Full Transcript
Hi everyone, thanks for coming onto the episode. I’m so excited because today’s a very special episode. I invited my friend, Carissa Karban, onto the Fully Expressed podcast to dive deeper into my story, my personal story and my self-healing journey and what that has looked like, to really give you guys some insight into who I am and what I’ve been through and what has really unlocked for me in the last many years of just diving deeper into myself and what has been my experience and really finding me so that I could be fully expressed. I’m very excited because Carissa’s on here and to give you guys some light into who Carissa is to me and what she means to me.
Carissa and I met at a retreat. What was it, Carissa? Like a year and a half, two years ago, maybe Almost two years ago? Yep, almost two years ago. So we met almost two years ago at this point at this retreat, and honestly, that retreat for me was life-changing because I got to walk away with such amazing friendships and people in my life that I didn’t know were available to me, and Carissa was one of them. I will say that I feel like in the recent like six, nine months, our relationship has like really, really flourished, at least in the ways that I feel so deeply connected to Carissa.
What I love about Carissa is that she shows up fully for all of her friendships.
She loves with all of her heart and I find myself in some of the best freaking conversations when her and I are on the phone together and I just knew that I wanted this episode to be her interviewing me and just having one of our like phone call conversations, whether I’m calling her in the car or run them on a walk with Cusco or I’m literally just sitting on my couch and like two hours fly by. I don’t think this episode is going to be two hours, but we’re going to try and squeeze in as much as possible into this next hour. But it just kind of gives you some light into our dynamic, at least in our dynamic, like I feel so seen, so heard, so understood and honestly have a lot of similarities to, to Carissa and her journey, and it’s been so amazing to to have her in my life as a friend, as a teacher, as a support system, so I couldn’t imagine this any different and yeah, so thank you so much, Carissa, for being here.
0:02:33 – Speaker 2
Oh, my gosh, Carissa thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled about this conversation because, as you’ve already said, some of our conversation, I just I look at the clock and think where did the time go? And I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to help introduce your listeners to who you are in a little bit more detail. Because I will say, in the two years that we’ve been friends, you’ve been such an inspiration for me. In addition to providing that safe space of feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling valued and loved as a human being, you’ve also given me so much inspiration as I’ve seen, you know the, you know the ways that you’ve come home to yourself and I see new opportunities for you to fully express yourself, even with this podcast as an example, and so for me, it swells my heart. I am I always leave our conversations with a huge smile, feeling inspired, feeling motivated, feeling ready to take action on the next step of my journey of full expression. So thank you for giving me the opportunity. I’m very excited.
0:03:39 – Speaker 1
Thank you so much for sharing that. I think, yeah, there’s just so much. I feel like our conversations are just, they literally blow my mind off. Sometimes I’m like, oh my gosh, I feel so deeply held and, at the same time, so inspired, and that was so stimulating. Like I love this conversation. Can we keep going? It’s just the best. So I’m so glad that we’re doing this today.
0:04:01 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and you know, I think it’s.
It’s such a beautiful gift that you’re giving to everyone, because I think sometimes, when I don’t know about you, but when I start listening to a new podcast, I think, okay, this topic’s really interesting or maybe there’s something for me to learn here.
But I really love to know who are the people behind these podcasts that I’m so interested in or that resonate so deeply with me, and so giving your audience the opportunity to know you is such a beautiful gift, because you are this, this full expression of love and kindness and generosity in the way that you show up for your people, is truly incredible, honestly. So I’m excited and would love to know, Karenna, you know there’s so much we could cover. Obviously, we will not be able to pack all of who you are into a short podcast episode, nor would we even pretend to try, but I’d love to know you know, as I think about doing this journey of self-development, and who we’ve been and where we’re going, and there’s so much that we can unpack. So, to kind of give us a foundation, take us back before you really started, let’s say leaning into this journey of fully expressing yourself. Tell me a little bit about who. Who was Karenna before you began doing this work.
0:05:20 – Speaker 1
I think about this question often and I, you know, I always look back at like my transformation, if you will, and I was very numb to the world, almost like just kind of rolling and moving through life. Right, I had to wake up every day, go to the gym and go to work and find a husband and, you know, live my best life with my friends. Like that was just about it and that’s kind of honestly what I did. I just did the same things all the time and you know what that looked like for me and as a person, as in relationship dynamics, I was very, very like insecure. At the end of the day, I really questioned a lot of like who I was. Like I remember specifically in the workspace and I’ll talk about with my friends too but like in the workspace, like I did everything I could just to feel like someone saw me or valued me or accepted me. And now I have the words.
But at the time I didn’t have the words right, I was just kind of doing as much as I could. I had a lot of the people pleasing tendencies. I would give as much as I could just so I could be seen in my friendship dynamics the same way. Oh my gosh, I would drop everything if a friend called. I would drop anything if my mom called, my sister called, like I would run for everything and and I really became that thing for a lot of people. So, interestingly enough, to kind of circling back to that, like in college people called me mom because I was the person that people felt like a lot of safety too, but also knew that I would take care of them and I was just known for for that like taking care of people, being there for people, supporting people, and that was really how I identified myself.
And now that I have the words, you know what I can say that at the time it really felt like it was coming from a place of love, but it was really, really coming from a place of like, because I’m doing this, because I feel unlovable and I’m hoping by doing this I will be loved, and that was, that was a really big one.
It’s a that right there, showed up everywhere, showed up in my friendships, my relationships and at work, and I cared also a lot about my body image and what it looks like like. I was consumed with, you know, wanting to look a certain way or I would attach myself worth to like my body. So like, when it came to like dating, I was always like, well, he’s not going to find me attractive, or like always second guessing, like does he think I’m I’m hot or does he like my body, and that’s a lot of the things that I use as a way to validate myself worth. So that’s the whole another layer of things to dive into. But it just felt very insecure, very alone, which is wild, because I had so many friends and I had boyfriends and I had a family that loved me, but I still felt super alone.
0:08:12 – Speaker 2
I felt like no one could actually see me or no one actually understood me and I felt like I could never really share or voice or vocalize my thoughts like honestly and transparently man, there’s so much in there, there’s so much goodness, and thank you for sharing all of that, because I think what resonates the most with me as you’re telling your story is, of course, there are elements to your story that are unique to you, right, this lived experience that you’ve had, the combination of all of your experiences and everything you’ve gone through, and as you’re describing your journey, about feeling insecure, about hustling to try to prove your worth or the fact that you were lovable.
What really hits me, Karenna, is your story is not unique.
You know, and just think about how many people out there I’m one of them who take out the specifics of your story and insert mine right, but a lot of the undercurrent of feeling like I had to keep going and accomplish and to do and to hustle that was what I thought I needed to do and I had to check all those boxes. So I think your story is unique and, unfortunately, very common right, where a lot of us are kind of masking and putting on this mask of I’m okay, I’m good because I’m reliable, people need me, and yet inside we still feel alone, we feel unseen, and that can be incredibly painful, especially when on the outside it looks like we have everything together and I imagine I’m so, I’m curious, like when you thought about the contradiction, if you will that you were so needed and that people called you mom and you knew that people would call you when they needed anything and yet you had this very lonely experience internally. What was that like to have that kind of mismatch between your experiences?
0:10:08 – Speaker 1
I don’t think I don’t think I have the words, because at the time I didn’t have the words. You know and I and going back to like you know you sharing how, like you also resonate and other people resonate like it didn’t feel like that. Then it felt so much more like I’m the only one on this, on this little island over here, that feels this way. You know, I had no concept that other people could be feeling this way. So when you ask me that question, it’s like I really don’t know, like at the time I really did not know what that meant. It felt like life was very far away from me but but also very close at the same time. Like I would get moments feeling super connected and feeling super joyful and happy and even practice very positive optimistic person outlook on life.
I always showed up as positive and optimistic, but it was crazy. The external that’s really what was happening. I think also that was a lot of what I was telling myself how to show up, if I was really honest about how I was feeling. That felt more like when it got quiet. The other thing is I used to do a lot. I was super social. I was super busy. I put so much on my plate, the moments that I felt alone. That’s when all the self-doubt came in and that’s when things felt very, almost gray, almost mute, very numb to the world. That’s the best way I could say it.
0:11:35 – Speaker 2
That’s so interesting, this notion of when things go quiet. That really resonates with me. I used to be in this hustle, and if I didn’t have something lined up every night of the week, I felt like, okay, I’m wasting time or I’m not making the most of my life. And this Carpe Diem philosophy, that pace, though, and I think about all the ways that our and the words I would use for it now are my ego kept me in that cycle. I’m curious when you thought about wanting to slow down, or when you got into those quiet places, what was that internal self-talk that made you feel like you had to go back and start hustling and get back to taking action? What were some of the key phrases or what was that self-talk that made you feel that it wasn’t okay to be in the slowness or to give yourself that space?
0:12:29 – Speaker 1
Yeah, so I can talk about that in so many different ways, but I think at the time. So, talking about the body image stuff, my eating disorder I think I’ve talked about this on social media and other people but started to have an eating disorder. I think I’ve always had disordered eating, right, so not really having a really healthy relationship with food in general, because I counted calories, I wanted to be my smallest and I wanted to get all the gains at the gym so that’s one thing you know and I managed how much food I would eat, so I would look a certain way. But my disordered eating got really bad, probably my junior year, maybe my sophomore or junior year in high school and college, and if I wasn’t going fast, then all that stuff would come up for me, because then I got really quiet and then the negative thoughts started spiraling in. I was felt so anxious in my body and I would probably end up wanting to like start binge eating or and then I would get mad at myself for binge eating. It was all this entire spiral.
But those thoughts like if I slowed down for even a second, everything that I was running away from would just catch up to me and try and think specifically what was going on at the time, whether that was going on with boys, or feeling like I wasn’t enough, or like I wasn’t doing enough at school and college, or I didn’t look a certain way, or I wasn’t putting enough energy out in order to receive in that yeah, really that I wasn’t doing enough.
That was always the biggest, the underlining story. I would say that I wasn’t doing enough and I wasn’t enough to receive at the slow pace. Right, and the slow pace is when all the anxiety in my entire body would freak out and I would spiral into my disordered eating. So sometimes I would use the running really quickly or running at a fast pace as a way to avoid food. That’d be one thing, because I would control it that way, but then I also use it as a way to distract me from the feelings of anxiety or, honestly, kind of initiating the disordered eating, because it would create this massive spiral that I couldn’t even control.
0:14:45 – Speaker 2
So what I’m hearing in that is and this is what I think is so interesting, and why I wanted to go in this direction is because oftentimes we hear these cliches like oh, we’re our own biggest enemy and we’re the ones that hold ourselves back.
But at least in my experience, when I was first starting this journey for myself, it was really hard to connect to the ways that I was holding myself back and it felt like, no, this person’s holding me back or no, it’s these circumstances or whatever it is.
And what you just talked about is this idea that, as you started to slow down and these negative thoughts or these insecure thoughts would come in, it’s like the way to overcome them or the way to not let them take control of you was to just keep hustling, stay busy, distract yourself with busyness, so you didn’t have to confront those thoughts that were coming up, as opposed to this idea now of confronting the thoughts themselves and unpacking them and questioning them. So I’m curious, as you were in this pattern and knowing you, knowing how incredibly intelligent you are, knowing how accomplished you are and you’ve been successful at the hustle right, Whether it’s in your career, whether it’s cultivating relationships, etc. So it sounds like things were working for you right. Things were going well, you were cultivating promotions and you had boyfriends, as you said, in these relationships. So I’m curious what was that turning point for you when you realized, okay, I’m doing all of these things, I’m hustling, but something isn’t working? Tell me about that turning point of how you realized that you weren’t being fully expressed.
0:16:24 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I think there’s multiple turning points in a journey. It’s like which one do I pick and talk about? But I love how you brought it all together too, chris, because it is true, like at the time, like I was running away from myself, right, I was running away from the thoughts, and that’s what really created all these unhealthy habits that I was living in, you know, and I was a spiral, it was a cycle, it was a pattern. I was like, if I avoid, then I’m going to go here, but then I’m going to continue avoiding and doing more harm to myself. And there was so much shame and guilt in that cycle that I stayed in that cycle versus like now, you know, the goal and what we’ll probably talk about is how to actually be with those thoughts instead of leaning into quote unquote the unhealthy cycle or the unhealthy pattern, so it doesn’t become this massive spiral that you can’t get out of. But at the time, like I would just continue to stay in it and keep going and to talk about what was a turning point. So well, I think it was a matter of different things that started to come into my life. So after college you know working I did have my initial life coach after college to start helping me talk about specifically my eating disorder and my relationship with food, and it really was more like talk therapy.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t really helpful. I was just venting and she was listening. It was like the first friend that I felt, like it was someone that I paid to make me feel, allow me, to feel comfortable to share with what was really happening, because I felt so ashamed to talk about with anyone. And that then led me to me and my best friend at the time sitting on her bed and we were starting to do some personal development work and starting to understand like who we are. The very first book I read was you are a badass by Johnson, sarah, and I was like God, this is the frickin Bible. Like why haven’t I learned this before? Why has no one given me this book before? I started to just so resonate with everything that she said, all the way from feeling insecure and unconfident how to feel confident, how to manifest, how to call in all these things, and I was like the heck, this is amazing, but it really wasn’t, until there’s two big events that happened. So back to sitting with my best friend on her bed talking about. We met we start.
She learned about the Enneagram through her work and the Enneagram, for anyone that’s listening, is more of a personality test. That kind of looks into who you are as a whole and what I love about the Enneagram. It also dives deeper and, chris, you can probably share a little bit more about this too but dives deeper into your personality based on how you grew up or what happened to you as you grew up or the stories and the patterns that happened to childhood. And that personality test, the Enneagram oh my gosh, it opened up my world. For anyone that’s listening that knows I’m an Enneagram too and that is the helper, the lover. At the time I was Enneagram too. So for anyone else that’s listening, you can also switch and transform long story short if you didn’t know that, and I still score pretty highly as an Enneagram too.
But the one thing about the two that really stood out to me and it’s the helper and the lover and as I was unpacking this, this is more of the people pleaser tendencies, you know, really puts everyone else before themselves, gives for love, not out of love the one thing that hit home like really woke me up and kind of shook me up a little bit was this notion that, as a helper, as a people pleaser, as the lover, as the giver, I was selfish and I was like selfish, what do you mean? Selfish? Do this for everyone else? I’m putting me besides me myself, not putting all these people first. And what was selfish about me in the time was I was using the way to help people and be there for other people and give to people to avoid the messiness, to avoid the quietness, to not be with how it felt like to be by myself or maybe alone, because if I took care of all these other people, then they were my focus and I was not my focus, and so it was selfish in the way of me using it as a way to avoid and actually give back to myself and try and hide, and I was using as a way to help people to do that and I was like, oh my God, that doesn’t feel good at all.
When I heard that, I was like, oh, this is like ripping me wide open. I was like what do you mean? And so that was the very first thing that took me down the path of all right, you got to find who you are when you aren’t helping other people. You got to find who you are when you aren’t putting other people first, or like you got to find who you are when you aren’t giving all of your energy and all this stuff. Like, who are you without that stuff?
And to be honest, at the time I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t even tell you who I was Like. I had no idea who I was, and so I started to ask the questions of like, who am I? Why do I do the things that I do, these things? And I went down this in massive.
Just you can call it an awakening, but I really think it wasn’t necessarily like the awakening that I felt in the more recent years, but it was more of like a self-awareness awakening, just starting to become very freaking aware of why I do the things that I do and why I show up in the way that I show up, or why I treat my friends the way that I treat them, or why I treat my boyfriends or partners the way that I treat them, and who I am in relationship to my parents, or who I am in relationship to my sister, or who I am in relationship to my coworkers and the company and my business, and like all this stuff, I just started unpacking a lot so I would start to see more. At that time I wasn’t necessarily. I was becoming aware of things and habits are changing, but I wouldn’t say that was like the grand awakening, but that was definitely the thing that put me on this boat of self-healing and inner work.
0:22:07 – Speaker 2
Man, there’s so much in there that is so, so beautiful. You know, I think it’s so interesting to hear you tell your story in these words because, once again, it just it really hits me that there’s so many people out there having a similar experience. You know, I think, of my own past and how typically in the past, when people would ask me you know who are you I get introduced. The first things that I list out are here are the things that I do right. Here are the roles that I play. I’m a, I’m a wife, I’m a daughter. I’m this, I’m, you know, and then insert my job title at the time, and so I think of it as how common it is for us to introduce ourselves with these roles that we play in our lives, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that. Right, it’s beautiful, and it’s also not necessarily the fullness of who we are, because these roles and you have we’ve definitely had some conversations about this as well right the roles that we play, the labels that we put on to ourselves and how much you know, you’re kind of talking about the selfishness, that component of oh I’m actually giving to people as a means of distraction or as a means to get what it is that I want, to get my needs met, and I just think about that in terms of there’s a lot of identity wrapped up and pride in the roles that we put on and in the roles that we play and the things that we do, and so I think that’s so beautiful, but I can also see that it keeps us kind of stuck in a box. It kind of keeps us from asking those hard questions of ourselves.
And so the two themes that I really heard come out of first awakening, as you described it, our curiosity. You know, I hear you asking yourself all of these questions like why do I show up the way that I do? What is my role in creating this dynamic? And so you got really curious. I hear a sense of responsibility that you started to acknowledge that maybe your ways of showing up are contributing to the dynamics and to the circumstances that you’re experiencing. And so I’m curious to, because I think this, the curiosity and the responsibility piece, is really challenging. You know, how is it that we take responsibility for our lives when we’ve been conditioned to look outside of ourselves, we’ve been conditioned to point fingers at others? So how, how did you come to take responsibility for your life and your ways of being.
0:24:37 – Speaker 1
It wasn’t always that way, I mean, you know, until, honestly, I think the moment happened when I was sitting on the bed with my best friend at the time, like that’s, when I just started to read all these things about me and I was like I was so curious, I was like what this had, what Before that, like I really did point the fingers at everyone else. So because, like really common example, like there were parts of me that felt like no one saw me or no one gave to me, or no one loved me as much as I love them, or no one showed up for me the way that they would show it for them, and I was constantly kind of putting a finger at them and being like Well, you’re not showing up for me, you’re not loving me the same amount, you know, and as I peel that part specifically, pointing the finger at like you’re the problem, not looking at me, that’s when I started to see that I was like Holy cow, like I loved on people, I helped people and give it that like yes, I meant it in like the most genuine way, because I didn’t know who I was in the moment, so I was hoping, by giving that they would love me, but when they didn’t love me, I would just point the fingers like they were the one that was wrong, not like looking at my own dynamic and that. And what’s difficult is like it’s more appealing back and the whole roles and labels thing has really become more of a highlighted thing for me in the last year of like, who am I without these roles, without these labels? I don’t want to feel without these roles, without these labels, without this I’m a daughter, I’m a girlfriend, I’m a friend, I’m the best friend. Those are all words, those are all labels that come with a ton of expectations, and I would also say that they’re not necessarily expectations that I wanted to create for myself.
It was, they were expectations that I absorbed from society, from culture, from my other dynamics, from the way that my parents raised me or how my mom’s dynamic is was with her friends, or how my dad’s dynamic is with his friends, and I just absorbed, like, all this information and that was predefined for me and so when I have the initial awakening, I have the opportunity to start to redefine what that meant to myself and I took responsibility because I was curious, I was really curious and I think, like reflecting back.
I think the curiosity came from a place of like well, now that I know this, I need to be better. So this is the other thing about journeys that I have noticed is like new parts will come up and kind of take over, and I’m not necessarily saying that was a healthy part of me, but I became obsessed and very intrigued, very, very wanting to fix now these parts of me because I found out that I’m no longer worthy, you know, or like I felt like I was in enough. So the same story of like I’m not enough continue down with my story. Now it showed up differently at this point, because now I was taking responsibility, because I felt like if I didn’t fix these parts of me then I wouldn’t be loved the way that I wanted to be loved.
0:27:30 – Speaker 2
And it’s so powerful for you to share, because I think that something you said is just really beautiful reminder that it is a journey, right, you know, I think, a lot of times speaking of conditioning, speaking of the ways that were brought up and taught to believe and taught to exist, and I think that, very much speaking of my own upbringing, you know very much ingrained in me, that there’s always a finish line that we should be heading towards. You know, and that’s how we know, okay, I’ve accomplished the goal, I’ve achieved the thing, I’ve gotten the house or the job or, you know, whatever it is, it’s just an external metrics of success and you know that we need to be hustling towards them. And it’s just, it’s so beautiful to hear you question that right to awaken into this idea of choice and kind of what. As you’re describing your story, it kind of feels like this moment where you were almost like zoomed out and you were almost able to see your life like, almost like an out of body experience where you could kind of see from a new vantage point and this idea that, okay, there’s the way I’ve been raised to live, whether it’s your household of origin, you know authority figures that shaped how you show up and thought about the world societies conditioning all of that.
But you really woke up to this idea that you have a choice in how you want to show up and in the life that you have to live. And so, as you woke up to that choice, I’m curious what were some of the initial steps that you took? It sounded like some books were meaningful to you, like describe those initial steps. How did you say, okay, I now have this choice, I have this curiosity, I’m taking responsibility for my life, here’s what I’m going to do with it. So how did you continue building your awareness or stepping into that journey?
0:29:23 – Speaker 1
So I hired a couple coaches. I hired my next coach kind of later on in my corporate life and this is when I was stuck between, like we were going through massive growing pains. So I was working at a startup and I continue, I’m still working at the same startup and well, now we’re a public company. But I hired another coach and I specifically hired him because I was like, hey, I need your career coaching to help me get a promotion. I was like I needed to first, I needed to decide if I’m staying or leaving. Because at this point I was like asking a lot of questions about what I wanted to do with my life and I realized I didn’t feel appreciated at work. Kind of falls back into all the stories you know I was overdoing, I never felt appreciated. And in my work with him I went to him to be like, hey, I need help with the promotion, you know, or I need to decide if I’m going to leave. Kind of help me out, figure it out. And I know working on for most of the time together was my relationship that I had not healed. And the minute that I figured out my relationship dynamics and how that played and I saw how it was showing up in my workspace and in my career and my position and what was keeping me from asking for more money or for asking for a promotion that I felt was well deserved. Thank you very much.
Once we healed that, that took me into like a whole nother level of awakening. I was like, oh my gosh, like I need, came for a promotion, but I feel like I needed to heal this relationship with myself. And I came out of that with like the biggest promotion that I’ve ever received to the state and title change and just so much more responsibility. And I was so stoked on that and that led me to wanting to do life coaching and and relationship coaching for other people. And then that was a frickin other throw in, because now I’m starting my own business, I decide business and no one talks to you about frickin healing or life journey or personal development journey however you want to talk about it or a huge transmute of life of building your own business. And it wasn’t that building the business part, it was the being seen by others online. Like that was a whole another initiation. And again I supported coaches.
I leaned I really really leaned into the messiest parts of me.
I started to just really just break through layer after layer and dig deeper, and dig deeper and dig deeper into my biggest wounds or my worst habits or my unhealthiest habits, and seeing how they were all just creating this, this result in my life that I didn’t want and I took responsibility from that, and that was all still driven from a place of like I’m not worthy enough, which was interesting and I want to share that too, because the I’m not worthy enough continued to show up in my personal development journey over and over and over again.
And it wasn’t until, honestly, a year and a half ago where I started to not do this work from a place of I’m not enough, from a place of I am worthy, and what that meant was that all these parts of me that I felt were messy, or my biggest teachers, or ugly or like icky right, these like icky parts of me I started to see them with like genuine love, like they were freaking lovable, and so I started to realize that this work wasn’t because I wasn’t enough, but this work is because I love myself enough and I love myself so much and that’s really been, and then that’s a whole nother can of worms we can dive into. But that has really led me into this whole part of being fully expressed.
0:33:02 – Speaker 2
I love that so much. Karenna, you know you’re talking about these kind of unappealing parts. You know these parts that you didn’t necessarily love or that you didn’t want to see the light of day. And I just want to pull on that thread a little bit because I think it’s so, so important for us to be talking about this publicly right, because I think we all have at least most people I have spoken to. If someone out there doesn’t have anything that they want to change or anything that they get down on themselves for, call me because I’d love to know your secret. But in my experience, most people have.
You know, those parts that we don’t want to see the light of day because either we’ve been told that we won’t be accepted for them broadly right Goes back to that conditioning or we’ve had specific experiences with a bully or someone that we were vulnerable with as a child and then created based on this pain that we had. We created these stories like you’re talking about, about how to show up, how to hustle for worthiness, what is acceptable, what will get us belonging around us. But I’m curious because this notion of integrating all of these messy parts and even the parts that we don’t love. It can be really scary to confront those parts. So how did you, how did you even start doing that? How did you even start making space for those parts of you that you had hidden away for so long?
0:34:27 – Speaker 1
Well, they always showed up for me as an invitation in my body, right Like as I started to become aware of, just like the external habits I also started to become aware of, like the anxiety that I felt in my body when these parts would come up. That was a really big one. And so I did network spinal care with Dr Alan Bittaker and I remember I very my very first kind of experience of him was an immersion day and it was a full day, almost like 10 hours. We received two network spinal care sessions. So, for anyone that’s listening, what is network spinal? It’s really allowing you to like heal the energy that’s in your spine, really tapping into the emotional body, and that in translate means you know, also it’s in the subconscious mind. So whatever we keep in the subconscious mind working through the emotional body and any kind of traumas that are within the body, and at this day retreat that we did, I was surrounded by really popular coaches, if you want to say, really well known coaches, and also just people that I didn’t know, and also very attractive people. Like you know, there was attractive men in that group. There were women that were so smart, like they. Just all kinds of all kinds of people and I felt myself so intimidated at that point and during these sessions. So we got one at the first session we all did the network spinal care sessions in front of each other, so there’s 10 eyes and ears looking at you while you’re diving deep into your healing and I was like sweating so hard to be like I don’t want anyone to witness me, to see me in my fullest, like literally expressing parts of me that want to cry, want to scream, want to come out or be expressed, like my body being like moving in all different ways. And I was like I feel like these people might judge me or not, like all these thoughts were coming up.
And in that moment I remember kind of giving me myself the own coaching and I was like, if I lean into this openly and allow myself to fully experience like this is going to be a huge initiation for me into more healing.
And I did that, sat on that table, or I laid on that table, I kind of expressed to them what was going on for me in my life at that point and we started in the session and they started working on my spine and then I moved to my back and then I was doing like breath work and moving all over the place in front of 10 people and crying by the end of it and I was like I just leaned into it and it was so freaking uncomfortable but it was so healing to let other people see the messiest parts of me.
In that moment and ever since that day where I allowed myself to be seen by completely random people that I don’t know and people that I think are, quote unquote healed at the time, you know, or quote unquote, have their ship together and I did it, I finally was able to receive this level of love for myself that, even if the messiest parts of me are seen by other people, that I’m still lovable and I’m still me and that those, those parts of me don’t define me or make me less of like, if anything.
Because I opened up those parts of me and allow them to be seen by this group of people. I brought them kind of on my team, you know. I got a chance to see them, how to be with them, and I just leaned into that really hard for like the next six to nine months as I continued working with Dr Alan at the time and allowing him to see me in my full expression and to see me in the messiest parts of me, whether that was screaming or crying or letting anger out and rage and doing all these things that I’ve never done in front of other people before. And then I brought that into my relationship with my current partnership, where it’s a whole nother thing. But if we want to dive into that, that was another place where I started to bring the messiest parts of me and he held me in those.
0:38:23 – Speaker 2
So our full, because I feel like what you’re describing here is it’s counterintuitive right. We’ve been taught to believe oh, you have to put your best foot forward, you have to put a smile on, and we’ve been conditioned to believe that our masks are what get us to a sense of acceptance and belonging, when in reality, it’s our masks that keep us from feeling a true sense of acceptance and belonging. Because what I heard in your story was you know this fear that I think most of us have this fear of. Okay, if I’m really vulnerable, if I show you my messy parts or the parts that I’ve kept hidden away, the fear is, if I show those to you, then you’ll abandon me or reject me. I won’t be good enough, I won’t be lovable.
When what I heard you say is that you said I see this fear, I acknowledge the fear, I understand it and I’m not going to let this fear control me. I’m going to choose to lean into this experience, to be fully open to it, to be courageous in your vulnerability with these other people that you didn’t necessarily know super well, you didn’t already have that trust established with. But you said I’m not going to let my fear dictate my actions. I’m going to lean in anyway. And then, on the other side of leaning into the fear, you actually got the thing that you were actually wanted for so long of this feeling of not just other people loving you, but, I think, the real power, and it is you loving yourself right. You opened yourself up to be vulnerable with these other people and the gift that you got on the other side of it was true love and acceptance of yourself.
0:40:11 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s so true and I think it’s become way more apparent or way more real for me and, like the last even six to nine months, like that was just the door opening. You know, that was just opening the door right. Like I put, I was scared to put the key in the door. And then I put the key in the door and then I saw the door and I saw what was there and then I let other people see it and that was just one part that I let people see, right, and I continue to keep opening new doors and, yes, that was a huge transformational time, that one specific day, but I had to continue to show up vulnerably, transparently, to be, and, as I did that for myself, yes, I was so I felt so much more love and compassion for myself and I also started to get almost unattached from what people thought of me if they heard this thing about me, because I also knew that an expressing this for myself, it transformed it transition into If I start to express this, because I know for me, I’m worthy enough of expressing it, I love myself to express it and I’m not I’m not here to keep these parts of me behind hidden any longer and I love myself enough to do this, to feel it for myself. That became my North Star, almost because I love for myself, which I think is crazy, because at the beginning my journey I started from a place of like I don’t love myself, I don’t love who I am, I’m not enough. You know I could be doing more to like now, because I love who I am, I want these parts of me to be expressed to. Because I love who I am, I want these layers to be shed so that more of me comes forward. And also being attached to whatever happens on the other side of that. So truly getting to a place of like hey, if I show this part of me and someone doesn’t love me for that, or someone doesn’t see me for that, or someone judges me for that, that’s their own projection, not mine. And getting to that place has probably been the most freedom, and I know there’s just so much more to unlock there to even be more fully expressed. But giving myself permission to express without worrying about what’s on the other side of my expression or how it’s going to be received, has been the most healing.
Now, because I’ve done that, I will say it has attracted people in my life that encourage my fullest expression, which is fucking amazing. It is incredible and it truly started like I started to recognize that with just my partner, with Nick, right Like we were just having this conversation the other day, I was listening to a podcast with Aubrey Marcus and I was telling him I was like, wow, you do this for me, and what Nick does for me is has been the most healing. He, anytime I feel angry which rage has always been something that I’ve struggled to express he welcomes that. He’s like you want to go there let’s fucking go there. You know he’s like you’re sad let’s be fucking sad. You’re angry, let’s be angry. He doesn’t shut my parts down, and that has been also the biggest blessing. But I will say I truly believe this to my core that if I didn’t know how to do that for myself first, I wouldn’t have been able to receive that from the people that are in my life today 100%, because you know, I think about it.
0:43:30 – Speaker 2
if you weren’t giving that to yourself, then you wouldn’t be able to feel it when, even if other people were pouring into you, were giving you the love exactly the way that you wanted it right, it’s like you weren’t in a position to be able to see and feel and experience the love at that depth and in that pureness because you hadn’t yet given that to yourself.
0:43:55 – Speaker 1
And also I would to dive back off that too. It’s also I think it’s also around the wounding around that, like around the wounding around receiving, because this is all layers right, like it’s one thing for me to love myself, but if I also don’t know how to receive and accept and fully like, put me first in that, that’s really hard to be able to even let that in Absolutely, and I think you know one thing that I thought was really interesting about your journey, too, is so, on the one hand, I definitely hear, yes, there are these distinct moments or these transformative experiences that maybe we can point to, that created, you know, an awareness or unlocked a new avenue for us to explore.
0:44:38 – Speaker 2
But it sounds like it’s really in the day to day, right, it’s in the how you show up for yourself each day, it’s in the rituals and the practices. But something that I thought was really interesting in your journey is you kind of talked about how, as you’ve been committed to this journey, as you’ve given to yourself and loved yourself, you now have relationships in your life and experiences where that is encouraged right, where people are standing in service of you and standing for your fullest expression. But it sounds like it’s been a journey to get here, and so something that I think is really also interesting and I’d love to hear your take on, is kind of that transition period of at least in my experience and I’ll kind of give you an idea of where this question is coming from In my experience when we first start doing this work for ourselves, when we start challenging that status quo or we start making changes in how we’re showing up. When we start, let’s say, setting boundaries with our loved ones.
Typically, in my experience and a lot of the experiences I’ve heard from others, it’s not smooth sailing right. Typically, when we first start engaging in this work and we start standing up for ourselves, if we have people in our lives who, historically, are benefiting from us not giving to ourselves, from us not having boundaries, there can be some pushback, there can be some challenge that comes from other people because we’re disrupting the status quo. So what was that like for you in terms of how your relationships evolved? Did you let go of people in your life who weren’t supporting your growth in this next chapter for you?
0:46:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and I would say I think it happened naturally, right, it was freaking sticky along the way, but it was like changing my own dynamics was a stretch for myself. But in relationship with other people that also started to create a stretch within our dynamic right that the other person would start to feel. And in navigating that, honestly, at the time I was just showing up my best to lean into what was best for me at the time, even if I didn’t have the words to fully guide or navigate the situation, the best that I could probably do now. So at the time I showed up my best and what I would say for anyone that’s going through that is communicate as much as you can, as much as you know and what, as much as available to you, as what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and why it’s important to you and how that person can hope to meet you in that. But I’ve also experienced trying to navigate that and people not understand why I’m changing or why I’m transforming or why this is better for me or why I’m setting a boundary or why I’m showing up this way now and you know, with my closest relationships I tried to communicate that as much as possible with my furthest relationships. I think naturally and organically they transitioned on their own right. Either they transitioned out or the just.
I like to think relationships just look differently. Right, it’s not so much of like completely losing this person, is just the way that we relate to one another no longer looks the same, and when it doesn’t look the same, that is very fucking uncomfortable for me and obviously for them. But I have to find my North Star and, and so that’s one thing and I would advise everyone again, like if you’re going through that yourself just over, communicating over and over again. But three is also this might be a little off to the right or to the left, but when I entered in my relationship with Nick, I really did a lot of work with myself and I entered in this relationship really unattached and throughout the whole dating process, throughout the whole relationship and kind of being like, as long as we’re both in our truth and this works out and we’re together, great.
If it doesn’t, it doesn’t like. I can’t control what tomorrow happens, what happens tomorrow, but what I can control is that I’m honoring myself and from a place of love and our truth and far if my truth is mine and his truth is his and our truth is together, then we’ll continue to be together, and I take that same perspective into all of the dynamics that I’ve had in my life. As long as I continue to honor my truth and the people that meet me in my life continue to honor their truth and know that this relationship serves them as much as it serves me, we’ll continue to stay together. But I genuinely cannot control how that looks, and so I’ve been really surrendering into expressing myself fully and honoring my truth and trusting that. You know I’ll always be met in that with the people that are in my life, if that makes sense, and the people that are meant to be in my life it makes so much sense.
Did I go down a rabbit hole? Because it feels like a rabbit hole, but I try to bring it all back.
0:49:33 – Speaker 2
No, I don’t think it’s a rabbit hole, because I think it all serves, right. I mean, we’re thinking about how do we stay committed to our own growth, our own evolution, and there are so many things that can hold us back, that or that we can use as excuses to hold ourselves back, even right, I think something I’ve learned on my own journey is man, my, my ego is just as smart as I am, and so there are these tricks that, oh well, I don’t want to sacrifice this relationship, or, you know, oh, I don’t want to rock the boat in this way. And so there are these ways that we hold ourselves back. But what’s so beautiful is it sounds like you’ve really redefined what success in a relationship looks like because of this work and what you’ve been doing to create a relationship with yourself that is loving and nourishing and wholesome, and so beautiful.
It sounds like you’ve also questioned this notion that we’ve been taught that as long as the relationship is still going, that’s a good thing, right?
You know, we measure marriage success in terms of oh, how long have you been together? Right, that’s one of the first questions we ask. Or when someone’s working at a company, how long have you been there we put this really heavy emphasis on the longevity of something. But it sounds like you have redefined success for your relationships to say are we nurturing each other? Are we helping each other grow? Are we standing in service of each other? And as long as the answer is yes on all accounts, we will continue this relationship. But it sounds like, you know, sometimes these relationships naturally come to a close right. Maybe there was something we needed to learn from them in a season, or maybe letting go of the relationship is how we can grow and evolve into our next chapter. And so I don’t think it was a rabbit hole, because it sounds like the relationship you have with yourself has really influenced and transformed the relationships that you allow in your life with other people.
0:51:39 – Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure. And the other thing that I would add there is, like, I’m really leaning into, like, as long as I continue to be fully expressed in my relationships, in my life, in my business and in my career, in my title, as I continue to lean into opening myself for full expression right, and allowing my own evolution, the rest will follow, right. And then to your point is, there is going to be some letting go, some creating more of, but there is this sense of responsibility that I have taken on for myself, and maybe it’s not so a sense of responsibility, but there’s this like genuine love for, like my soul, like for this little Karenna, for all parts of me, that I love them so much and I care about them so much and I want every single part of me to have space right, because they’ve been dormant for so long, or dormant for so long, they’ve been hidden for so long, like literally getting tears in my eyes, like there’s this sense of love that I like literally think about, like every single part of you.
I want you to be expressed, I want you to feel fully expressed, I want you to open the door if that’s what you want to do you know, and I think, looking back in my life, I constantly got to a place of keeping the door shut because of shame, guilt, insecurities, people’s judgments, people’s opinions.
You know, worrying about if I was doing this right or wrong. That’s been a huge lesson for me. You know, worrying about this is right or this is wrong, or this is the best, or if this is not the best, and I was just like I’m just going to lean to my full expression here and do that and let my own evolution and has really been almost the birth of this space right, this container that we’re having, and then talking in this podcast, because this is also a part of my fullest expression Like I felt myself in my business, feeling contracted, held in a box, and I was like no, no, no. We need to allow the parts of me that want to be expressed and how can I express them? And I believe in doing that, I will continue to evolve into the human that I’m meant to be, at a soul level, energetic body level, as a human being in this world, living as an energetic body, living a human experience.
0:53:47 – Speaker 2
Well, you know, we’ve talked to Karenna a lot about you know some of the harder aspects of doing this work and of your journey, and how one it sounds like somebody is unpleasant or uncomfortable or challenging experiences. We’re really the gateway for your own growth and evolution. But what I’m thinking about is it sounds kind of scary, you know, I think about if I were someone hearing your journey telling me that it’s messy and can be hard and can be challenging. I don’t know if I really want to raise my hand to sign up for this. So I’m curious to know, like why are you so passionate about doing this work for yourself and serving others on this journey, and what’s so good about your life that you want other people to step into this as well?
0:54:37 – Speaker 1
I think because I have felt the difference between at the beginning of the podcast, you asked me what was life like? And I felt so far away from my life, like I was living this external experience. Yet the connection that I had to the external experience wasn’t there. And now, in my most present life, today, as you guys are all listening to this podcast, at this moment that you’re listening to this podcast, I feel the most connected to myself than I’ve ever had in my entire life. And before I thought the answer wasn’t avoiding the messiness and avoiding the scary. But now I find that in the scariness there is some sense of aliveness, there’s some sense of connection that I feel to me. Versus before it felt like so far away, so distant, and even though life was anxious, it was like almost at arm’s length. I don’t know if that can make sense. And so now, because I’ve experienced what it feels like to express these parts of me that felt so scary or that still continue to feel scary right, because things that continue to come up, that continue to lean into you at different layers or different points or different areas of my life, they feel scary at first, but on the other side of that, I feel so connected and a really great experience of this, or example of this, I would say I’ve been talking more with just my community and my clients about having harder conversations and really leaning into hard conversations. And before I used to avoid hard conversations and relationships and I started practicing it. It was freaking icky at first, really leaning into hard topics and asking the hard questions.
But now that I’m being met in the hard conversations, there is a sense of deep, deep, deep connection and desire that I have for my partner every single time, or for Nick, every single time that we have a hard conversation.
And to the point where, like we had a hard conversation just a couple weeks ago, a week ago, and at the end of it like honestly, we both wanted to jump each other’s bones. Like it was like I want more of you and he was like, wow, I love you so much. And I was like I love you so much and I was like, wait, we just had a really ugly, hard conversation, but I love you so much and you know, that’s the exact, that’s the exact feeling that I get with the messiest parts of me, like I lean into these really ugly parts of me that I don’t want to have that conversation with. I don’t necessarily want to see them with, I don’t want to necessarily give them the love or give them space to express themselves, but the minute that I do, I just feel like I want to hold them and I want to love them more and give them space for more, and I feel this incredible connection after doing that every time.
0:57:13 – Speaker 2
Man. That really resonates with me, especially going from that kind of from to shift as you described, you know, feeling at arm’s length or feeling that distance from your life, because that really eloquently captures a lot of my journey as well. You know, this idea for me, the way I’ve characterized it, is kind of living in my head, right. I was afraid of being messy or clumsy or not doing things quote unquote, right when it came to interacting with other people, so oftentimes I wouldn’t speak my voice, I wouldn’t own my truth, because if I just kept everything in my head, then everything went according to plan in my head. You know, I always looked incredibly wise and incredibly kind and generous and amazing when I was the hero of my own story. Living in my head.
And so this idea of really living our lives fully right, being present in those lives, even if it’s messy or complicated or unpleasant sometimes, right, I think it’s really about learning to kind of peel back the judgment we put on ourselves of whether something’s good or bad or right or wrong and really just surrendering to it. As you’ve said, it’s surrendering and accepting. I’m here to experience the fullest of what life has to offer, even if it’s maybe not according to my plan or exactly what I want in this moment, but choosing to see the value in every experience, no matter how it unfolds, and that is incredibly powerful and really fulfilling. Yeah.
0:58:52 – Speaker 1
It’s a wild how you can go from living and seeing things in the way that this is the only way to feel or the only way to be, or at least is the right way to do things, or not the right way to do things, or wanting to control the way that things turn out, and then the minute that you just take a step back to be present with every part of that process, or like the process of getting to where you want to go it literally to your point feels so much more fulfilling. It’s almost like when you put work towards something right. It feels so much better when you have all this experience of I thought of it this way, I opened up myself this way, I worked harder and I gave myself the opportunity to do this. I put the time into this versus just receiving the thing. There’s this sense of like, oh, experience, this. I’m so grateful for this experience. I put so much time into this, I worked through this. That is so much more rewarding than just getting an answer or living with receiving the thing that you were working towards.
Does that make sense? And it’s so much more fulfilling when you go through the experience and like literally through it right, not just on the, not just jump to the other side of it just and receive the thing. It’s like I need to go through the experience and it’s so much more fulfilling going through the hard or walking through the mud because it’s like, yeah, I walked to the mud, not just like I ran through the grass. It’s like, oh, I walked in the mud and I got stronger and I became more resilient and I became more expressive and I learned this about me and I saw this about me and I didn’t realize this about me. Versus like, if it was just walking through grass, it gets to the other side and like, okay, I got it, but there’s no sense of like, yeah, I received it. You know I’m here.
1:00:32 – Speaker 2
Yeah, that sense of earning it right and this idea that we might consciously want things to be easy right, because we’re built to not want things to change.
We’re built to want things to be predictable and safe and comfortable and easy, but we are actually built to thrive through adversity, through challenge, by rising to meet whatever comes our way and really working through it and earning our way through it. So that is, yeah, so, so powerful. So, Karenna, we have covered a lot of ground here. I know, even though I have had so many conversations with you, I’m still just writing down notes, taking so much away from this conversation, and I’m so grateful for your courage, your curiosity, your willingness to own your journey and not only do it in a way that helps you live a life that is more fulfilling, more free, more full of love, but you’re also doing this in a way that creates an invitation for others to step into their own journey and to learn and come home to themselves and to love themselves fully. So, as we think about, kind of coming to the close of this conversation, what else do you want us to know about? What have I not thought to ask you, Karenna, that we need to know about you?
1:01:55 – Speaker 1
Who likes answering that question what do I want people to know about me?
I think the biggest thing that I want people to know about me and I think what I want to start to break down the barriers for anyone that’s listening to this is that I’m human, I’m just like you, like that’s really the biggest thing, like for anyone listening like I’m human and I’m just like you, I’m also going through the mud, or I’m going through the messiness, or leaning into hard conversations, or having hard realizations, or going through life seasons, like just because I continue to lean into this work and doesn’t make me more healed than anyone else.
And I think I say that because when you are living on social media or listening to these podcasts, you can have this perception or this reality that, wow, they have it all together. Or they’re better than me, or they’re more healed than me, or they’re just smarter than me and more intelligent than me. They’re more wise than me. You know all this, all this comparison, and I really want to knock that down, especially when it comes to this podcast and my community and just how I show up. And I say that because I wouldn’t be able to have these conversations if I didn’t lean into the messiness and I’m going to basically highlight the messiness, because the messiness is the most important part. No, one.
I mean, I can’t say no one is perfect, but like, really there is nothing. You know, I can’t say no one’s perfect. Maybe there is a human out there that’s a unicorn. I would love to meet you. But we all have our imperfections and we all have our messiness and I’m here just to be a part of this life ride with you. This personal journey is I’m in it for the long run and I’m continuing to lean into my own evolution and I hope that anyone that’s listening continues to listen to this as an invitation for you to be fully expressed in yourself and to lean into your own personal evolution wherever that takes you, and letting your fullest expression kind of guide you in your evolution so beautiful.
1:03:58 – Speaker 2
You know this idea that I’m on a journey with you, right? I think that’s so, so important. It’s this message of you’re not alone and we are all on our own unique journey and we are all perfect, yet imperfectly perfect. All of that good stuff, and I I, for one, Karenna am just so incredibly grateful to know you, to have you in my life, to get to witness your evolution, your unfolding, your full expression, and excited to see where it takes us. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’ve really loved getting to hear more about your story and getting to learn more about the beautiful soul that you are.
1:04:36 – Speaker 1
Thank you. I really think that, like just having you on here and doing this whole interview and this episode with me was just so juicy. I love the way that you just reflect everything back and almost like highlight and summarize the things that I’m trying to say, and I think that that in itself really, at least you know, gives the listeners here and anyone that’s tuning in an opportunity to kind of grasp what I was trying to say, really pulling it all back together, and you just do that so seamlessly. So, thank you, and I love you so, so much. Thank you so much for thank you. Thank you, thank you for doing this for me. I love you. Thank you so much.
