Summary: In the first episode of our second season on The Hairy Chin Podcast, host Spencer Moore and guest Cathy Williams delve into the significance of intuition, particularly for women, and how it can be a powerful ally in self-advocacy and personal growth. They explore the societal pressures that often lead to the suppression of intuition, the journey of reconnecting with one's inner voice, and the impact of shame on decision-making. Through personal stories and practical insights, they emphasize the importance of listening to one's intuition and the transformative power it holds in navigating relationships and life choices.

Takeaways

• Trusting your intuition can change your health and choices.
• Women are often taught to suppress their intuition.
• Intuition can be a compass for navigating life decisions.
• Shame can disconnect us from our intuition.
• Reconnecting with intuition requires practice and patience.
• It's important to communicate and connect with your inner voice.
• Listening to your body can guide you to your intuition.
• Shame grows in silence; speaking it can diminish its power.
• Apologizing to your intuition can help rebuild trust.
• Creating a safe space to explore feelings is essential for growth.

Chapters

[01:57] Understanding Intuition as an Ally

[04:21] The Disconnect from Self and Intuition

[06:56] Recognizing Red Flags in Relationships

[09:41] The Impact of Societal Expectations on Women

[11:54] Reconnecting with Intuition

[23:03] Living Authentically and Intuitively

[32:02 The Journey of Self-Connection

[34:54] Navigating Relationships and Personal Growth

[39:49] The Weight of Shame and Its Impact

[46:04] Reconnecting with Intuition

[56:31] The Balance of Self-Care and Relationships

[01:03:38] Closing Thoughts on Intuition and Self-Discovery

Links: 

Listen to Cathy's Bonus Episode: Three Ways To Meet Your Intuition

Letter To Your Intuition free PDF Download

Cathy Williams Intuitive Self Website

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Welcome back to The Hairy Chin Pocast. I'm Spencer Moore, your host, and I am a woman on a mission to make self-advocacy simpler for female health and wellness.

we are talking about that little voice inside of you. Sometimes it's just a whisper. Sometimes it's screaming at you. And many of us, we ignore it. We make excuses. We think that we're overreacting. We think that we're being dramatic. So we suppress it. We don't listen to it and we rationalize it. And perhaps later we think, God, I really wish I had listened to my gut. Wish I'd gone with my gut. I wish I'd trusted myself.

And as women, we're really taught to second guess ourself. We're taught to be quiet, be polite, be the easygoing, cool girl. And every time we do that, we really silence a part of ourselves. And that special voice, that special part of us is our intuition. And here's the thing. When you learn to communicate and connect to your intuition, it can really change everything.

We're here with Cathy Williams from Melbourne, Australia. Cathy is an award-winning author of Body Wisdom.

a community facilitator, and a teacher of the intuitive self. She's here to share how to recognize your intuition's voice, release the shame of past choices, and build a practice of trust within. By the end of this episode, you'll walk away with creative, tangible tools to strengthen your connection with yourself. Hi, Cathy Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Thanks, Spencer. It's really nice to be in conversation.

Yeah, it's so nice to connect. We had a little chat before the podcast and I'm so excited of kind of what we're gonna talk about today. It is just really helpful, I think, especially for women because this intuition, this voice, we really are taught to suppress it. We are taught to just be easy, pretty, simple women behind the scenes a lot of times. And so you have spent a lot of time working with.

connecting to the intuition. You have a whole journey that you've been on, a very interesting story. So I think today maybe the best thing to start with is for you, what is intuition?

What is intuition? I have come to know my intuition as an ally, as actually one of my greatest allies. My intuition is a resource for me. It is a way that I access guidance and I see it

Uh-huh.

as something that speaks to me, that signals to me through my body, through my felt sense. And even though it's taken me a long time to really recognise its value and be able to not only realise the ways in which it's speaking to me and listening to this,

It's taken me a while to actually trust in it and trust that I can.

⁓ huh.

use my intuition as a compass to guide me through navigating life choices and making decisions that feel most aligned to my values and how I want to show up in the world.

Mm-hmm, yeah. Would you consider the intuition to kind of be that gut feeling that we have kind of somewhere inside of us, you know, that guides us? Like, you we hear a lot about gut feelings. Is that really what this is? It's something inside of us speaking to us?

I would think so. think that when we speak about intuition, that gut feeling, that gut sense is a common phrase that comes up hand in hand with intuition.

Mm-hmm.

It can be a bit of a journey to decipher, you know, what is our intuition and how does it speak to us and what is fear and what is guidance and what is a knowing that we might not necessarily have rational backing for or something that makes sense to our analytical mind, but it for me is a feeling that doesn't need to make sense to anyone else.

Do you?

but is something that I have learned to trust over time with, okay, that's speaking to me. Can I take a pause and listen to what it's wanting to say rather than trying to overthink or rationalize what is happening?

Uh-huh.

Right, right. Because I think that just in modern life in general, we rationalize a lot of things. You we always have kind of, when we make decisions, we have these reasons why we do them. Does it fit within the society, within the culture, within the family, within the timeline of the day and the schedules? And the more we rationalize all these things, I feel personally, the more we disconnect from ourselves, right? And we disconnect from...

what you talk about, these gut feelings, this intuition of what is really right for me and my body and what my body needs in this moment. That's really, it's not even at the end of the list. It's not even on the list. right?

What you said there is really important that in this moment, like how am I feeling about this right now? And it doesn't, it's not something that we have to necessarily overthink. I think sometimes our intuition is, I believe that intuition is actually always present and always available. it's that gut instinct that is signaling to us whether that's

through feeling in our body, a sensation in our body, or our eyes diverting to notice something in a moment. And we can be really quick to dismiss that. We can be really quick to, for the mind to come in and be like, no, don't, like you're being silly. Or, you know, we...

We're really quick to dismiss and neglect this part of ourselves and not give it the value that it deserves.

like this idea, especially here when women talk about dating, know, relationships, early on in the relationships, there were all these red flags, And so I like this thought of thinking of the intuition is kind of throwing up these red flags.

Right? and maybe it's a feeling in your body, maybe it's an ick that you get of like, that doesn't sit well with me. You know? And we'll talk about later about kind of ways that you can strengthen this connection with your intuition because that's really what I love, this message that you have about really reconnecting to your intuition, that it's always been there. It's just, it's you know, it's a relationship that you have.

Mm.

But I do think that perhaps intuition is maybe an abstract concept to some people. Perhaps they don't really understand what is the relationship between the body and intuition. But I find that the red flags maybe for me is the most common way that people connect in our modern way, I guess, to like, that's your body talking to you. Those red flags, that kind of ick feeling that you get maybe around some people and you think like, this isn't.

Thank you.

person isn't aligned with me. This isn't the right relationship. I find that that's helpful to kind of understand because for me at least intuition has been a hard concept to grasp because is it my, is it a red flag? Is it me trying to be dramatic or make excuses or you know I think sometimes it's hard to just listen to your body because we are programmed to think

this reaction is too much. I'm being dramatic. Or, ⁓ just because I don't want to go, I have to go. You know, we have this phrase in the South where I grew up, and it was put on your big girl panties and just do it. And it was even if you didn't want to, put on your big girl panties and do it. And that's going against the intuition. That's programming women in that scenario to just do it anyways. right? How do you feel about women understanding this concept of intuition and kind of...

Mm.

Hmm.

understanding how to connect to it.

I feel like as women, you know, we've grown up in this society that really undervalues, undervalues us. what you said before about, you know, being too much, like we carry this burden of feeling as if our emotions can't be trusted. You know, we feel too much. We are too much where we can't trust ourselves. we can't trust what

what our feelings are saying or what our felt sense is saying. And get pressured to play small or to people please and to not cause drama. I also believe that many of us carry the witch's wound, which is, you know, that if we say something or act on something based on a feeling that doesn't necessarily come from an intellect place.

which is actually our instinct, our intuition speaking to us that we will be persecuted for it. So we've, it's almost like we've learned all these ways of keeping ourselves safe in society by not following our intuition. but having said that, I know through my lived experience of all the ways where I haven't listened to my intuition and then I have carried this, this anxiety.

Mm-hmm.

around because I've been

Mm-hmm.

not listening to these parts of myself and therefore making choices that weren't aligned that often led me into unsafe situations. And I was going against what my intuition was trying to tell me ⁓ and therefore going against a part of myself that was actually trying to keep myself safe and through

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

continuously ignoring my intuition, that's when the disconnect happened. The disconnect from my body, my disconnect from these feelings that were coming up. Every time that I ignored those feelings, I was actually pulling myself further and further away from my body. And as a movement and expressive arts practitioner, I know the value of the body as a resource to tap into the whole self and work with

body, and mind as a whole ally to actually

live the life that we want to that is our truth rather than feeling pressure from external sources.

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I think that what you're talking about of this kind of disconnect and making choices and choices that can lead to unsafe situations and things like that, I think that it disconnects you from your intuition, but also from the sense of self that you develop. you,

When you start making choices that are leading you further and further away because you're disconnected from your intuition, I think it's very easy to feel like you're a person that you just can't trust.

And so I do feel like this idea of connecting to your intuition, it's kind of, it's your compass. It helps bring you back. And know, in a little bit we're gonna talk about the relationship between intuition and shame. And I think it's very important because, you know, just because you've done something a certain way in the past, it doesn't mean it's the way it has to continue in the future. And...

And know, kind of accepting that in this moment. I think acceptance is a very big part of moving forward in life. Accepting who you are now, where you are now. And it doesn't have to be connected to where you've been in the past. And so I really believe, especially with women, that we carry a lot of shame, a lot of embarrassment for choices that we've made in that moment. you know, I've heard a lot about how...

you know, in the process of letting go of shame, of realizing that you were doing the best you could in that moment to survive. Those were the choices that you made in that moment. It was how you survived through that time. And I very much believe in that. But it doesn't release the feelings you might have that that was your path. And I really feel that connecting with your intuition really helps you develop a much stronger sense of self.

Mm-hmm.

one thing you write about in your book, which we'll talk about, and it's very amazing, is the ⁓ subconscious intuitive self. And I really like how you phrase that, because I think that intuition and our actual self, the self, is very much connected. Do you want to talk about kind of how intuition can kind of help?

define the self.

When I was growing up, I feel like I had a really strong sense of who I was.

you.

I think over time through different family pressures or comments that you take on and then they create different stories and narratives and different experiences that I had. as you were saying, there was learnt behaviour of what could keep myself safe in different situations. I think that from all of these different experiences, I started to...

Mm-hmm.

mask a lot of my feelings and shape myself to keep myself safe in how I presented to the world.

Mm-hmm.

But consistently, and again, this is something I only realized in hindsight, but consistently I can track back through different life experiences and see how my intuition was present along the way.

It's through me reconnecting with my intuition that I was able to start to remember who I was and remember the parts of myself that I ignored or downplayed to fit in to different relationships or different dynamics or different circles. So intuition as a resource to actually like remember who I am.

Mm-hmm.

and what my values are so that I could start living as me. And I guess that's what is living as your authentic self so that you make choices about who you're in a relationship with, who your friends are, what you do for work, like things that are more encouraging and platforming you as you.

You mentioned they're reconnecting with your intuition. Let's talk about what that looked like for you when you were disconnected from your intuition. I would love to hear and share the story that you have of your process of, you know, as you said, you were a child and you're very connected. And then obviously there was a time where you became disconnected. Can you share with us what that period looked like?

Yes, yes I can.

So it was, I guess the story that I'll share that was probably the biggest catalyst for me understanding how much I disconnected from my intuition was when I met a man. Now when I met this person I was

arguably in a really good place in my life. I was doing work that I loved. I had travel plans. I felt like the freest, most boldest version of myself.

And through meeting this man, it became a romantic connection. And he pursued me quite, you know, there was a lot of what I now know as love bombing in this courtship. And...

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I was quite flattered. I was flattered to have this attention. And even though there were some parts of, I guess, his behavior or treatment that felt a bit

I ignored that feeling inside me that, this is a bit too intense too quickly, what I guess my intuition was saying at the time. And I ignored that because I was like, no, I'm a great woman, I'm a catch, why wouldn't this person be interested in me? And I guess I was quite...

huh.

naive with how much I trusted this person with different parts of myself. Different parts of myself being certain insecurities that I had. I shared parts of my life with this man and trusted him with that. And over time I came to see that

in our relationship that was forming, it started to feel really unbalanced, ⁓ quite unhealthy. And again, that came from

the feeling that I felt in my body when I was with him. I was really anxious a lot of the time. I didn't really feel good about myself. I started to notice how, I guess, controlling he was of where I was going, what I was doing.

It's almost like I picked up on what was happening, but then my mind would come in I would rationalize and say, no, he just cares about me. He just cares, he just wants to know. He just wants to spend a lot of time with me. But I didn't put it together how much it was making me feel really small and making my body contract.

Mm-hmm.

end.

Things escalated really quickly with this person. We moved in together and I started to notice how much I didn't want to socialize. I got quite depressed in this relationship and I started losing touch with all of the different ways in which I had been before meeting him.

all of the hobbies, all of the interests, all of the social groups, even my passions in different aspects of my career. And yeah, my world started to turn quite dark, I guess.

You

What I realized was that...

Well, I guess what I didn't realize was that as I was speaking to him...

and confiding in him that I wasn't happy in the relationship, that I didn't feel good.

that I think that I thought that it wasn't a healthy relationship. Maybe we're not meant to be together. Maybe we need to spend some time apart.

everything that I was sharing with him, he sort of put back on me and said, you know, I think, I think, I think you're depressed. think you need to get help. Um, you know, you're not, you're not thinking properly. You know, it's got nothing to do with this. You know, I love instead of listening to

the parts of myself that felt not good about being in this relationship and...

almost knew that it was the relationship that had been all consuming and dragging me down and making me feel like this. again let myself dismiss that part of me and I doubted my own knowing of myself and listened to his words and went and sought out help thinking that I was the problem, that it was

that I was the one that wasn't right, that needed to seek help and I actually ended up going to a psychologist that he found for me and it was in one of my very first sessions with her actually where I described who I was, how I was feeling and she asked a lot of questions about the relationship and

Hmm.

It was her who made the suggestion that, Cathy, I think that you're in a psychologically abusive relationship.

And I didn't know what that meant at the time. Since then, I've obviously done a lot of research to understand the power and control wheels and all the different ways that our mind can be manipulated and coerced and that we can...

start to doubt ourselves and believe that love what love looks like.

Mm-hmm.

And when I...

started to realize that, or I guess I had this perspective that it could be the relationship that I was in that was contributing to how I was feeling. It was almost like this veil was lifted and I started to see different controlling behaviors, different ways that he spoke to me that were really degrading and put me down.

And all of these examples by themselves seem really small and

and as if they, you know, don't mean anything. I started to put them together through the help of this psychologist. But I started to, I guess, feel more in my body again as I moved through this relationship and was like, I actually, I don't feel good in your presence. And

That feeling, in relationship with those feelings and noticing how much my body contracted when I was with him, how anxious I was, how much I couldn't eat in his presence. And then how different I was when I was around friends that I could be myself with, when I was in a job that I loved. I really understood the power that I had given away in this relationship.

end all of the ways that I had.

ignore my intuition and...

and really numbed myself to be in this relationship.

It was in this relationship that was the catalyst for me recognizing how much I disconnected from my intuition, from her.

but it was also the catalyst for me.

setting myself on this path of finding grace with myself and finding compassion for myself and

working really hard not to beat myself up for getting myself into this situation, for choosing to believe his words, for sticking around longer than I cared to admit and actually.

looking back with curious eyes to those first dates and those first meetings with him and acknowledging that my intuition had

being present and being like, why did he ask me that? Or why did he say that? But again, I had dismissed it because it felt good to have someone have such an interest in me or whatever it was. And yeah, it's taken me a long time ⁓ and a consistent practice to

forgive the parts of me that wanted to beat myself up for not seeing earlier these signs of abuse and manipulation and to actually work towards apologizing to my intuition and wanting to

rebuild and rekindle my relationship with her so that I'm

could know her as an ally for all future relationships. And that doesn't mean that I was like, okay, I'm gonna be super alert now to all of the red flags, but actually take a pause and be like, okay, how do I feel about this situation? Is that feeling of anxiety or even just, know, that uncomfortableness, is that present?

when I'm on a date with someone or when I'm in the presence of someone.

Thank you for sharing that story. so I have, I've been kind of running down some little notes as you've been talking. I have so many things. I think that one of the things that I wanna kind go back to is in that moment where, you you have this outside perspective as a psychologist and you kind of have these aha moments of perhaps this isn't me, perhaps I'm in an environment that is facilitating this minimizing of myself and of.

my person and it's really exacerbating these symptoms of anxiety and depression and all of this.

You know, we're talking about this very big disconnect from your body, from yourself, from who you are, and then this realization that, you know, things need to change. What does the reconnection look like for you in that time of change so that you can start to regrow and, you know, build that bridge of communication back to yourself?

Mm.

When the psychologist proposed that perhaps I was in a psychologically abusive relationship.

there was a sense of relief and I paid attention to that. I paid attention to how my body felt when...

this insight came to me and

I'm really proud of myself for that because I didn't ignore how my body was feeling. If anything, actually, went towards it. was like, feeling, you know, instead of feeling all of this contraction, I feel relief. Like what, what is that about?

I guess the biggest driving force for me starting to...

rebuild that relationship was being curious about how my body was feeling at any given time and

doing my best not to judge or interpret what the body

was saying, not going straight to, okay, this is what that means, but actually recognizing how the body was starting to speak to me.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, I resonate a lot with your story, was in a very long relationship, and ⁓ it was a very unhealthy, toxic relationship. And I saw a psychologist, I saw a therapist, and at one point, he said to me, you need to leave. And therapists don't normally say that. They don't normally really tell you.

what to do. They let you kind of work through these moments, but I will never forget sitting in his office and he said, you need to leave. It's just, want to protect you and help you and you really should get out. and there was a panic in that moment for me of, my God, I'm going to have to uproot my entire life. I'm going to have to change everything. And, and I, you you talk about this relief and for me,

Mmm.

I think I always kind of knew, it's like you say, the intuition was there. Like I knew it wasn't sustainable. but you know, looking back, I can see that I knew, but I didn't hear it. I didn't listen. And ⁓ through that time, I decided ⁓ to come to move to Barcelona. Well, I decided to come to Barcelona. It was a short stay, which ended up changing my whole life. And now I've been here almost a decade.

But I, in making those changes and saying, I really feel like this is the right thing for me to go to Barcelona. I was going against the grain of all the other things that I've been doing in my life. And there was a lot of resistance from people that loved me because I was making decisions that to them seemed quite bold and a bit crazy, right? Like, what are you doing? You're going to go live in Barcelona and you're going to end this relationship. It was a marriage.

Yeah.

It was a really hard time and I very loving supporting people. wasn't that they didn't want me to do what I needed to do, but I found that when I started listening more to my voice, I got some feedback from people that was perhaps like, what's going on? And I felt very lonely. I felt very isolated.

Mm.

because I was starting to connect more to myself and make choices and say, I don't care what people think if I'm gonna do this. And that can be a very isolating place to be until you kind of recalibrate and find your balance and then find your way back to those relationships now in a different place, right? Because when you change, it changes a lot of things. Relationships change.

And so it's kind of finding a balance again. Can you talk about kind of your experience of as you've reconnected to your intuition, how that's affected other areas of your life or have there been kind of these recalibrations with relationships or with work sometimes, you know?

setting boundaries and things like that, how has that process looked for you?

Mmm. Oh, that's so beautiful, Spencer. Yeah, I am.

I think as I have rekindled my relationship with my intuition and

from listening to her and acting upon how I feel and how my intuition speaks to me, that part of me has gotten stronger, which means that my courage to live and make choices for me, despite how that might look to others or how others might judge that, whether that's family, friends, how it looks, I've had to

continue to hone my resilience with knowing that I'm the only one that's able to live my life and I'm the only one that gets to live my life and is in this body.

I do have a lot of respect for what you said around it being lonely at times. And I think that as we shed, you know, old coping mechanisms and old strategies that served us and old narratives and old ways of being and step into a stronger, more authentic sense of self.

Mm-hmm.

It fractures anything in our life that is no longer going to serve us in a good way. Whether that's relationship dynamics where we've played a particular role and as we start to outgrow that role, friends or family will question it. You know, what are you doing? You're not acting like yourself and all of these comments start to

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

bright.

or have the potential to put seeds of doubt in us. But that is when honing that relationship with our intuition is the most important. So I have experienced all of that. I've experienced, ⁓ like, who am I? Is that the kind of friend that I am? You know, I always ⁓ prided myself on being a really loyal friend. So...

Mm-hmm.

So ending friendships with people who I felt no longer knew me or weren't encouraging of the me that I was stepping into was a really hard thing to do because I felt like I was in the wrong. And it was lonely. It can be lonely, but...

Yeah.

Even though those decisions can be really difficult to make, they are also what put me on a path where I now have really solid people in my life who know me, who I can be the truest version of myself with and who support and encourage me in living the life that I want to live. And me to them.

And I think that as we live more intuitively and therefore live more authentically, we then find our tribe. find the people in our life that will back us and bring out the best version of ourselves. And, you know, we go through so many different seasons as we grow and learn and develop. And I think it's all part and parcel with living and learning.

⁓

But I'm really proud of the life that I've created through honing this relationship with my intuition and making decisions that might not necessarily have made any sense to anyone else or being convenient for other people, but I can live with myself.

young. ⁓

I think that's so important you say I can live with myself because you know for me at least in my my path in my journey there was a very long period of time where I just didn't want to be with myself I didn't want to live with myself I wanted to be around with social people I wanted to go kind of from one relationship to another relationship I didn't want to be alone because I didn't have a relationship with myself that I was comfortable with you know ⁓

Mm.

You know like meditating meditating for me was so stressful for a very long time It will cause panic attacks sometimes because I couldn't be alone in my head in my thoughts It was just very overwhelming and and you know, we'll talk about shame and we'll talk about You know that kind of that sadness and it would just kind of these thoughts would loop and I've found that

The more I can connect to myself, to this intuition that we talk about, to what is right for me, the more comfortable I am being with myself, the more I like myself, and the more comfortable I am saying, don't really care what you think about what I'm doing and the choices I'm making. You know, I do find what you said about the seeds of doubt, they can be really strong. It can be raining seeds of doubt through some periods of time of this journey.

You know, people can have a kind of idea of who you are and some people can really hold on to that. They really don't, you know, give you a lot of room for growth and change. And also, you know, as you change, that means the relationship changes. And so then they have to kind of be flexible and resilient as that relationship changes. And some people don't want to do that. So I found that letting go of relationships that aren't seeing who I am now as compared to who I was.

10 years ago or 20 years ago. You know, it's like I've heard that people can put a Polaroid picture of you when you were 15 years old and that's who they see you for the rest of your life. It's like, but I'm not 15 anymore. I've gone through life, things have changed, I have changed. And I've found that there's a real sadness and grieving and letting those relationships go, but also opening up space for more aligned relationships to come into my life. ⁓

Yeah.

And it's not like they come in immediately. Sometimes you wait years to have a new connection with somebody and you think, wow, this was worth the wait. This is a beautiful person that has come into my life. But I just think that it's like a fight for your life of yourself. The sadness, the loneliness, the doubt. You have to push through it and it's completely worth it. But it is a...

It's not easy, guess is my point, is that there are ebbs and flows and ups and downs, at least personally of what I've experienced.

I agree. think that the ebbs and flows is very real and

You know, I'm a big advocate for, our feelings as they come up and starting a dialogue with those different parts of ourselves. And that practice has been incredibly helpful for me to move through the grief, to move through sadness, to move through loss and change. And

not ignore those feelings because I think anything that makes us feel uncomfortable like a feeling of sadness we want to numb or dismiss and come to realize that that is that is when we disconnect from our bodies so if we have the courage to feel our feelings as they rise knowing that this too shall pass that we'll get through it and approaching

you know, approaching with curiosity, like, okay, sadness, like I'm here, you know, how can I hold you? What it is that, what it is that you want to say right now? Then not only does allowing space for those feelings mean that we can move through them quicker, but it, means that we're cultivating self-compassion. We're getting to know those parts of ourselves. And I think that all of that leads to us.

being able to with the courage to live authentically.

As we're talking about kind of processing these feelings and sitting with them, which is hard. mean, we're not meant to be feelers in this modern society. mean, there's so much to distract us just in general.

I want to talk about kind of some of the processes that happen when you sit with your feelings. And one of the things that we've talked about is shame. Kind of this, should have, I could have, I wish I had, you know, ⁓ and ⁓ the shame of what your past decisions, the choices that you made, ignoring your intuition. Because those bring up some really strong feelings. Shame is such a strong, strong feeling to have. I'd love to hear your take.

on how the shame is connected to reconnecting to your intuition and then what you've done to help process that.

Shame is a big one. Shame... My experience of shame is that it is a really heavy feeling in my body. And...

shame lives in the dark places, right? And what I mean by that, or what I've come to know of that is that when

We don't speak of what has created this shame. It grows and it gets bigger and we carry it and it becomes.

a barrier and a blockade to us connecting with ourselves, us connecting in relationship, us being able to do anything. It can paralyze us. That's my experience. And what shame does for me is that it creates stories and it creates narratives that are untrue, but the force can be so strong that

Mm-hmm.

we can start to believe it. I held a lot of shame.

Mm-hmm.

when I was leaving that abusive relationship that I, know, how did I get myself into that situation? I should have known better. I was, you know, a textbook case study for psychological abuse. How did I not see the signs? How did I get love bombed so easily? You know, and the self-talk was really negative. You know, how pathetic that I couldn't see it.

And if I hadn't of...

had good people to talk to, ⁓ not only therapeutic practitioners but friends who kind and non-judgmental and were willing to listen and be there for me.

I think things would have spiraled in a really bad way because I would have convinced myself that I was a terrible human and that I was undeserving of love and you know, et cetera, et cetera. It could have gone to really bad places. But what I've come to know is that when we start to...

speak the shame, even the act of speaking the shame, not only does that make it lighter because we're getting it out of our body, but as soon as light hits the shame, it starts to dissipate. As soon as we start to speak about what it is that we're ashamed of.

Uh-huh.

It takes its power away.

Hehe.

And of course we can have experiences where we speak of something that we're ashamed of and it could be the wrong person that we've shared that with and they can dismiss us or be like, what are you talking about? Don't worry about that. Like not validate our feelings. And that can often make us feel worse. So there is an element or there has been an element for me of being quite

Right.

discerning about who I trust and who I share my stories of shame with.

and finding safe, loving, compassionate people that I can trust to share those stories of shame with. But in doing that, I feel like...

I'm taking my power back. I'm not letting shame take the reins. I'm taking the reins. And a big part of my shame story with getting myself out of that relationship was me needing to acknowledge and name my part in my choices in that relationship. And you know,

As you would have read in my book, one of the first steps to rekindling that relationship with my intuition was an apology letter was starting with...

Mm-hmm.

saying how sorry I was that I had ignored her, her being my intuition and releasing through that verbal processing and this letter writing the shame that I held for not knowing better and knowing that my intuition was there but actively ignoring her and downplaying her.

There's so many things that you said that are just nuggets of gold. It's in my furiously writing notes, so I don't forget because, well, I I've been very much actively listening, but there's just, I love that you say stories of shame. I think that is such a great description because, you know, I think it's very easy to overshare. It's very easy to want to get these things out and to talk to people. And I think,

you talking about finding people you trust with your stories of shame. That's such, that's so beautifully put because it is true that if, if we share a lot of things with a lot of people, you know, we're going to get a lot of different reactions back. And sometimes the responses that we get can make us feel more ashamed, right? ⁓ you know, and, you also think when you're talking to another person, where are they in their day? What, have they been going through at that time? What is their perspective? What are their perceived beliefs about?

Mm.

what has gone on, you know, ⁓ because of their own reasons. You know, we're complex humans. And so you can't always share these things with somebody and expect that they're gonna be like a therapist, where they are 100 % focused on what you're saying and they're there for you, to support you. They might be dealing with kids and husbands and dogs and work and, you know, it's a lot. So I love this concept of trusting who you share your stories of shame with. I think that is a really beautifully put.

way of saying it. think that releasing things can be so helpful. One thing that I've learned, I'm a very vocal person, I like to speak, there's an exercise that's quite famous in the therapy world. It's a chair exercise where you can put a photo of whoever you want to speak to and you can talk to that person.

they don't respond, they don't know, you can just talk and you can say everything that you need to say in this empty chair to this photo. And I have found that to be a really helpful exercise as I've gone through processing shame and feelings that I want to say. Because I think that it is, it's just exactly what you're saying, this process of just getting it out of your body, putting it in the air, letting the light see it. It really does dissolve so much more.

then you would imagine, you know, once you do it, you kind of think, wow, this is this, I feel better. Maybe it's been a process. Maybe I'm crying. Maybe I'm so angry right now, but I'm releasing things and and they do those releases all add up. You know, it's like drops in a bucket. They really do help. You you talk about in your book about the letter that you write to your intuition and you encourage people to write.

Mmm.

a letter to intuition and I will talk about that in just a little bit because we will share that part of your book to the audience. And I loved when I was reading that part of your book that you said you apologized to your intuition. And it made me feel a lot of things. In your book you talk about the inner voice and a lot of times in therapy we talk about the inner child. We talk about connecting to kind of these younger versions of ourselves and some, you know,

For me, it's not really the inner child, it's the inner children. It's the inner parts of us, all of the parts that we've passed along our lives. I have work that I do with my inner child who is 25 years old. She's not really a child, but she was a part of me and there things I want to say to her and connect to her. And I think especially as women, we can hold a lot of shame towards our earlier versions as we were kind of going through these transformations. talk a lot, hear a people talk about

Thank

adolescence, oh God, I was so awkward and I was so this and I was so that, but we were transforming, you know, and our life is just kind of one big transformation. And so I love this concept of talking to the intuition because it's a part of us that has been there through all these transformations, right? It's kind of that really important self. And to apologize to, I think it's very strong.

No.

because it's a being, it's something that's inside of us that deserves the acknowledgement, right? And I think there's a lot of power in freeing that to create that space. You know, it's like I said earlier, I think sometimes when you let things go or when you release things, when you apologize for things, when you're accountable, like you said, like you owned your part of the relationship, it frees up space for other things to come in.

Mm-hmm.

And so I really do think that's just such an important part of the process of realizing the significance of doing these exercises and these releases.

Mmm. Spencer Mayer shared the extract of that apology letter.

And yes, please, I would love that.

So this was.

how I started to speak to my intuition again.

I am sorry I stopped listening. I am sorry I shut you out. I dismissed your signals. I downplayed you. I convinced myself that I knew better. I mistook you for self-doubt, fear, insecurity.

There was a time when I hated you. I thought that you had left me, abandoned me, but you hadn't. I had only stopped listening. I don't think I ever learned how to listen, but I'm willing to listen now.

It's really beautiful. It's very powerful. How do you feel having shared it?

It's a really beautiful reminder of...

a need to.

be compassionate with ourselves through everything that we experience.

You know, we've spoken about the pressure of the shoulds, like I should have known better, I should, should, And it's like we do the best that we can with the knowledge that we have at the time.

Mm-hmm.

That consistent relationship with my intuition is a pillar that I've come to rely on. And it's something that doesn't just happen overnight. It's a continuous practice and is the big driving force for...

what I teach, you know, how we can...

inspire one another to continue to reconnect with this really vital part of ourselves that can be a resource, can be a compass, as you say, a guiding force that

actually supports us to cultivate this grace and compassion for ourselves and through everything that we experience.

Yeah. I want to talk about your book for a moment because I've read your book. It is incredibly beautifully written. Now you are a body therapist. You do body work, ⁓ movement, incredibly creative. You talk about being curious. And your book is to me such a success of creativity and openness and lightness and also

practices that you can do. And I love that your book is something that you can kind of go back to at any moment, right? So you can just go and kind of let open the book, let the pages fall where they are and you know and do that at that time or you can go back and search for something like your first chapter is about intuition. ⁓ And it contains the letter to your intuition that you talked about in that practice. ⁓ Your book has audio recordings in it, which is beautiful. The ebook.

as poetry, has beautiful artwork, it has personal stories, it has practices. I really, I felt like your book gave me this beautiful time in my day when I was reading it that was just for me, you know, and it kind of everything else just kind of tuned down and calmed down and I really do suggest it's called Body Wisdom and I think that it really does help kind of give you a map.

of how to connect the intuition and how to see, you know, that it's the mind, the body, it's the soul, it's all of it together, which is a lot of what we've been talking about today, it's kind of this path. ⁓ We talked about Lerch Intuition and I'm really excited to share with the audience ⁓ kind of a breakaway session that we're going to be doing ⁓ with Cathy and I where she is going to be doing a guided visualization, meditation.

where you can meet your intuition. And so this session will be called Three Invitations to Meet Your Intuition. We will talk about the letter to intuition. We will have a guided visualization. And there will also be a creative art therapy practice. As I mentioned, Cathy is a creative art therapist. Body work, curiosity, connecting to the self, all of it is so good. I would love for you to kind of talk about what it feels like in this moment for you.

to have such a strong connection to your intuition. And also, because I know that we've talked and you speak about it in your book, you have an actual visual for your intuition. And I would love for you to kind of share, as we've talked about your journey, what it's like for you now to have this really strong bridge to your intuition.

I love that the book resonated with you in so many ways and that, yeah, you were able to create this sacred pause to connect with yourself each time that you picked up the book. And that's really what I want to encourage and inspire readers to do.

Yeah. Yeah.

When I started this dialogue with my intuition through the letter writing process, what came to me was this really small flame. And it was almost like the embers of a fire that was on its way out. And that was at the time because as we've gone through,

I had been ignoring that part of myself. But there were still these little embers that still existed and this image was so powerful in my mind's eye and...

Mm-hmm.

What came from it was this practice of showing up to this fire that was representing my intuition. And each time I showed up and sat with this fire, and what that looked like in the practical sense was me carving out moments in my day to sit with my intuition.

and would visualize these embers and take the time to be with her. ⁓

And over time that fire grew. And when you ask me how I am now, that fire is strong and burning and

I can walk away from it knowing that it's strong and that it's there and that it is an ally and it's keeping me warm and I am always welcome to come and sit back with the fire, stare into her mesmerizing flames and gain insights each time that I sit with her. And this image and this visualization, this practice

is a really important one for me because it's a reminder that she exists, that she's here, that she's in my corner and that...

I guess it's the consistency that's really key that I can always come back to her and that that relationship is really strong, those flames are really strong.

Mm-hmm.

how that looks like in my everyday life is...

I feel very much that I am intuitively led now. I hold so much importance to that part of myself that it's a relationship that I continue to foster. And it means that when I'm making decisions, whether they're on a smaller scale, like, do I feel like going to

going to that social engagement or on a bigger scale when it comes to like a career choice or.

knowing how to have a particular conversation in a relationship dynamic.

I let my intuition lead and...

I'm so in my body now that that feedback that I get helps me in making those decisions. So I know now what a no feels and looks like in my body. I know what a yes feels and looks like in my body. And I feel very confident in allowing my intuition to speak to me through my body to help me.

you

navigate those decisions. And because I've honed that relationship over time, I make a decision that feels good, I know what that feeling is. I know that it's a, I feel lighter. I feel a sense of expansion. I feel a sense of relief and openness, particularly around, around my chest area. And that's all I need to

Mm-hmm.

to feel confident in that decision. And I don't need to justify that or I don't need to explain that to anyone. It's something that I can sit comfortably with. And it's such a supportive practice because even though I have a beautiful circle of solids and confidence that I can soundboard things with and problem solve with, I...

have this confidence in myself and in my body and intuition that means that I can make decisions that feel really good and be comfortable with that and I don't ruminate or overthink or be like no but what about this what about that because that doesn't come into it as much anymore because I can trust my intuition.

You

Yeah, and I think that's, it's such a skill. You know, it's like we said, this is a journey. It's ebbs and flows, it's ups and downs. you know, I think that ⁓ for me, I kind of see it like a pendulum sometimes where, you know, connecting back to your intuition, making choices for yourself, there's a level of selfishness in a way. selfish is not quite the right word because it's putting, I think it's more putting yourself first.

It's not necessarily saying I'm just going to just, you know, F everything and it's only going to be about me and my choices. You know, I do think that there are always going to be extenuating circumstances and factors and you know, we don't live in a vacuum. But I do think that connecting back to yourself, there is this feeling of I'm being selfish, especially for a woman.

especially for woman who takes care of other people who might be the family kind of main pillar in work and things like that. But I found personally that the more I have fostered the connection with myself, the more I've fostered my intuition of making choices that feel right for me, the better I show up in life everywhere else. So maybe there have been these ebbs and flows of relationships maybe have ended or

or relationships are kind of, look very different than they did years before, or my boundaries around work have changed significantly, right? ⁓ Or maybe now my husband and I, ⁓ have much more, ⁓ we communicate much easily about the things that have to be done on the house, or taking care of our dog, you know? Things have changed, but I find that I am going through life now much more authentic, which makes me happier, it makes me less...

fussy and irritable and it makes me not have these dramatic outbursts or these kind of hysterical moments, know? Everything affects everything else. There's ripple effects for the decisions that we make, but I feel like this one really does put you in a place where you're just happier in life. How have you felt your journey has brought you to kind of in that respect?

I do understand what you shared around when we start to make these decisions for ourselves, it can feel like a selfish act. And when we don't, we can become irritable because we're doing all these things that go against something and we're having like this internal battle or we're fawning or people pleasing and

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

doing that over and over and over again, we're going to get irritated because it is going against our intuition. It's doing things that we feel out of obligation rather than that comes from a genuine place. And I mean, the only way that I've been able to get good at it is through pushing through the uncomfortable feeling and feeling selfish and making small adjustments. You know what?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not

advocating for people to start doing things on, know, swinging the pendulum so far that we, that you feel uncomfortable or feel uncomfortable in an extreme sense. But coming back to that curiosity and the playfulness that I encourage, I'm...

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

think it's a really beautiful thing to start.

leaning into it and start changing.

things that we do out of obligation versus what we actually want to do. And in that, I mean, I feel like I show up better as a daughter, as a mother, as a friend, as a partner. And a lot of that is being able to sit comfortably with what I'm feeling and be able to communicate it. So actually take the time to be like,

you know, right now I'm feeling a little bit stressed. So I'm just going to take five before I make dinner or whatever it rather than being like, yep, okay, I'll do it right now. And then letting it build and, and, and fester. and again, I think that comes back to being kind to ourselves, knowing ourselves and being able to communicate it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

We do.

And I think that the more that we do that, the more comfortable we get with it. And the more we're creating these communication dynamics in our relationships where we're being honest and being radically self-honest and radically honest to our people.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that's a really healthy way to be.

Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to share with our audience that Cathy has a wonderful offer. She does one-on-one sessions. They are discovery calls. They are free. And all of this that we've talked about today, Cathy, as you mentioned, you've done a lot of research. You are ⁓ a practitioner in bodywork. And you've written the book Body Wisdom. You also have a course called the Intuitive Self. ⁓

You are somewhat of an expert in intuition and connecting to intuition. And so she offers these one-on-one calls. And I'd love for you to share with our audience about what that entails and what they can do with you in that time.

Thanks, Spencer. So these one hour free discovery sessions, I started offering because when I would speak to people or when people would participate in my workshops.

It got them curious about their own relationship to their intuition and their own potential disconnect with their body and that part of themselves. And everyone has a unique story as to what happened that they started disconnecting. And part of my work is to really start to foster how we feel safe in our bodies again to then

therefore reconnect with these different parts of ourselves and to come at it as we've spoken about today curiously and in a creative self-discovery way. So in these sessions we jump online and I hear a little bit about where someone's at in that particular season of their life and that's where I can know tailor particular practices.

as entry points to start this relationship with self. And really big on how we can make these practices and processes really tangible, how it's not about relying on external sources but actually cultivating this relationship within and getting all of the wisdom from within.

And my role in that as a facilitator is to support guiding with different ideas on how to cultivate that relationship. And the best way that I feel I can do that that is most supportive of individuals is through those one-on-one concentrated hour where they have my full attention, they're able to be fully seen and heard in whatever they wish to share.

Mm-hmm.

and I can offer these practices for where they're at in life so they can start that process.

I think that's beautiful because like we mentioned earlier, sometimes it can be hard to find a space where you can feel safe and you can say what you need to say and express the shame or the stories of shame as you say. ⁓ And I think it's really beautiful that you offer a space where women can do

Tell me, Cathy, we are coming to the end of our conversation of our episode and it's been such a beautiful, beautiful time together. I'm so appreciative of you sharing your time with us. Do you have any closing thoughts? things you would like to share?

Mmm.

I am.

I'm so grateful for our conversation and all the different ways that it has been a beautiful reminder and rich and juicy. And I guess the main thing that I want or would like to share with your community is that our intuition can be a really powerful resource and guide. And I really

If you've been inspired by our conversation, encourage you to be curious about what your intuition looks and feels like and how it speaks to you in your everyday life.

Yeah, yeah and also be curious about Cathy and and what she is able to share and offer with with with us with our community and with with everybody because she really does have a very personalized and authentic way to help us connect back to ourselves and our intuition. ⁓ You can find more information about Cathy Williams

on her website. is www.intuitiveself.com.au. And can you also share where else they can find information from you?

Yep, so my Instagram handle is IntuitiveSelf double underscore. I'm Cathy Williams on LinkedIn and my website as Spencer said has all the resources on my book Body Wisdom, A Guide to Connecting with Your Intuitive Self. It's where you can book in those one-on-one discovery calls and my online workshops.

Mm-hmm.

Fantastic, fantastic. As I mentioned earlier, we will be speaking with Cathy again because we are doing a breakaway session. I'm so excited. It will be the actual tangible ways that you can connect to yourself and I will have more information about that in my show notes. So stay tuned for more. ⁓ Cathy, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a really beautiful conversation.

Thank you, Spencer. I have loved every moment.

Fantastic. We can't wait to see you soon.