is exactly right. Like she had me. Where are you? You cannot be in a safe place right now. Get out of the beach, she goes. You don't want her there with you because that's your safe place, and that helped me.
Speaker 2:I didn't say that that helped me to draw her closer to me. So what I ended up doing was moving into my living room, because it was a neutral location and in my mind, obviously, I didn't go upstairs to my living room, but I was sitting in there and I felt like, okay, that makes sense. I don't want her in this safe place right now. And so as I did that, I was able to draw her closer, and that's when she sat next to me and that's when I was able to have a conversation. What really helped me to have compassion was being able to understand that protection place that she was coming from. Like she was trying to keep me from exposing the things that might harm me, meaning all of that trauma that I experienced in my first seven years of life. I think she was protecting me from dealing with until I was so-called quote unquote ready. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Complete sense and tell me what did that man like? What did that look like? What did she? What were you know? My coping mechanisms were withdrawal. What did your shame part really like? Yeah, how did you see that come to life in your relationships, in your life?
Speaker 2:My language how I talked about myself. You just said it like the narrative that I would tell myself like I'm not really wanted, so I have to throw myself into other people's lives to make myself useful. Like if I can make myself useful, then maybe I'll be wanted. That's what went through my head, so I didn't withdraw in those situations. I actually threw myself into other people's chaos. That's how I was able to feel like I was accomplishing something, because then I didn't have to deal with my own Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also chaos, it sounds like was literally embedded in your cells from before you were born. Yeah, it was a cellular thing.
Speaker 2:It was familiar.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Interesting, exactly, but I do have a shame response similar to yours. So let's say that. So I have this memory of having a conversation with my then husband who said, hey, it was a rainy time and I was driving alone and I had a situation where I slid and it totally scared me and I told him I think the car needs new tires. Like I said that, and, and, and the response back, I mean whatever, I'm just going to say it, because the response back was well, you're a bad driver, so it was just your fault. And I immediately this is what I did, and I like I know you get it Like I shrunk, you're buying it.
Speaker 2:And I didn't cry yeah, I didn't cry, right then I didn't even respond, I shut down and then I moved into my car and just sobbed and actually picked up the phone and called Becky because that was at the beginning of me working through all of my somatic stuff and realized and plus, brene talks about my good old friend, brene, she talks about how the only way to allow shame not to be in charge is to bring it out of isolation, because it thrives there. And so I spoke my truth, I spoke what happened and then I had to tell myself no, the car needs new tires. This isn't about me being a bad driver, like, it was just like so interesting, right Like, but I know.
Speaker 1:I really get that. I really get the shame response and I really also get the importance of bringing that shame to because that is the part we talked about this. I talked about this on a previous episode letting it be witnessed. It's one thing to sit, cry, journal, work through it on your own, but, especially with your story of abandonment, it's another thing to heal shame in the presence of an empathetic witness, right Exactly Of a person who's earned it.
Speaker 1:Who's earned it? Amen, sister, who's earned it, amen. So shame is a topic both you and I are so passionate about, which is why it's embedded in the in-person event that we're going to be doing. Because it's that important, I would love to move into the part of you that you would call your ego. Yeah, and a little bit about that part, because I think the shame part is something that that I know a lot of us can relate to it, but it's such a vulnerable part of us and oftentimes what I see is most of us don't even have access to that.
Speaker 1:I know I didn't. I still I didn't have no idea. My shame response it was everyone else's fault. They were bad friends, they were this, they were that. I had no idea what I was carrying and showing up in my relationships, but I was very familiar with my ego, very familiar with her and who she was, very familiar with my ego, very familiar with her and who she was. But I would love you to talk about that part, like what is the role of that part? How does that look in? How did it look in your journey and maybe in some of your clients?
Speaker 2:Okay, Totally Um so ego. If y'all don't know, I'm sure you've heard of this from Freud, like if you ever did any psychology, that's what he would talk about was the id and the ego. So the ego is basically our sense of self, and it can be controlled. Huh, is it our false sense of self? Well, okay, here's the thing. This is where we can go back and forth on this for a while. I don't believe that ego is all bad, and I don't think you do either.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. No, I actually completely agree with you.
Speaker 2:So when I say sense of self, it's the sense of self that got us to where we are. If it wouldn't be for that sense of self, if it wouldn't be for my ego, I don't know if I'd be here so me to be able to say I appreciate the work you've done protecting me up until now, but I'm shifting my sense of self to a sense of knowing and experiencing, and that's intuition. I want to experience myself differently. The sense of self that the ego has created has gotten me to this place. That I'm not a big fan of, okay. So I think that's where we can obviously connect and understand that that's the truth. So in a way, yes, it's false, but it's what got us here, okay, yeah. So for me, my biggest I have, okay.
Speaker 2:So I need to say this the saboteur assessment. I've talked to you about this. I've posted it on my stories multiple times. I absolutely love this thing and so with every client that I work with, I start them with the saboteur assessment. It's from positive intelligence and you all can search it and you may even end up putting it in the show notes.
Speaker 2:But what I can tell you is, when you do that assessment, it tells you who your voices are that are the most loud. There's 10 of them. There's 10 saboteurs, but there's 10 of them. There's 10 saboteurs One everybody has that's called the judge. Everybody has the master yes, very loud. And then the judge has accomplice saboteurs. And those are the nine. And so for me, my top three are stickler, pleaser which makes perfect sense and controller. Most adoptees that I've seen have pleaser as one of their tops, because we become chameleons. We're not the only ones that do this, but we become chameleons to please everybody, in order to fit in, because we don't feel like we belong anywhere. So those were my top three. I'm sorry, go ahead. What?
Speaker 1:All right In order to survive. Quite literally, yes, right, these saboteurs, yeah, I love the way that you framed this and I. I was actually introduced to the saboteur assessment. I can't remember my top three, but one of them for sure is victim for me. That is a big one that I'm working through it, so I'm curious to hear sort of how you worked with your parts.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what I ended up doing was I? First of all, I got this book by him, shirzad, so I bought the book and wanted to learn, like, okay, what is this and what did he do? And this is highly researched. I mean, the dude graduated, I think, from Stanford. He's smart and so I read through all of that.
Speaker 2:And I also did a coaching program with Kelly Brock, who I love, who helped me recognize how to shift from the left side of the brain, which is where all the negativity lives. All those negative voices live there. That's where they live, and they've been strong the ego has been strong for years and so I had to learn how do I combat those? And you're going to laugh, bridget, and I know you're going to be like this makes perfect sense and you may already know this, but the way to combat them is through doing certain grounding things. So basically whenever that stickler voice would show up and I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:So when I was doing this work about a year ago, I remember I volunteer at a camp where my kids they're adults now, but where they used to go and I used to oversee the kitchen so I went up there right after I went through some of this coaching and she had given us a assignment which was to basically whenever the stickler, the pleaser, the controller showed up three times a day to do some grounding, whatever that was and she had recorded some and was like inhale, exhale whatever to just get into your body when that happens she said pick three times. So I picked 9 am, 12 and seven. I go up to camp to volunteer. Those times didn't work.
Speaker 2:So my stickler is freaking out. You need to do it at nine. If you don't do it at nine, you're not doing it. It's not going to be okay. If you don't do it at noon, I mean would not leave me alone. I mean, and I had to like, if you can see this visually, I had to literally pull her out of my head and have a conversation with her, like, listen, it is okay if I do it at 7 am. I'm still doing it. It's okay if I do it at 2 pm, like I had to.
Speaker 1:I hear why it's so important to visualize them, to give them a name visualize them and give them a different part of you, so that you're not Julie's, not a stickler, she just has a part of herself. Correct, I named her. I love, I love that she showed up as you were trying to work through it. Oh, that's why I show up, and I don't know if I told you this, but I actually did Shazad's. He had a grant for coaches and so I went yes, he still is doing it. He's doing it. I highly suggest it. If anyone's listening, that's a coach. But one thing I learned from him when my saboteur shows up is the you guys can't see us, but just taking your two fingers your forefinger and your thumb, yeah, and making that contact Cause, that's grounding. So sorry, I'm hijacking it, but that was my story with the like alarm. I don't have a stickler in me, but I do remember, I remember. I know exactly what you're talking about setting the alarms, and it's just funny, but anyways.
Speaker 2:I think for me I the alarms. I had to stop that because my stickler, Sally, who I named, is just loud she's my loudest and so I had to just stop that. I had to. Whenever I noticed that she was available, available, showing up, I needed to immediately. What I do is I rub my all of my fingers together and I'll do that for like 10 seconds and shift, or let's say, my controller shows up where I want things in a certain place and everything to be perfect for me to feel okay. It doesn't have to be that way, but that's how my controller is.
Speaker 2:I can, whatever I'm doing, wherever I am, I can look and try and find something beautiful. I can go outside and look at the sky, I can spend time in the sun for a minute to just redirect. And the whole point is what he calls it is the saboteur side of the brain and the sage side of the brain. How I would call it is ego versus intuition. So it's building the intuition side, sense of knowing and compassion for that other side and being able to go.
Speaker 2:I see you, I acknowledge you, I'm choosing differently and we can do that, we have the ability to do that, and so that's what those. So basically you go. This is how I do it in my head. I can go through, you know, smell, sight, taste, whatever. And if I'm doing dishes and I noticed that a thought comes up, slow down, feel the water going over my hands, or this is going to sound funny. If I'm doing dishes and I notice that a thought comes up, slow down, feel the water going over my hands, or this is going to sound funny. If I'm going to the bathroom, feel the toilet seat under my butt, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:That is what he calls a PQ rep, a positive intelligence rep, and anytime we try to build muscle, we're doing reps right. So it's the same idea here build muscle, we're doing reps right.
Speaker 1:So it's the same idea here. And what have you noticed? Like I love that in in real time when those saboteurs showed up. This is what you do, because I think the majority of society, when the saboteurs show up, they either numb it, they talk about it, talk about it till it's till they're blue in the face, or they literally ignore it, and then the other saboteur comes in and takes over the perfection high achieving or the judge.
Speaker 1:the judge just keeps pounding. Yeah, exactly, so I love that. What you're saying is literally it's like a toddler. You ignore the toddler. The toddler is going to get freaking louder. So you're actually saying acknowledge it, acknowledge this part, but don't give it life. Is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and honestly I don't know why I'm even doing the shift, but maybe it's spirit led I. It reminds me of grief. We have to allow it to come. If we don't allow it to come, it'll show up in our body in other places. It's the same idea with this and for years I had ignored, ignored, ignored, almost like a whack-a-mole. You know that thing, like a whack-a-mole, you know that thing Like. Whenever it'd show up, I'd bang it and be like I don't want you here and I'd be like go away. What I had to realize was me acknowledging it lessened its power.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And as I started acknowledging it and distinguishing between it and my sage intuition side and going wait a minute, this is what I'm used to. I've been programmed, conditioned, to feel like this is safe when it's not, and I had to train my intuition side, it by increasing self-awareness and being more authentic in that moment and pausing and saying do I really feel this way, Sally, my stickler, or can I come up with something more innovative and creative and playful in this instance where I don't need your protection anymore? But thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you have an example by chance? I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but do you have an example where the I mean your example of the doing the PQ reps was great?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but I mean that the example was at camp when that happened, like it was so vivid for me. And then the only other one that that is really prevalent was when I was beginning to like put this business together and I was beginning to work on a workbook for adoptees and I was having the hardest time even sitting down and writing and doing anything. And it was because my stickler kept telling me it has to be perfect. If it isn't perfect, then it's not going to be okay. And so I was in a coaching session and I was frozen, like I couldn't move forward, and I just kept saying the same thing to myself and I said it out loud and Kelly actually was like, well, I believe your stickler's showing up.
Speaker 2:And I was like, oh, dang it, sally, but I was so used to her being there in instances like this that it was hard for me to acknowledge her. So I had to be like okay, I did it again. I see you, I recognize this, but I'm going to go ahead and set a timer for 10 minutes and start writing on this workbook and see how I do. And and, if you would be okay, I'd like you to kind of move to the basement. I got this, yeah, and that's what happened. I was able to gradually do work and it energized me Like I started realizing. That's why this started getting stronger was because I started doing something different than what Sally was saying. So she's helped me over the years be very detail oriented and be organized and all of that stuff, but she kept me from really tapping into my creative energy and so that's what ended up shifting for me. Was that a good example?
Speaker 1:It was a great example. So thank you, Sally, for your work and I mean I think this is true for all of our parts and it's a great reinforcement that they work until they don't work Totally. Yep, so tell me, because I know I could talk to you forever about parts, and those that are in my membership are going to get access to you again and we're going to specifically kind of go over their own parts. So I'm really excited for that. But I would love to just hear if someone's listening and they're there they maybe aren't quite sure about their own parts or their own saboteurs. Can we talk a little bit like overarching theme of how do you know whether your ego or part is showing up protective part versus your intuition, Like what are some telltale signs?
Speaker 2:Okay, so you, I know, are putting my link in the show notes and there in there there's a free resource called the ego versus intuition slides and in there all you do is you sign up and you get it sent to your email and this is how you know, and I'm not going to say all of them, cause there's a lot, okay, but I'm going to give little windows into how you know and I need to give credit where credit is due. Some of this came from personal experience. Some of this came from Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, an amazing book that I think everybody and their dog need to read, or Lighter by Young Pueblo. Okay, these are the three my brain and my own experience, and then those two other books where I just kind of pulled all of these resources, and then actually, becky had some stuff in the beginning of her program that helped me with this too. But ego and I'm going to do ego versus intuition so you can hear the difference.
Speaker 2:So this is how ego shows up. It's loud and demanding, it scrambles for safety, it constricts and suffocates. I know that sounds really, really drastic, but it does. You'll notice it in your breathing. It feels like restless energy. It can feel like fear. It can have this survival tendency to it. When I talked about the stickler, did you notice that there was almost like a stress to her? Like if you don't do it this way, it's like a frantic energy. Yes, yeah, yeah yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:It is usually our first knee-jerk reaction, and this is something that young Pueblo said in lighter. He said your first knee-jerk reaction is not you, and that really helped me. But our first knee-jerk reaction usually is, you know, for me, the shame thing that I talked about. I shrunk. That's not me. That's just telling me I need something. It's an indicator. So there's one side.
Speaker 2:Now the opposite of that intuition is a quiet whisper. It knows it's safe, even if the truth is undesirable. Ooh yeah, it's expansive and freeing. It doesn't constrict and suffocate. It settles in your body. It doesn't feel like restless energy. It settles. It feels like love, not fear. It's thriving energy. It you can tell the difference. I mean, you can tell the difference, but you have to tune in to that. And then, not only is it the, it's not the first knee jerk reaction, it's a response to our higher wiser self. So a lot of times our higher wiser self may not seem like that's the right way to go, but it usually is. It seems weird and that's how you know that intuition is trying to get you to go somewhere that your ego won't let you, when you say it seems weird, you mean like logically it doesn't always make sense.
Speaker 2:Correct. It doesn't seem logical. So like I could go through so many more, but I know we don't have a ton of time. Like the ego is wounded, the intuition is actually healing. Now you notice that I put past tense on ego and present tense on intuition. It is not something that is past tense Intuition. We will always be healing. So I think that's important to recognize. None of us have arrived, and if we think so, that's our ego. So I just think it's important to recognize there's no we, none of us have arrived, and if we think so, that's our ego. So I just think it's important to recognize that. But then intimacy in the ego is through control and guilt. We feel like we have to do it in order. You see what I'm saying Whereas intimacy in intuition is through acceptance and being able to release.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's good. I've never heard that, that's so good for me.
Speaker 2:I need to hear that it emphasizes what you've done wrong, whereas intuition emphasizes what you've done right. So did you notice? The stickler kept saying you didn't do it at nine, so dot, dot, dot, dot, dot dot. And I had to be like that's okay, I still did it. Yes.
Speaker 1:So that's another one I haven't heard. The intuition focuses on what is right, so what you did do, how you did show up, and the ego focuses on you didn't fill out your program. You didn't get that relationship Like what's wrong. Okay Right, my ego is a freaking biatch, but I love her.
Speaker 2:No, I know I love her. No, I know I love her too, but it's so interesting Anyway. So I'll quickly go through a couple more. Ego seeks guilt, intuition seeks innocence, similar to what we just talked about. Ego is resistant, intuition is peaceful. There's just a difference Ego uses, ego uses others. Sadly, intuition serves others. Ego shows up as desperation, intuition shows up as joy and gratitude. I mean, who wouldn't want that?
Speaker 1:so it's high vibing versus low so good, it's so good, yeah, and I mean I always say like when you're in a conversation that you're trying to win yeah, it's ego, right, it's all ego. So I talk a lot about mind led communication versus heart led and mind. What you just described is mind is ego, heart is intuition. And so, again, everybody go grab that deck, because even I, who know about intuition, ego, learn something new from you, julie. So thank you for sharing all of that and your wisdom. And one last piece I would like if someone's listening and they're like, oh yeah, I've been living in my ego, like my ego is running the show, can you offer maybe one, maybe two things that they can start to do today to really strengthen their intuition and not get rid, but quiet the?
Speaker 2:ego. Yeah, so the first thing is to do that saboteur assessment, because in order to be able to know who your ego even is, you need to know who your parts are. So do that saboteur assessment, identify who they are. That'd be the first step. The second step is the PQ reps. It's literally being able to notice when the voice shows up. It's all about curiosity, bridget, and I think we know this, the only way we're going to be able to notice when the voice shows up. It's all about curiosity, bridget, and I think we know this. The only way we're going to be able to get to know ourselves. If we're in a relationship with another person that we're trying to get to know. What do we do? We ask questions, we try to get to know them.
Speaker 2:It's exactly the same with this. You do that with your parts. Once you figure out what they are, you pull them out and go hey, sally, okay. So you do that. And then, once they show up, you do and that's why I do this thing with my you can't see me, but I'm going from the top of my head down to the middle of my brain and over to the right side. You shift whatever it is by doing whatever that PQ rep is rubbing your fingers together, letting your hands go under the water, putting up your favorite smell in your diffuser. I'm pointing to it in my room because it's right there, so that you can smell that. It shifts your senses from your brain to your body.
Speaker 1:And that's it. I love that. I love that's a really practical way that people can do it. I love your example of washing dishes. I've given women that example as well. That's amazing. So what I'm hearing is if you want to strengthen your intuition, you've got to learn how to connect to your body.
Speaker 2:Yep, you've got to learn how to slow down. That's another one. Slowing down is a grounding tool. We are in a world that everything's about hustle. No, slow down, tune in.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. Is there anything else that you shows up? We would love to see you there. That's really all I want to say about that, and it's been a pleasure and an honor to be with you today, bridget.
Speaker 1:Julie, thank you so much and we will talk to you soon. Everybody go into the show notes. Connect with Julie on Instagram, grab her free guide and take that saboteur assessment. So thank you, my friend Yep.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Bridget.