Showing Up Whole

How to Do the Inner Work to Help The World Right Now.

• Christina Fletcher • Season 5 • Episode 3

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In times of chaos, when you want to help the most, when you want to make a difference, the Inner Work is the first priority.

You know the saying, before helping anyone else, "put your own oxygen mask on first", and while it feels counter-intuitive, that's what you have to do right now.

The world is painfully out of balance right now.
So, time to go within. 


In this episode Christina discusses how to do the inner work when there feels like other work to get done. She encourage you to become a lighthouse, not a lifeboat, so you can resonate as a new energy: 

  • Shine out Love, to counter the Fear. 
  • Shine out Light, to counter the Dark.
  • Shine out Relief, to counter the stress. 
  • Shine out Calm to counter the hurt. 

It's time to Show Up Whole and in this episode Christina takes you step by step through a process to truly know what that means. 

From nervous system regulation to listening to your heart. It's time to truly step into your light. 

Speaking of Stepping into Your Light...
Sign up for the ENERGY RESET CIRCLE to get access to Christina's course material of that name. Starting Feb. 23rd she will be sharing this as an additional resource to the weekly sessions and support. 

Sign up before Feb 16th to get in for only $27 a month. 

Meanwhile in this episode listen to these key points!

• The necessity of focusing on inner work for personal stability 
• The metaphor of the lighthouse as a guide amid chaos 
• Techniques for nervous system regulation and grounding 
• The significance of discovering personal truths, or "Elphaba moments" 
• The activation of the observer self through emotional self-inquiry 
• Emphasizing community support and connection for growth 
• The power of playing your unique note in the cosmic orchestra of life

Christina Fletcher is a Spiritual Alignment coach, energy worker, author, speaker and host of the podcast Showing Up Whole.
She specialises in practical spirituality and integrating inner work with outer living, so you can get self development off of the hobby shelf and integrated as a powerful fuel to your life.

Through mindset, spiritual connection, intuitive guidance, manifestation, and mindfulness techniques Christina helps her clients overcome overwhelm and shame to find a place of flow, ease, and deep heart-centered connection.
Christina has been a spiritual alignment coach, healer and spiritually aware parent coach for 7 years and trained in Therapeutic Touch 8 years ago. She is also a meditation teacher and speaker.
For more information please visit her website www.spirituallyawareliving.com

Want to uncover where you need the most energy alignment?
Take her new Energy Alignment Quiz to identify which of your energetic worlds (mind, body, heart or spirit) needs aligning the most!

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Linkedin...

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome back to Showing Up Whole the place where we discuss alignment in mind, body, heart and spirit in every aspect of our lives. Today, I want to talk about turning down the noise of the world and instead putting the priority behind the inner work. The inner work is the work we need to be doing right now, no matter how loud the world gets, so let's dive into what that really means. To make it easy, hi and welcome back. It is such a loud world at the moment and, quite honestly, even if you watch world leaders or incredible thought provokers and speakers, you may still find that it's a swirling batch of energy. It can feel so triggering, can't it? And yet there's this. In times of uproar, there is also always this call for light. It's an amazing thing. When you look back at history, the times where things seemed really dark, there was this stirring of growth and expansion and newness and of people wanting to help. Newness and of people wanting to help. I always think of when Mr Rogers said Fred Rogers, when he spoke of the fact that when he saw tragedy, he always made sure he focused on the helpers. Always look for the helpers is what he said. And yet the thing is is that in these times, so often we feel called to become the helpers. It can become a scramble. It can come this sense of how do I help, how do I fix, how do I change, especially when you feel called to do light work or when you feel called and strongly about the different support systems that need to be put in place. So how do you become the help? It's an interesting question, because the truth of the matter is is it comes down to actually working counterintuitively to that concept. You have to do the inner work in order to be the outer help. You have to put your own oxygen mask on first, and the reason why every steward on every airplane has to remind people of that fact before they put their oxygen mask on their children, they have to put it on their own selves it's because it goes against our natural instincts. We are social beings. We like to help and support and when there is a collective of people, when we're looking at group consciousness, our number one desire is a sense of belonging. It's a sense of fitting in as one of the pieces to the giant puzzle. However, what's really interesting to look at is the fact that if you are part of the puzzle. Energetically, vibrationally, you are going to vibrate and resonate at the same frequency, the same energy, the same emotional space of the collective. You have to take a step back and people bristle when I say this sometimes because from that triggered state of yes, but I want to help, it's very easy to fall into running into the fire and you can't help when you're getting burned. So, inner work, inner alignment, making sure that you are attuning yourself to the energy, to the frequency, to the space of being, the support.

Speaker 1:

An image that I always love within this and which I use often with clients and use often for myself, to the point that my daughter has actually done art around this and I even have images of this around my office because it's such an important reminder. It it's the image of being a lighthouse. A lighthouse stands on the rocks. Apart from the sea, it stands just on the edge, and the stronger the storm, the darker the sky, the brighter its light has to be, because that's how it helps call people home, that's how it keeps things safe and secure and steady. That's how it keeps things safe and secure and steady. There would be no point in sending out a whole bunch of lifeboats out into a crashing sea trying to gather all of the people who needed help. A lighthouse stands there, shining bright, and someone needs to tend that lighthouse. It needs to be. And you know, you imagine a lighthouse worker maintaining this lighthouse. You know, and seeing people in the storm, in the chaos and in so many ways I'm sure the instinct is often to run out into the storm and yet the job is to make the lighthouse shine brighter. So we live in a strange time where there's so much polar energy, there's so much triggering aspects of life, there's so many people who are dealing with so much and actually I would say that every single person listening to this, and even me speaking this, will say that there's just so much happening. So how do you get back to the inner work? And so how do you get back to the inner work? It's interesting because I was actually asked this on a podcast interview a little while ago and you know it's always an interesting, boring answer that I give, because I always just start with.

Speaker 1:

You have to start with nervous system regulation In that call to help and support and yet often panic and run into worst case scenarios and wonder what's going to happen and that spiral of worry or spiral of stories that can lead from one rabbit hole to another. Your nervous system is receiving all of the what-ifs as if they're happening right now. Stress implies to your nervous system that you are in deep danger. And yet again there's that great quote right that says that you know that, you know worrying and stress is just using your imagination to you know. Imagine the worst case scenarios. Now, sure, you can find all the justification of why there needs to be that worry and stress. However, when you calm your nervous system and you steady yourself, find balance, find grounding, reconnect to your whole spiritual self, reconnect to your spiritual source. Reconnect to your spiritual source when you invite, in your sense of all the unseen forces of good that are encirculating you, find your now and you find your present state of being.

Speaker 1:

Regulating your nervous system can be as simple as a few deep breaths. It can be making sure that you feel really grounded, that your energy is anchoring down deep into the earth. Their energy is anchoring down deep into the earth. It's the first step to make sure that you observe yourself and actually say wait, how is my nervous system right now? Am I regulated? It can be a simple step of just focusing on your feet. Get outside, look at the sky. I have to say, like regulating nervous system is one of my passions. If you look at my Instagram feed oh my goodness, I have so many tricks and trades now that I've gathered up Makes me laugh. It's like, oh, there's another one, oh, there's another one. Everything from energetics to simple eye movements, to all of these wonderful things that we're discovering will just tell your brain that it is safe. That will regulate your whole nervous system by stimulating your vagus nerve. There is so many of these that just bring you back to your center.

Speaker 1:

So why nervous system regulation? What's the number one thing that happens with nervous system regulation? Well, you shift from that fight or flight or freeze response so you're no longer in that reptilian survival mode and instead you take a step back. You find wholeness again. And, what I love, I remember when I read this the first time and I just went oh my goodness, this is such a juicy piece of information. You start to see solutions.

Speaker 1:

From a triggered brain, from a triggered nervous system, from a triggered brain, from a triggered nervous system, from that survival focus, you lose peripheral vision, so you become totally tunneled visioned, looking for the danger. Now we can live for years in just that state. Our brains just get so habitually used to being triggered. When you regulate your nervous system, you can see the solutions. You open up to a space of rest and pause and this wonderful space where you allow the answers to come. You allow the answers to come. Isn't that just a wonderful state to be in.

Speaker 1:

So from that space and I will say, number one key to doing this inner work you know it's so easy to desire the big aha moments, the spiritual downloads, the deep, deep sense of connection, the deep awe spaces that just fill you up with that tingly feeling of spiritual connection. It's also good, good, good, when you're in that space. But in order to get that space, you have to find your own inner security and to do that you focus on your nervous system. So your nervous system Nice and regulated, nice and in flow, you find yourself in that space. And then, well, the next step is a simple question, but I'll tell you what. Before we dive into that, just take this short little break. I'm going to grab a drink of water and then I'll let you know what it is.

Speaker 1:

The world is loud and while you don't want to let it absorb you. It's also hard to find the time to learn all the practices. Read all the books, listen to all the podcasts and figure out how to assimilate all the tools putting them in place in order to feel true to yourself. Don't worry, I have a solution. My membership program, the Energy Reset Circle, is designed to be an easy, no-pressure and low-cost resource for your self-care and spiritual development, with a powerful, loving community who are also dedicated to their own paths. You'll find the perfect balance of tools for your own journey, as well as a supportive collection of friends willing and able to hold space for each other. Together, we'll be diving into my special program, stepping Into your Light, starting February 23rd. I created this course for the busiest people in mind, so it offers you simple tools that you can use to show up, feeling present, aligned and on purpose for your every day. There's so much waiting for you. Check out the link in the show notes below and come and join us. Okay, hi, welcome back.

Speaker 1:

I always write down bullet points whenever I come into these conversations and the thing that really stands out as I was waiting to come back and I'm going to get to the questions that I suggested to you in one moment. But I had to tell you this one little thing that I keep telling myself because it's just such a fun way of seeing the inner work and I love the energy that this brings. So I've been using this a lot for myself and I've been telling a few people about this and it just makes me smile. So this is actually a Wicked reference. So if you have seen Wicked and you know how the movie the first movie ends, you know that it is about this woman. Sorry for spoiler alerts, feel free to skip ahead in this podcast if you haven't seen it, but it's not really that big a spoiler because I'm sure you've seen ads.

Speaker 1:

So it's about this woman who is misunderstood and by the end of the movie she has to let go of the shoulds of her life or the things that she thinks she wants, because she has a deeper inner calling for who she came to be. And it's hard. It leads to her being so cast out of society and branded as evil and wicked, hence the title of the movie. It makes her entirely isolated and and yet it sets her free. To me, this is such a powerful image of doing the inner work because none of us likes to feel judged. None of us wants to stand out of the crowd. None of us are often, can actually are often, can actually often. It is really difficult to find the voice to speak our deepest, deepest truth. And yet here this character is Elphaba, who you know. She stands up and she says no, I will live my truth. She knows herself so deeply that she knows her truth that well.

Speaker 1:

So I was watching this movie for the second, third time with my niece and we were talking about it and I was like you know, what's your Elphaba moment? I think we stand in times where we all have an Elphaba moment, a time where we say wait, I need to stand up for my truth. It doesn't matter if I'm judged, it doesn't matter if I'm criticized, it doesn't matter if I'm released or let go of. It doesn't matter if I'm criticized, it doesn't matter if I'm released or let go of, it doesn't matter if I'm kicked out of my society, it doesn't matter if people even understand what my truth is. What's my Elphaba moment?

Speaker 1:

And the thing is is that we watch these movies and you know, you go, I want to be her, I will be her, this is who I will be, but then you actually break it apart a bit and you actually have to say, okay, what? What will that really mean? And are you really really feeling like you can be that, really really feeling like you can be that? And how will you know? Like we said before the break, you know you can't get there from a triggered nervous system. If your nervous system, oh, you can get there when you're riding adrenaline, but you can't be in that space of fear to really claim yourself. You can't be in that state of survival and totally triggered and then try to hear your heart. It just doesn't work. Maybe in the movies it does, but it just doesn't work.

Speaker 1:

You have to have that moment of calm. You have to find that deep, intentional space of going ground, regulate deep breath and then that's when the questions come in. You activate your observer self. Your observer self is there waiting and I find that the observer self rests in my heart. You know the brain loves to think it's getting everything right and it's a lovely system of broken telephone. It tries to interpret what your instincts are telling you, but it's often in that survival space and it is ready to do anything it can to keep you safe.

Speaker 1:

So by regulating your nervous system, by grounding, by deep breathing, by finding that space of balance and actually, let's add, by inviting in that soul space, by inviting in source energy God, the universe energy, however you perceive that to be by plugging in source energy, god, the universe energy, however you perceive that to be, by plugging in. Then, hands on heart, you ask this simple question First, how do I feel right now? As soon as you ask yourself, how do I feel right now, as soon as you ask yourself, how do I feel right now, you create a space of the observer self, meaning that your soul is waiting to tell you oh well, actually you're still a little triggered. Oh well, no, you've calmed down. That's good, you're in a space of balance, you're feeling grounded, you're feeling open for information or, ooh, actually you're feeling really upset because of what so-and-so said, or you're feeling really on edge because of this situation. So you activate the observer self by that simple question of how do I feel.

Speaker 1:

You activate the observer self by that simple question of how do I feel, and then you start poking around, asking yourself a deeper question. It can be as simple as what do I need? What do I need? If you come up with oh, I'm still triggered right now. Then ask your heart well, what do I need? It could be that you just need to breathe a bit more, you might need to ground a little bit more, you might need to drink water. And then the next question that you can lean into is simply is there anything I need to do? Listen, listen deep, allow your heart to rise up to your hands and listen to its message, because your heart is the voice box for your soul. Your heart contains the wisdom that will lead you to shining your light out the brightest, and you have to be open to the fact that it might say no, don't do anything, but you might want to actually radiate out light, or you might actually keep the image of the lighthouse and allow love to radiate out from you. It might also lead you on a deeper path of your own healing. Lead you on a deeper path of your own healing. It might suggest that you need to clear out some aspects of your life.

Speaker 1:

Over in the Energy Reset Circle, we've been having a conversation, we've been working on this as actually one of our focuses this week, just simply asking those questions of how do I feel, what do I need, and one of the members' responses was so beautiful because she said I really need to work on forgiveness. This keeps popping up for me what do I need to forgive? And she is doing a deep dive on her own and that's the inner work that she needs to do to shine her light out brighter. And it's such a powerful testament to that simple question. When you open yourself up to the curiosity and the openness and the vulnerability to actually say what do I need, how do I feel, what do I need, how do I feel what do I need, just it leads into your empowering your own light. And whatever you do, you know, don't diminish the power of shining out your light.

Speaker 1:

I see this happen all the time and, quite frankly, I know I was actually just writing up a thing the other day saying how, you know, for so long I had it in my head that to love myself or to shine my light was kind of egotistical, that I should be focusing on other people and helping them first and foremost. And it really doesn't work that way. You cannot radiate out the light you came to radiate out if you are always putting your energy with other people. So a little side note of that. Okay, I'm really packing it in because right now this is so important, because I truly feel like this is what can change the world. And what can change the world in my mind is alignment to each of our individual selves. It is alignment to who you came to be and who you really are, and it is the focus on becoming that light and radiating out that light and love that you are.

Speaker 1:

It's not a rehearsal anymore. It's not a fun little thing to kind of explore. It's not a oh well, that makes me feel better, so I'll go do some yoga. That's not what this is. This is. I came here to be a certain person and I came here to resonate with a certain frequency.

Speaker 1:

And that does that mean it means that if every single person on this planet was a key to a piano, it is your job to play your note. It's not your job to play anyone else's note. And we live in a world where everyone thinks that a different note is the right one for them, that they need to blend in, so everyone needs to play the same note. But it's just not the case. It is a cosmic orchestra of tones and frequencies that we need to realize, of tones and frequencies that we need to realize. And so within that we have to have to have to put our energy and our focus on our attention, on making that note that we each individually are the purest signal that we can. And you could say well, christina, how did we get from nervous system regulation to there? And I say very easily, because the fear mind is often activated by a mob mentality of everybody getting all worked up and we live in world that's something's always stirring the pot.

Speaker 1:

So it's question of taking a step back from that regulating your nervous system, from that regulated space, then asking yourself and observing yourself what do I need? How do I feel? What do I need? Fueling yourself, plugging yourself into your universal source, plugging yourself in to the highest version of you and showing up whole. And when you show up whole, when you function from this space and you do everything that you can to just keep feeding and stoking your fire, you find that all of a sudden, the people that you need to help find you, and you do it effortlessly Because you know that it feels right. You find yourself being in the right place at the right time. You find yourself saying the right things to the right people. You find yourself scrolling past the post you needed to see in order to make a difference. It's the order of things.

Speaker 1:

Regulate your nervous system, connect, observe yourself, connect to your heart, allow the solutions to come and watch as you show up whole and then, because you're showing up as that individual note that you came to be in this lifetime, watch how that note gets stronger and stronger and stronger and as it resonates just like any sound wave, it attracts experiences and situations and people and matching vibrations, so that then, that frequency of you gets stronger and stronger and stronger. It's a powerful thought, it's a powerful time. It's a powerful thought. It's a powerful time, and what I find fascinating is that we live in a you know, it's like, it's just like the perfect storm when we, energetically, we are in a time where focus matters more than ever before, and we are in a time when there's a lot of contrast and yet we also have a lot of freedom in our minds to put that focus wherever we want or where it will serve the best. It's the age of Aquarius. There's a lot of energy flowing to you right now and it is time to claim yourself. It is time to just claim yourself, and I will say you know, we also live in a time where we're lucky that we're not just restricted to the communities around us, that we do have online spaces and at this moment, sometimes that's how we connect to each other who are on that same path of creating a better world by shifting to our own energy, and the paradox of that is it's really nice to have people who are on that same path. So you know, I've done it alone a lot of my life. I had to find out what this was on my own, and I love the fact that we live in a time of online where you can find community.

Speaker 1:

You have heard me speak about my own personal community of the Energy Reset Circle on numerous occasions and I have to give it a huge shout out because we are headed into the last week of it being $27 a month and as of the 16th, it will be $47 a month, and we are diving in to the practical tools that will fuel your fire and help you take a step back from the chaos and the noise and instead realign to the light you came to be. I'm going to be sharing from the 23rd of February onwards, for about approximately eight weeks. We're going to be looking at the material of my course Stepping Into your Light, because I just feel it's the perfect time to be doing this course. So, on top of our Sunday sessions, members are going to be getting MP3s and a few other different ways of resources in order to work through this material on their own, and then touch base in our WhatsApp community and as well as a few touch bases on our Sunday sessions.

Speaker 1:

The beautiful balance of the tools and practices to help you connect to who you really are, to know that still small voice within you that tells you how you feel, to know the tools that you need to find that balanced state of being and that plugging in space of your own spiritual source. I want you having those tools in really simple ways. So we're focusing on that over the next eight weeks so that you truly can step into your light, so you can be that lighthouse and really stand solidly on those rocks, shining out your best self. I'm just smiling and getting all excited thinking about it. So we are going to be diving into that as of February 23rd, but the price does increase on the 16th.

Speaker 1:

So I highly recommend you come and check us out. There's no commitment to stick around, stay for one month, see how you feel. There is so much resources, so much support, so much love, and we're creating some magic and we're creating a whole lot of light. So I hope you come on over. Anyway, the links will be in the show notes or you can find it just on the website over at spirituallywerelivingcom. And in all of this, please remember you are a spiritual being having this human experience. There's so much more going on energetically and spiritually than we see. So take a step back, breathe deep, regulate, put your oxygen mask on and from there plug in to the unseen forces of love that surround you and know that you're not alone. Love and light. Take care.