- The time is now
to manage your fear of separation and embrace it.
Do you love comfort?
Is that a number one value for you?
Comfy clothes, soft blanket,
a cozy house with hot cocoa or warm tea.
Does it sometimes take time
for you to build connected relationships,
but when you do,
those are your people and your bonds go deep?
Do you thrive on consistency, stability,
and knowing what comes next?
Recognizing you have these needs is a powerful awareness.
On the flip side, if your life is disrupted
by the loss of a loved one, divorce, contention,
or any major life change,
it brings a powerful fear of separation.
It may feel like the foundation
of your life has been disrupted.
It feels uncomfortable,
and you will do almost anything to avoid discomfort.
But what do you do when the discomfort or loss
cannot be avoided?
What do you do when overwhelming sadness
and grief come to stay?
In theory, you want to move forward,
but you're not sure how.
If you struggle with a fear of separation,
there is a good chance you are a healer.
You need the people in your life
to be honest and trustworthy,
but also gentle and understanding.
The sentence, "I heard you,
and I need to think about what you said and see how I feel"
is an empowering way to communicate what you need most.
Most likely,
even saying that will feel uncomfortable at first.
But as you learn to express yourself
in a way that is honoring of your needs,
it is incredibly empowering.
You appreciate those in your life
who can validate your emotions and experiences.
You feel seen, heard, and understood.
You have the need to serve others,
to comfort and nurture them.
For all these reasons,
fear of separation comes up in a big way for healers.
What you need is closeness and connection,
and you do that through deep,
meaningful relationships, one on one.
A dreamer personality goes wide with their social group,
while a healer personality goes deep.
Once they cultivate relationships with their people,
those people are their world.
It takes so much time and effort
to build that comfort and connection,
in some ways, it becomes their purpose and identity.
These traits and attributes
are all part of the beautiful gifts
that healers share with the rest of us,
and we love them for it.
But what happens when the loss of a relationship,
a major life change, or any other event,
brings up the fear of separation for you?
It can easily become overwhelming.
It might feel like a part of you has died inside,
that a piece of your identity or purpose is missing.
It often creates deep grief and emptiness,
and you aren't sure how to fill
this now missing part of yourself, or even if you want to.
It may feel like a betrayal to move on from the heartbreak.
See what's going on for you is all the things you value,
you are also creating worth ties to.
In your relationship with your loved ones,
you are happy and fulfilled
as long as they are happy and fulfilled.
You are comfortable as long as they are comfortable.
You base your value, worth,
and belonging off of that comfort, happiness,
and acceptance of those in your life who you love.
You are attaching your worth and value as a person
to something outside yourself.
What happens is when our worth is tied to something
outside of ourselves, people and experiences come along,
and start pushing and pulling on our worth ties,
and we become like a string puppet
being pushed and pulled in our own life
instead of being the captain of our own ship.
The truth is though,
once we no longer have our worth
attached to something outside of ourselves,
we are well on the path
to cultivating and nurturing the best version of ourselves.
My purpose in this video
isn't to tell you that you need to change or be different.
My purpose is to support you on whatever path you are on.
So with all this new awareness and light bulb moments,
I have a question for you.
What in your life is not serving you?
And if the fear of separation
is one of those things that isn't serving you,
let's go over some tools we can use
to move through that fear,
because it's real,
and the solution is not to just get over it.
Though the closer in your life might try and tell you that.
First powerful tool, meditation.
I started meditating when my third son was a baby.
So I've been doing it for over a decade.
And what it looked like for me at first
was so much self-judgment.
I couldn't focus.
My mind would go all over the place.
I'd be listening to a guided meditation,
and I'd be making grocery shopping lists in my head,
and then I would be critical about the fact
that I was making grocery shopping lists in my head.
And if I didn't do that, then I was falling asleep.
Then I had a lot of judgment about that.
I'm like, "What good is this doing in my life?
I am falling asleep."
And in reality, it was doing just what it needed to
for that time and space in my life.
I was exhausted.
I had a baby, and a toddler,
and a new business, and so much going on.
And so allow yourself the time and the space
to do what you need and what's really serving you.
And when that internal judgment pops up, just let it go.
So here's my biggest pieces of advice for meditation.
Get a free app.
I really like the Insight Timer app.
There's a paid version and a free version.
Just use the free version.
There's lots of other great apps out there too.
And try out different types and modalities.
The guided meditation is super easy
if you're new to that sort of thing.
And if you fall asleep, good for you.
And if you're making grocery shopping lists in your head
and then you're judging yourself
for that's not the way meditation is supposed to work,
just allow yourself to pause and breathe.
And instead of judging yourself
for whatever it is you're thinking about,
just say to yourself, "Thought", and let it go.
And the next thing that pops up,
just say, "Thought", and let it go.
That will help you create the habit
of clearing your mind and having the time and space
to recognize what's really going on for you.
Okay, so a couple of my favorite meditations
are healing through letting go, finding answers,
and loving and listening to yourself.
Meditation is a powerful tool
for resetting your nervous system,
and creating a practice of space
between a trigger we experience,
and helping us mindfully choose our response.
This is a wonderful habit
that plants the seeds of awareness
that are so needed in cultivating the life that you want.
It is even something I do with my children.
Some of their favorite meditations are bubble meditation,
build a sand castle, and gratitude in the secret garden.
Remember, you are the expert in your life
for what works for you.
Keep trying different modalities of meditation
without judgment until you get something that fits.
And maybe meditation isn't the best fit for you.
Try mindfully writing or journaling.
The next time you have an overwhelming, exhausting,
or uncomfortable experience,
basically the next time you are triggered,
and you are tempted to avoid, which is a flight response,
or shut down, which is a freeze response,
or take responsibility for things that are not yours,
which is a fawn response.
I want you to take the time
to write about what is going on for you,
what you were experiencing.
Start wherever you want, but I want you to get to your why.
Why do you show up that way?
What beliefs do you have about yourself
that caused you to react that way?
Where does that belief come from?
Why do you believe that?
Show yourself love and compassion
during this exploratory process.
There is a good chance
it is going to feel incredibly vulnerable,
and bring the monsters that are our deepest fears
out of the closet and out from under the bed.
Tool number three is to step outside your comfort zone
in small consistent ways.
For healers, everything is all about comfort.
And if you let discomfort dictate your life,
you might find yourself more closed in than you want to be.
That's okay.
Recognize what's going on for you,
and set a goal that you're going to do
one uncomfortable thing every day.
And it doesn't have to be a huge thing.
It can be a very small thing.
You can just set a goal to say,
"This is a little bit uncomfortable for me.
This is what I'm going to do today."
Whether it's saying hello to a stranger,
holding the door open for someone,
paying for someone else's meal,
whatever looks like a small step
outside of your comfort zone, do that for yourself today.
Tool number four, give yourself comfort, love,
and understanding, especially if you don't have trustworthy,
safe people in your life to support you this way.
So I want to tell you about my daughter.
She's a teenager now,
but as a young child, when I was just learning
how to balance all the different personality types
in our house,
and she and I have opposite personality types,
and she also just happens to have
very similar personality type to my mother.
So parenting that is not triggering at all.
Anyway, so she was incredibly sensitive and she still is.
She is the most sensitive person
that I have ever met in my whole life.
And I am not naturally a very sensitive person,
but she has taught me so much,
and I had the opportunity to learn and to grow,
and to be more understanding and sensitive
to the people around me,
because I loved and cared so much for my daughter.
And I recognized that she had these certain needs.
And so something would happen in her life,
and she would get upset and she wanted to be comforted.
And so often for a healer, this looks like a soft blanket
and a cup of tea or hot cocoa and a snack,
whatever their comforting, self-soothing tools are.
And so even as a toddler, she would get upset,
and she would want me to sit and to hold her.
And I am a thinker closer,
and I have things I want to get done.
And sitting there and doing nothing is terrible for me.
It's terrible.
But I would take the time to do that.
I would tell myself,
"This is a need that she has,
and I can give her five minutes."
And that's what I would do.
And I would mindfully sit there,
and talk with her and comfort her.
But my max was five minutes,
on a really rough day, it was only three.
But the thing was she needed more
than three to five minutes, which I totally respected.
And so after I gave her some time,
my three to five minute window,
which is what I felt I could do in honoring myself,
I didn't tell her,
"Hey, get up, you're fine, knock it off.
It's not that big a deal."
Because that's not honoring of her nature.
I would go and get her doll,
and actually we would get her doll before we sat down,
but and so the doll would be next to us.
And so when I was done, I would say to her,
"Sherry, do you want to hold your doll
and comfort your doll?" And she would look at me
with her big saucer blue eyes that were adorable,
'cause her and her doll looked just alike.
And she would go, "Uh huh".
And so she would sit there,
and she would continue to comfort and self-sooth herself,
which is a powerful tool that we all need to learn,
and that serves all of us.
And she would hold her doll.
And to this day when she gets upset,
because teenagers definitely get upset,
she will go to her room
and get one of her large fluffy stuffed animal,
and she will sit in her bed,
and she will self-soothe for as long as she needs to.
And so I know that's a fun, cute story,
but we all need that in our lives.
And so what does that look like for you?
I hope this video is supportive for you
on your journey of healing and growth.
Will you do me a favor?
If you know someone else that would feel support
and understood by this video, will you share it with them?
Thank you for continuing to show up,
and support yourself and those around you.
And remember to keep shining, we need your light.
(upbeat music)