S2E13: Learning to Honor My Body
Emily is a Transformational Coach who works primarily with women with invisible illness. A former attorney, professional actor, and Founder/CEO, Emily went from suicidal and on 25 pills a day by the time she was 30, to thriving in her body, mind and spirit. She utilizes Hermetic and Universal laws, as well as practical health and wellness knowledge, to help those who are sick of the struggle and want to design a dream life that honors their body and experience. Emily lives in Encinitas, CA and is obsessed with dogs and Schitt's Creek:)
Social media and contact information:
http://www.emilyshaules.com
https://www.instagram.com/shift.yourself/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshaules/
Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome back to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were transformational, inspiring dog loving people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.
Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.
In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There's a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?
My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. Those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.
Today we're going to talk with Emily Shaules she has many roles in her life coach, ceo, daughter, sister, friend, woman, human and more. We'll talk about how she went from suicidal to thriving in her body let's talk
Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, I have Emily Shaules with us. She is a transformational coach who works primarily with women with invisible illness. She's also a former attorney professional actor and founder and CEO. Emily went from suicidal and on 25 pills a day by the time she was 30 to thriving in her body, mind and spirit, she utilizes Hermetic and universal laws as well as practical health and wellness knowledge to help those who are sick of the struggle and want to design a dream life that honors their body and experience.
Emily lives in California, just like me. And one of her favorite shows is Schitt's Creek. And I just have to give a shout out because I love to laugh at that show.
[00:02:51] Emily Shaules: I am a preacher of the gospel of Schitt's Creek. I tell everyone I met about the show. I love it
[00:02:59] Damaged Parents: It was funny cause I was having a conversation with someone the other day about comedy. I said, well, if it wasn't funny, it'd just be true.
[00:03:07] Emily Shaules: And sometimes it's both, but man, I mean, being able to laugh. Just in general or at your situation, it's really helpful at times and necessary.
[00:03:17] Damaged Parents: Yeah.
And I'm thinking, I mean, you've got a journey to tell us, but I'm thinking, finding that humor along the way was really important to you.
[00:03:25] Emily Shaules: Oh, absolutely. One of my most influential teachers is Abraham Hicks. And I remember hearing them say for the first time you guys take this all way too seriously. Lighten up, this is supposed to be fun. This is supposed to be, a joyful journey, laugh, have fun, don't take it so seriously.
And I was always just, very serious about everything. And it tied me into knots for a long time. So I am a huge, huge proponent of laughing of humor of, I don't watch scary things anymore. I don't watch, really intense dramas. I find uplifting, usually funny things. If I'm going to be watching something.
[00:04:08] Damaged Parents: Well, you are what you eat
Or you are what you consume
[00:04:12] Emily Shaules: Ingest. Exactly whether it's music or shows or food or anything, you're literally taking something in especially TV. Like they call it programming for a reason.
[00:04:23] Damaged Parents: I never thought of that before, but you have a point
[00:04:26] Emily Shaules: Yeah. It's huge. When you're watching TV, your brain actually goes into a wave state that is for suggestibility. It's literally your brain kind of slows down. I'm trying to remember if it's, beta or I think it's alpha wave where. You are open to suggestibility. So that's why they like put commercials and things like that on.
And so you're really taking in and kind of almost in a subconscious level, really ingesting what you're viewing. And so I'm an empath , I really feel and take on things in my environment very easily. And so I just realized it's not worth it. Binge watch game of Thrones just because everyone else is doing it.
When if I watch that I'm going to be just like scared and depressed and you know, all of that, where there are, I mean, we're so lucky today, we have so many options of what we can relax with you know, and so to find like a really good book series or to find, you know, a great television program, that's uplifting and funny.
You might not think it's, oh, what's the big deal. What's the difference I've found. At least there's a significant difference.
[00:05:36] Damaged Parents: So you notice that a shift in your life when you took that out and said, okay, I'm only going to consume things that I'm going to learn and grow from.
[00:05:46] Emily Shaules: Yeah. I mean, I definitely want, I want to have fun. I want to have that feeling of Hey, it's the weekend. I'm going to watch something just for the hell of it. And just for the fun of it, but I'm very selective nowadays. And even going back to music that I used to love. I'll listen to it and it's you know I catch some of the lyrics and I'm like, oh, come on, man.
I'm like, what is that? That's just like codependent. Like, No. So one of my things is I love hip hop. I love rap. It's just something I really love. I love the beat. And so one of my favorite channels on my, whatever apple or Spotify or whatever, it's French rap because I get the beat and I don't understand a word they're saying, so it really doesn't matter if they're talking about negative things.
I get to just listen and have fun.
[00:06:33] Damaged Parents: Oh, that's funny. Just even in saying that I was thinking, well, have you heard of, I think it's Tom McDonald who he does. It's almost like advocacy work through his rap, or I would call it rap, but I mean, and he's all tatted up and everything. And you think this last person I'm going to hear this from, and it's just not true.
And I think sometimes you have to go through that struggle to get to a place where you can find that joy and like that smile that you keep on your face and the humor that you find I don't think it comes without that. I don't want to say true. It may not, it may have been traumatic or not, but without that struggle to learn that, okay.
I have a choice in what I would I behave like, am I on the right track
with that.
[00:07:18] Emily Shaules: Absolutely. I always say your capacity to feel joy in life is directly related to the capacity. You've allowed yourself to feel pain. You know, I was raised in a household that was very kind of like me to not show emotions especially negative ones. Like when we were asked how we're doing, everything's fine, you know, just kind of like fake smile, like everything's fine.
And so I really learned to live in like a very narrow band of emotions that were acceptable. And I realized I was cutting myself off maybe or numbing myself off from the really hard emotions, but I was also cutting myself off from like really happy emotions. And that's why I got into acting was I really wanted to learn that whole spectrum of emotions.
And it's almost like if you're digging a hole. And you only go down that much, like that's the pain that's kind of carving out the pain. You can only fill it so much. Whereas if you go deep, then you've got that capacity to feel that much joy on the other end, if that makes sense.
[00:08:22] Damaged Parents: I think so.
[00:08:23] Emily Shaules: especially those of us with invisible illness, like we have felt we have gone through so much pain and I had to, I got to this point where I had to think I have.
Gone down this path and I have suffered through this. There has to be a reason there has to be something on the other side of this. There has to be something that I can kind of flip to. And so, yeah, I've, I feel like my experiences and the pain I've gone through has opened me up in a way. To feel even more joy.
It's not that I don't still feel pain. I absolutely do, but it's given me the capability to be on the other side as well.
[00:09:00] Damaged Parents: So you can have pain and joy.
[00:09:04] Emily Shaules: Yeah.
[00:09:04] Damaged Parents: At the same time, even though it seems to conflict. And it's, I don't know about like when you first were able to do That was it, did it feel like, oh, I shouldn't be having joy because there's this pain having going on
[00:09:18] Emily Shaules: Absolutely because we equate pain with
[00:09:20] Damaged Parents: suffering.
[00:09:21] Emily Shaules: Something Going wrong, suffering, exactly. Something bad. When I first developed kind of chronic illness, my absolute only goal was to cure this, to not feel this. And then years went by and decades and stuff like that. And it finally hit me of, I very well, maybe in some kind of pain for the rest of my life.
I don't know. I hope not. I still, do everything I can to feel better and do all of those things. And I feel infinitely better than I used to. But I still have some pain. But I had to really think, okay, I, if I'm going to be in pain, the rest of my life, I can be happy and in pain or I can be miserable and in pain and I really want to have a happy life.
And so I had to make that choice of, I can have both. I can do both at the same time. I'm not going to let that pain limit my joy because then that's just going to make the rest of my life miserable.
[00:10:16] Damaged Parents: I want to jump on that really quick, because I quite literally was just having a conversation with a clinician earlier this week about pain and joy and happiness and how, in some ways I think. And correct me if, you know, my perception is only my perception, so feel free to disagree with me.
Okay.
[00:10:38] Emily Shaules: totally.
[00:10:39] Damaged Parents: is that, a lot of times when people acquire a chronic illness or a, chronic pain problem or any, anything that causes some form of suffering, right. Or even a significant amount of suffering to where they're having to apply for social security or, things like that, that, there's almost this idea that you Absolutely. cannot have joy.
And if you show joy at all, no, one's going to believe you and sometimes they don't because you have joy,
[00:11:08] Emily Shaules: Yeah. They don't believe that you're in pain. Totally. My response to that is. I guess two-fold one it's really coming to the place of not caring. What other people think. That's a huge one. And I the people that I work with, the women who have invisible illness, I don't want to say it's, across the board, but there's a significant portion of us who were raised in very codependent households and did feel like we had to be
responsible for the emotions of those of us around those around us and that we bring into adulthood. And so now we're taking responsibility for making sure everyone feels okay, and it's not our job. It's not our job at all. And so yes, if you're dealing with a doctor or, social security or something like that, where you need to like, prove that you have something in order to get something absolutely like.
Advocate for yourself, but to dampen down your joy and your love so that they believe you, honestly, , I don't think it leads to anything good. The second thing I will say is that the more I dive into the work of, especially Dr. Joe Dispenza, he's phenomenal. Is that joy and love and passion and those emotions on the maybe upper end of the scale?
I don't like to say like good or bad, but you know, those better feeling emotions. Those are the key to actually healing and starting to feel better in your body. Because those are the ones that allow your body to relax and your nervous system to calm down and your body to work as it was designed, instead of kind of in the, loop that it, that it's in when chronic pain exists.
[00:12:50] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I've got some words for you.
[00:12:52] Emily Shaules: Please.
[00:12:53] Damaged Parents: Regenerative feelings and dysregulating feelings because none of them are wrong.
They just are.
[00:13:02] Emily Shaules: They just are what they are. And when we realize that we, even, if we may not feel like we've got everything under control, we have control over this and our entire body. Listens to what we're thinking. And so if we're thinking I can feel better, I'm moving in the right direction. I'm doing the best I can, anything, those are going to help our genes actually upregulate.
They're going to actually help our genes kind of kick in the good things that we want them to do are boosting our immune system. And, all of these wonderful things that are literally proven, scientific, actual proof. It's not, woowoo fantasy. Whereas if we are in a constant state of stress, And we are in a constant state of despair and this is never going to get better.
And woe is me and my life sucks. And why do I have to go through this? Then that's literally signaling to our genes to deregulate, to malfunction to not work as they were intended. And so maybe we don't have as much necessarily control over everything that we want, but we always have control over what we're thinking and not in a way.
Faking it. I don't want to go into like, cause I've definitely gone into, kind of toxic positivity where I'm just saying I'm putting a smile on a, on a pig. I'm not really, I'm not really happy, but I'm going to play happy. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about really cultivating practices that get you to the point where you generally, you know, and genuinely feel joy and happiness and love in your life on a consistent basis.
[00:14:40] Damaged Parents: Right. So I think what I hear you saying is it's not here comes this thought because you've got experience with is probably suicidal ideation and things like that, right? Like, So that thought comes in. Maybe it's not your sick, that and wrong thought, right? I'm not going to be angry at it or mad at it.
Maybe what I'm hearing from you is a little different. Can you explain to me maybe what someone could do in that situation?
[00:15:07] Emily Shaules: Yeah. I mean, for me when people ask like, oh, you have chronic illness is it physical or mental? And it's my response has always been well, it's really hard to be in physical pain for like years at a time. And become depressed or anxious you know, they kind of go hand in hand. And so my, my experience with suicidal thoughts and things like that, isn't from, it's not that the pain that I'm feeling like today is so bad that I want to end my life.
It's more the fact of, wow. If I'm going to feel like this. Every day for the rest of my life. And I've got hopefully, you know, 40, 50 years left on this planet that I don't want to go through. And so when those thoughts come to me, I first remind myself that all of my power is in the present. Like depression is usually linked to the past.
And anxiety is usually linked to the future. We're feeling guilty or shame or, missing out on the past or we're feeling really anxious about what's coming up when we're in the present. Usually things are pretty okay. If you really land in the present moment and take a few breaths, like yes, you might very well have pain, but is.
That bad that you need to check out.
[00:16:26] Damaged Parents: Right. And so I'm wondering like in that moment to bring yourself to present, what do you do?
[00:16:32] Emily Shaules: Yeah, it depends. Honestly, it depends on where I am in a bad moment. Like how bad am I? Or what's going on if it's just it's been a day or it's been a week and I'm just freaking over it. I think the best thing that I've found to do is take a nap, go to sleep. Something that will shut my mind off and reset it because whenever we sleep or meditate, that's why meditation is so powerful.
It's usually even they've shown it's five times more restful than sleep when you can get, when you can actually practice and get yourself into a meditative state. But honestly, there are some days when it's not going to happen.
[00:17:12] Damaged Parents: You're talking about some days just meditation, like you just can't even get into that meditative state because you're just so dysregulated or whatever.
[00:17:21] Emily Shaules: Yeah. There's definitely been based like that. I usually, I meditate every day. I meditate first thing in the morning and a lot of times I will meditate, another time during the day, but yeah, there have been days that like, something goes wrong, you know, things crap up it's, you know, whatever.
I don't, I don't want to swear on your, podcast, but Life happens. And it is just go to bed, start fresh the next day. If I'm not at that place, if I'm closer, to some higher feelings, I'll call a really trusted friend and just say, Hey. Can you listen to me? Can you help me, move up?
Can you remind me about some really cool things about me or my life or about us, or just tell me a story? I mean, for me, that's Why honestly, why I got into coaching because I realized every time I was working with a client, I wasn't thinking about my problems. I could focus on them and help them.
And that made me feel really good. And so service is a great thing. But really just kind of having a handle on the laws of the universe of knowing that our thoughts create our reality for me now is enough that I can say, you know what? These thoughts are not helping me. It's not that I'm doing anything wrong.
It's just this, isn't helping me get to where I want to go. So they are indicators that I'm focusing on, whatever I'm focusing on in a way that my source, my God, my inner being my guardian angel, whatever you want to call, it does not agree with. And so it's pointing me. It's helping me get really clear as to what I don't want.
Now, let me use the power of my mind to focus on what it is I do want.
[00:19:03] Damaged Parents: Okay.
[00:19:04] Emily Shaules: I don't want to be in pain constantly, how can I, can I close my eyes and just visualize running down the beach and I'm, pain-free and I try and get into the feeling of what it is that I do want, and it doesn't have to be on that specific topic.
Anything like I'm obsessed with dogs. I will go on a walk and find a dog to pet. I will do you know anything that will get me into, a more joyful state still honoring? The thought, not judging myself for the thought, because self-judgment, I feel is like the worst thing we can do at that point.
It's the more I live and experience and work with people. The more I've come to believe that self-compassion is literally the key to everything. Because when you really just say to your, little girl, like the little child inside of you, I love you. I got you. I'm not going to let anything hurt you. I'm not leaving you.
All of the things that maybe we would have wanted to hear from a parent or a partner or anything. When we start giving that to ourselves, that's the stuff. That's the magic, because now we are fully empowering ourselves instead of waiting for someone else to come us.
[00:20:19] Damaged Parents: Well, Yeah, and can we really insist that they give us something that we can give ourselves, right? But you triggered a thought and if it's okay with you, I'll share it. Um, for me I had an extremely bad flare up. I don't know how much, I don't think we've really talked about me it a little bit on this show, but one thing that really helped me was to be in pain and think I'm not supposed to be now that is hell. And I think I pulled that out of a Byron Katie book.
[00:20:51] Emily Shaules: I was literally just about like grab it. It's on my bookshelf right here. Loving What Is.
[00:20:58] Damaged Parents: Right. And maybe that, that was the book, but in that moment, I mean, it was one of the worst flare ups I'd ever had so once I could get past that, then I could be like, other than what I'm thinking and believing right now. Am I okay?
[00:21:15] Emily Shaules: exactly.
[00:21:16] Damaged Parents: And then I could meditate, but I had to get there first.
And what you're talking about, that, that self compassion, I think in that statement that she makes about pain. There's a significant amount of self-compassion and to be in pain and think I'm not supposed to be.
[00:21:33] Emily Shaules: Yeah,
[00:21:34] Damaged Parents: Like, it's that thinking? Because all of a sudden, when I think I'm not supposed to be, I start pushing against that pain and tensing up and being angry.
And, you know, I don't know
about you, but that's my experience.
[00:21:47] Emily Shaules: Yeah. When you fight with reality, you lose every time. It's reality. It is what It is in this moment. So believe me, I have should all over myself many a times. Like it's not. But anytime you fight with reality, like I shouldn't be in pain. This person should be doing something different than what they are.
I should be doing something different than what I am. There's nowhere to go from that because you're not looking at, you've taken the power away. You're now looking outside of yourself for maybe some outside being or a person to come change the situation. It's not all of your power is within yourself in every single moment.
And when we really become radically responsible, then then there's the opportunity to change, then there's the opportunity to heal, but exactly, like you said, if we're fighting with reality and we're tense, our bodies, like that's gonna keep us exactly where we are. We need to open to be able to have things start working better.
And for our nervous system to you know, come back into balance. Like I always say, it's not your fault. That you have a chronic illness, like it probably developed, started developing when you were very young , and a lot of symptoms probably were under the radar before it kind of blossomed.
And you figured it out that this is something that's been kind of going on for a while. And that could be a depressing thought or it could be really an empowering thought of this entire time. Maybe I didn't realize what was going on. I didn't realize the thoughts that I was thinking that was leading to the tension in my body that was leading to these symptoms that I ignored for a while.
And then, all of this, but if I know that I am fully in power, now I know if I got myself into this. I can get myself out of this and maybe it's going to take a little while. Maybe it's going to take years. Maybe I'm never going to be a hundred percent, but I know I can feel better. I can feel happier, but it's that it's not our fault, but it is our responsibility.
And that goes for any. For anything, whether it's physical pain, whether it's a poor relationship, whether it is a bad job, that we're stuck in whatever situation. And I firmly believe that you can get yourself out of it. One of my favorite books is Marie Forleo. It's called Everything Is Figure Out-able.
And if that's your mantra then you will figure it out eventually.
[00:24:14] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I really love what you said about radical responsibility. I love those words together and you've pretty much explained it. Just take responsibility for everything.
[00:24:26] Emily Shaules: Yeah, it's scary.
[00:24:28] Damaged Parents: Well, and it seems counterintuitive to right, like counterintuitive because I mean, at least I think in this world, you know, there's, but I didn't cause the car accident or I didn't cause this, I didn't, I wasn't doing anything at the time that, that this thing happened.
So then taking on well that's okay. I'm going to be responsible for what I have now. I mean, cause you're saying the past happened, it already did.
It's
[00:24:57] Emily Shaules: already happened. Fighting with it is not going to change it. It's already there. One of my favorite quotes again from Abraham, if you can tell, I love their work, but they say nothing comes out of the blue. It comes out of the oblivious. If you are in a car accident, I pretty much guarantee that the time that was like the days, weeks, months leading up to the accident, you were probably living pretty consistently in a state of like frustration or overwhelmed meant, or the vibe that you're sending out is
bringing stuff that you don't necessarily want. You didn't do it on purpose, but that is the force of how powerful our thoughts are. It also is taking the judgment off of things that happen. A car accident. Most people would say that's bad.
Why? There could be good things that come out of that. Not that I want people to go through car accidents and things like that, but it's, there's an old Chinese proverb of, you know, a man whose son. I riding a horse and
everyone's
[00:26:00] Damaged Parents: The farmers parable. know this. I love
[00:26:03] Emily Shaules: any breaks his leg. And everyone's like, oh, that's terrible.
And he just says, let's see. And then the next day the army comes to recruit people for a war. And since his legs broken, he can't go. And so everyone's like, oh, that's great. And he's like, well, let's see, you know, and it's. Henry Ford said there's nothing inherently good or bad. no, maybe I'm getting the person wrong.
There's nothing inherently good or bad. It's what we think about it. And so if we really start looking at life as a series of events and people and situations that are coming to us as mirrors for us. So we can see where we're at. We can see what hasn't healed in us yet. And we look at it as opportunities to learn, to do something different, to react in another way, to get closer and closer to our true nature, which is love.
Pure love. That's what we are. We are, I truly believe each one of us is an extension of the divine. And so we have come here to have joy and yes, we all experienced trauma. We all learned like really stupid lessons as children that don't work for us. And so the universe is going to keep bringing us opportunities for us to let go of that stuff and let go.
And I remember actually the last, I did have a car accident. I mean, it was very minor. It was like a little bumper thing. And I was like, okay, I refuse to let go of my joy over this. And you know what? It was smooth as hell. Everything like just took care of it and it was fine. And if I truly believe, if I had been like, oh my God, this happened and blah, blah, blah.
It would have gone probably a different way.
[00:27:41] Damaged Parents: Yeah, we can create our own chaos sometimes. yeah. A lot of times.
[00:27:47] Emily Shaules: which I think is honestly like us trying to avoid looking at what do we really want to do with our lives, which we really want in our life. What do we want our life to be? And if we're thinking we're scared to try, or we're thinking that we don't really believe that we can have what we want.
Those are really horrible, depressing thoughts, but when you can really get to the place where I deserve good things, and I deserve a life that really supports and works for me, that I'm excited about. And you just start taking little bitty steps towards building that. Then that's where your focus is.
Your focus isn't on. What's going wrong anymore. Your focus is now . What am I building? What am I doing in my life that I'm excited about that will help others that will, light me up then you're building momentum in that direction.
[00:28:36] Damaged Parents: Yeah, which can be scary.
Right. Because it's I think it was in Brene Brown's new book Atlas of the Heart
[00:28:45] Emily Shaules: oh, I haven't read it yet.
I'm so excited.
[00:28:47] Damaged Parents: She talks about, I think she's talking about disappointment in this part of the book and if you want to live disappointed in fear of potential disappointment. So without taking the risk for disappointment, then you're just living disappointed, right? Like, and that's exactly what I heard you say. It's You can either go for this or not. And if not, then are you disappointed?
[00:29:13] Emily Shaules: Yeah,
[00:29:14] Damaged Parents: I think would be my question to myself.
[00:29:17] Emily Shaules: Absolutely. And that's why I, I've kind of had so many careers is I'm really good at going after what it is that I want. And I feel like , I have to try things. It's just like how I'm built. Like I can't think about it and be like, oh, well maybe that would be fun. Like I have to dive in and try it.
And once I do, I get feedback I get feedback as to is this really for me, is this really what I want to be doing? And. If not then. Okay. What have I learned? What do I want to do instead? All of the careers that I had before coaching were wonderful and great and had many positive aspects to them, they all required about 80 hours a week of work.
[00:29:58] Damaged Parents: With chronic illness is probably very difficult.
[00:30:03] Emily Shaules: It's pretty impossible. And so it was like, yeah. Okay. That's not going to work for me. So what aspects of those things did I love that I want to keep doing. And when I decided to become a coach, it was like, oh my God, it's got all of the things that I loved about all of the other careers.
It's helping people. It's communicating, it's being on camera. It's like having deep conversations with people, serving all of these wonderful things and I can do it in 30 hours a week and really focus on taking care of my self and my body, which I just ignored for a really long time and said, well, I can push through anything and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:30:44] Damaged Parents: Yeah, in some ways, it sounds like you've allowed yourself grace.
[00:30:49] Emily Shaules: Absolutely. I think that's absolutely necessary, especially for those of us with invisible illness. That needs to be your default. Going back to that self compassion,
[00:30:59] Damaged Parents: it was Dr. Kevin Payne. he said, let me just I want to quote that I want to get this right. The idea you can push through it is the privilege of having a healthy body.
[00:31:12] Emily Shaules: Exactly.
[00:31:13] Damaged Parents: And it's just so true. I mean, so how did you learn to pace and to give yourself grace. Pace and grace?
[00:31:22] Emily Shaules: I mean, I would say the quarantine, the pandemic for me was a wonderful gift. It was the first time in my adult life that I actually stopped just everything for a while. At the time I was still working, I was still trying to relaunch my energy bar business and. It was like pushing a boulder up the hill.
It just was not going. And it was like, I was giving everything I had to it. And I was also waitressing, to try and pay the bills at the same time. And I'm working with 20 year olds and here I'm, I just turned 46. And so I try to be on my feet, eight hours a day. I'm like, oh, this is, you know, this is not happening.
I was in so much pain. And so I.. asked for two weeks off to rest on March 1st, 2020. And by the time March 15th came, the entire world had shut down. So it was okay. I can, I qualified for unemployment. I can rest. I can actually take some time and it took a while, It's ludicrous to think, especially anyone with invisible illness but I think anyone in general that two days a week is enough to decompress from the stress that we put ourselves under on a daily basis.
It's ridiculous. It took me weeks, if not months to fully kind of calm down and then look around and start asking myself, what is it that I want to do? And when you start asking the question. Instead of just kind of assuming no, no, no, no. When you really start asking the questions, then the universe is going to start sending you things.
And so literally a dear mentor of mine emailed me and said, I'm starting a coaching program and business based on the work that you and I have done together. Would you want to be one of my lead coaches? It was like, Okay. Like, it came to me. I didn't even have to think about it. It was just that's when, I can't think of the exact quote, but, When you decide then providence moves, like there are unseen forces, there are cooperative components that will come to your aid.
If you are actually asking for an open to receiving and staying in a optimistic, hopeful place. That is what I always say faith is a verb. Faith is not a noun, faith is a verb. You have to actively do it every single day because the rest of the world is literally just constant messages of like, why it won't work or why it can't work or why this isn't going to work for you.
And and so really building your faith muscle of I'm a good person. I deserve good things. I can take care of myself and still be provided for, those are the mantras that I repeat to myself daily to reprogram my mind of all the negative stuff that you know, I was programmed with earlier.
[00:34:19] Damaged Parents: So I think I was, I think it was in Joe Dispenza's book, breaking the habit of being yourself. Right. He talks about getting to know that side of yourself, of the behaviors that you don't want. I think I'm saying that right in the right way or I'm explaining it correctly. So how did you do that in what was that experience like and where you triggered.
[00:34:42] Emily Shaules: Oh, absolutely. When you make any changes, You're going to get triggered. I mean, that's just like, you're bringing it up. , I run a group coaching program and for women with invisible illness and we just had a lesson last week on setting boundaries because it's, you know, it's a really important skill that most of us were never taught.
And especially those of us with limited energy, it's absolutely crucial for our wellbeing and , I always teach a lesson on Thursday and then on Tuesday we come back and we like, questions. How did that go? ? Like And I swear, I got every single person was like, oh my God, over the weekend, this happened.
And this happened, testing their resolve of setting boundaries because we can say oh, I'm good. I'm going to set boundaries from now on, but until you actually do it and try it and do something differently than what you've always done, that pattern interrupt. Breaking the habit of being yourself, then you haven't really embodied the change.
You've just thought about the change. And I think a lot of us with invisible illness, we live up here a lot because being in our body, isn't the most comfortable place to be. There's pain. There's fatigue there's whatever your, symptoms are. And so a lot of us live up in our heads and are trying to basically micromanage the universe with our minds, which is just impossible, not our job, futile.
So for me, the things that have helped the most, I am a huge fan of Joe Dispenza's meditations. I think they're for me, that actual thing that has really helped me start changing my mind. And by that I literally could start feel, and this is like the whole, explanation. He goes into it in his books, but breaking apart, the connections between the neurotransmitters in your brain, the things that are like our habits, you can literally start feeling those, the negative ones start breaking apart and start choosing new ones
to form of how you react in certain situations, how you think in certain situations, how you feel in certain situations. And so those are for me, I'm just like, I'm a huge fan. And so that's something you can find on his website and practice. And they're,, not your typical 15 minutes and sit there and But he's done the science he's explained like his newest book is becoming supernatural and he explained everything as to like, why you're doing this the way you're doing it and why it works.
And the testimonials that he has of people healing. Of these, spontaneous healings from everything. It really is so inspiring as to yes, I do have the power to heal myself. And that doesn't mean like you stopped doing all of the other, actions that you're doing to take care of yourself.
Of course you keep doing you take whatever medication is working for you or whatever. But those have been like, meditation has been probably the number one thing, learning. Like I said, learning the laws of the universal learning, why things are coming to me, the way that they are, that's been the biggest thing.
And then the third thing is getting support. And that's exactly why I created the group coaching program. I used to work with people one-on-one but, I just find like the group is so valuable because now as you're suddenly sitting with women who get it because, even our most loved family members and friends and spouses and partners and kids, even if they love us to death, like if they don't have chronic pain, they just don't understand what we're going through on a day-to-day basis.
And to be in a circle of women who do is so
[00:38:27] Damaged Parents: powerful
[00:38:28] Emily Shaules: just so
healing. Yeah.
[00:38:30] Damaged Parents: I usually ask for three things and you already, you just literally gave us three things to do three tips or tools to do in our lives. so
[00:38:39] Emily Shaules: I talk in threes.
[00:38:40] Damaged Parents: I know it's perfect. It's perfect. I mean, I didn't even get all my questions out. I love it when that happens.
So you guys, if you want to get to know Emily Shaules better, you can find her on her website at https://EmilyShaules.com. She's on Instagram @shiftyourself. She's also on Facebook, it is shift yourself
[00:39:04] Emily Shaules: Shift.Yourself
[00:39:07] Damaged Parents: Oh,
[00:39:07] Emily Shaules: Shift period Yourself
[00:39:09] Damaged Parents: got it on Facebook. Got it. Okay. And then you're also on LinkedIn, so you can, we can find you just about
everywhere.
[00:39:15] Emily Shaules: I'm all over the place.
[00:39:18] Damaged Parents: Thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been a fantastic conversation.
[00:39:22] Emily Shaules: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This has been really awesome. Amazing. Thank you.
[00:39:27] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Emily about how she transitioned from suicidal to giving herself grace. We especially liked when she reminded us that zoning out to the TV can be dangerous. To unite with other damaged people connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents.
We'll be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.
