The Illusion Of Control: Why You Feel Stuck In Your Life

Being fake and trying to control your life is

absolutely the most exhausting work you could ever imagine.

Pretending it's a yes when it's actually no-that's work. That's

exhausting, right? Pretending you're happy when you're

actually bitter and resentful, and you don't know how to feel

your feelings and how to just get to the bottom of the

feelings-that's exhausting. That's work. But knowing how to

be in relationship with your feelings and how to alchemize

them and how to merge with them and feel them and express them

fully and then also feel your joy and receive joy and receive

pleasure and receive a pleasurable, abundant life. Most

women can't because they're in their small selves.

Hello, my loves. Kate Harlow here. Welcome to the New Truth

Podcast after a amazing, really deep dive, three part series

with Marla Mattenson, if you haven't listened to the last

three episodes, I highly encourage you to go back. Even

if the titles didn't feel relevant for you, even if you're

crushing it financially and you're feeling really abundant,

there is so much gold in those episodes, and yeah, they're just

Marla's perspectives, and I think that the more you hear

many different teachers share sort of a similar message but in

different ways, the deeper it goes. And where I I was just

watching a monk, a video of a monk on one of my favorite

podcasts, and he used the common phrase where your attention

goes, your energy flows. So bring your attention to

expanding your consciousness. Like I even watch videos on

aliens, extraterrestrial, near-death experiences, like

ancient Egypt. Like just expansion, expansion, expansion.

Even if part of you doesn't believe the thing to be true,

whatever you're consuming. The more that we can expand our

beliefs into infinite possibility, the more we open to

what life really, truly is, and what's possible for our souls in

this lifetime. So, yeah, Marla, obviously she's a legend. If you

heard the episode, I've been hearing so many of you reach out

about how inspired you were and how many nuggets you took. The

most common thing I've heard is that everyone's listening to

each episode like seven times because there's so much gold. So

she is just an incredibly fierce, powerful woman. Woman,

but her perspectives on how to change your relationship to

money, to wealth, to abundance, to receiving, right? Most women,

even if they have money, aren't able to actually receive. So

it's really, really powerful, and it was broken into three

parts, three episodes, and that's never happened before. So

enjoy those episodes. But I've been expanding who I've been

listening to this week, and as I've shared with you before, the

deeper I go on in myself, and the more I expand into this

infinite life and all that's possible and all the magic

that's occurred, I just don't have tolerance for things that

that feel small anymore or that feel like conditioning, like

Netflix, or you know, unless it's a like nature video on how

magical nature is, or a documentary, or something. But

most most of the shows just feel like programming. And one of the

teachers that I was watching this week, that I've watched a

few interviews on now, is David Icke. He's a legend. He's been

around forever. He was called a conspiracy theorist for years,

and he's predicted so many of the world events that have

happened, and he talks about programming in such an

interesting way. One of the things he said about the school

system is that we go to school not to learn how to think; we

learn what to think. They fill our children's brains and our

brains with what to think, right? What to believe? You go

to a history class in America, you're going to get America's

perspective on history and what they want you to think happened.

You go to a European history class, they're going to tell you

something totally different, right? Even history, and but we

learn it and we think, Oh, that is how the world is, right? They

tell us what to think. They don't tell They don't sit with

us and go, Ooh, who are you? Show us the magic of your own

soul. No, they fill our minds with with stories of what we're

supposed to believe, and the news does the same thing, right?

The media does the same thing. The movies do the same thing.

The TV shows do the same thing. The It's all programming, and

the more you unconsciously program your mind with things

that create more fear, more fantasy, more scarcity, more

anxiety, more chaos. Like, what are you putting into your body,

right? What are you putting into your mind? It matters.

Everything matters. And I have just noticed on my journey, the

more devoted I become to feeling good, the more I just don't have

time or tolerance for those things that just don't feel

good. And like, if I'm going to believe something, even if it's

completely wrong, I would rather believe something that feels so

good and inspiring and expansive than believe something that

feels so bad and anxious and, you know, re- re- what's the

word? Repressed. That like, wouldn't you? You know, I always

think like my I read a book called Journey of Souls. It's a

really profound book about death. And my friend gave it to

me because I was really resistant to losing people I

love and death, and oh, I just hated to talk about it and was

in such resistance to it. And the book Journey of Souls was so

eye opening. It allowed me to really feel into this

perspective of every soul is here for a length of time, and

every soul has a mission, and we have this fantasy that all our

souls are supposed to be here forever. But that's not true,

right? And then we argue with reality, Oh, that person's too

young, they shouldn’t have died, and to our human self, that

feels true. But actually, on a soul level, everyone's coming in

with a different purpose, and we don't know what that is. So, you

know, that's an example of something that I consumed that

actually expanded what I believe about life and death that made

me feel more peace and more just, you know, acceptance with

what death is and loss is, and how to navigate it. So I invite

you, you know, especially around this conversation of the

illusion of control, and why you feel so stuck in your life. If

you are feeling stuck, if you clicked on this episode, or

maybe you're feeling just stuck in your work, or you're feeling

stuck in your relationship, or you're feeling stuck in like you

don't know what's the point, why am I here, you feel stuck in

your life in some way, what's behind that is the illusion of

control. And another teacher I was watching this week, Kyle

Cease, he's a comedian, spiritual teacher, and I only My

Mariana's been sending me Kyle Cease videos for years, and I

don't click on them because I'm like, Oh, he's just a comedian.

Like, what's that guy have to say? And I've never clicked on

it before, which is hilarious. She couldn't believe it. She

didn't know that I hadn't been clicking on them. And so I I

clicked on one of them this week, and he's on this Wisdom

from the North podcast on YouTube, and he is talking about

the illusion of the real world. And I laughed when I saw this. I

was like, Oh my god, I had I had to click on it. The title: The

Illusion of the Real World. Because every time I lead a

retreat, I just did one in Ojai, I'm currently in Vancouver, if

you're wondering where in the world I am, I forgot to start

with where I am, I'm in Vancouver at my parents house,

I'm here for another month, and then I head to Greece at the

beginning of September. But I I was watching that video, and

every time I lead a retreat, women at the end are like, Oh my

god, okay, I feel so amazing. I feel so inspired and creative

and connected, and I'm really like in touch with my intuition.

Like, well, how do I do this in the real world? And we keep

reconfiguring. And if you've ever been to a retreat where you

feel really expanded, really inspired, and really full of,

you know, life and love and sensuality and all that you

actually are, your little conditioned saboteur mind is

going to say things like that. It's going to perceive your

fake, saboteur-constructed world as the real world, right?

The programming, the fear-based indoctrination that we receive

from every angle, in every, you know, there's so many systems

that are constantly brainwashing us with fear. And your saboteur

is going to call that the real world, and it's going to call

you being attuned to your heart and your soul and your intuition

and your and your creativity and connection and love and

community, not the real world, right? Isn't that fascinating?

Like, it's actually backwards. Your soul self that you tap into

when you're at a retreat or when you're on an expansive journey

or when you're doing something new, that is the real world.

That's who you truly are, but you've been brainwashed to

believe otherwise. So, you know, that's why I love watching all

these videos because I feel like they're all just affirmation and

more, more grounding into everything I already believe,

everything you already believe, right? You listen to the new

truth, especially if you're a die-hard new truther and you

listen every week. You listen because you feel resonance with

the soul, your soul feels resonant with this message,

right? Which means your soul already knows it to be true. I

am not sharing anything here you don't already know to be true,

nor is any other teacher. Even if it's the first time you're

hearing it, on a soul level you already know, right? This is

already truth to you. But you're so used to consuming fear-based

messages, right? And and and being totally brainwashed by the

movies, by the TV shows, by the, like, ooh, they all, I just like

pay attention to how I feel in my body when I watch them, and I

never feel good. Even Emily in Paris, you know, even like a

light, seemingly like no big deal, sweet show. It's like

there's still fantasy, there's still sacrifice, there's still,

you know, so much stuff that's programming you. What we're

supposed to look like, and the, like all of it, there's so much

programming that happens in every single show. The fake

perfection, the like when they have issues, it looks like

perfectly curated. So, I I think one of the first things I want

to say today to to busting through this illusion of life,

and the illusion of what what The Matrix movie calls the

matrix, but I will say it's the false matrix. I think it's

Robert Edward Grant that calls it the false matrix. Someone,

one of the spiritual teachers calls it the false matrix. So

there's the divine matrix, which is actually like the divine,

synchronistic, magical, life is happening, and it's like you're

being redirected, you have a heartbreak, you have something

sudden change, your flight gets canceled, you end up redirected

over there, and it's cause it's all divine. It's your it's life

reorchestrating things so that you go where your soul's meant

to go. That's the divine matrix. And when you're plugged into

your heart and your soul and yourself, that's when you get to

experience that magical life that was meant for you. But when

you're in your mind, your fear-based, conditioned mind

that has been programmed since you were a young child, what to

think, not how to think, but what to think, right? When

you're in that place inside of yourself, you're going to be

trying to control your life, right? Just like other people

are trying to control what you believe your life is supposed to

be. It's supposed to be small and safe. Something I've noticed

being in Vancouver, this is fascinating. I'm at the

crosswalk. This happened yesterday. I was walking to

yoga, and I'm walking down the street. If you're from

Vancouver, you know Lonsdale, North Vancouver. I'm walking

down Lonsdale, and I every time I hit a light, and these are

like little side streets, I there's the walking sign isn't

there. If there's no cars coming, I walk, and nobody else

does. Not one other person crosses the road when I cross.

Okay, some people might say it's illegal, that's jaywalking. When

you live in Africa, you just run for your life and hope you make

it across the street. When you live in Nairobi, like people

don't stop, the crosswalks don't mean anything.

So like the contrast of that, even in Greece, when the green

walking sign is there, in my old neighborhood, you'd cross the

road, and people could turn right, and they would like

almost hit you. Like you literally I would have to put my

hand out, tell people to stop when I was crossing the road. So

I've lived in these countries that have had me like loosen up

around the rigidity and the rules, but everyone here is in

the program, right? They're in the program. It's just like, Oh,

that's just what you do. You stop and you wait until the

walking man is there, and then he tells you you can cross the

road. Okay, so obviously for safety purposes, if there's cars

coming, this makes sense, and I'm not not negating the

importance of having crosswalks. I think they're great. But when

are the moments—and this is a metaphor, it's not about the

crosswalk—but when are the moments that you're being

controlled by some perception of what you should do versus

following your heart and following the truth of that

moment, right? For me, the truth of the moment is, Hey, there's

zero cars coming, I'm going to cross the road. It's also

Canada, so likely if I cross the road with zero cars coming and a

car comes, they're going to stop because I'm in Canada, not

Africa, right? I'm in Canada, not Greece. I did get hit by a

motorbike in Greece. But that but it's about the program,

right? So how many of your life choices are based on the

program? So even I did that episode around manifesting love.

It's like you think you know what you want, you don't. You

think you know what you're like, Oh, no, Kate, I want a

relationship. I want a one family forever. I want it to

look like this. I want this. I want that. You think those are

your desires, my love, they're not. If you have a pre-decided

long list of everything you want in the future, it's not to say

some of those desires might not be soul desires, but when you're

pre-deciding everything and how it should be, so much of that is

your conditioning. And you will probably fight me on this, as

many saboteurs have, and you will probably be like, No, it's

supposed to look like this. I know it. It's intuition. Your

saboteur will disguise it as intuition, right? It's not to

say it's totally off, but the soul desire, like when it's a

true soul desire, there's a softness. There's It's like a

spark, it's a feeling in your body. It's not a story of what

it looks like. Because what what we actually need in our lives

for our soul's evolution and for who we're becoming—because it's

not about the thing, it's about who you're becoming. Every time

you attract a new relationship, even the wrong ones that you end

up coming into your power, using your voice, walking away, and

learning to love yourself, whatever the story might be,

every experience you have is about the woman you're becoming

and who you are in this moment and who you've become. I just

went through my old journals at my parents house. I'm going

through and ripping up my old journals because I don't feel

attachment to them anymore. I'm actually doing it, and I'm like,

Thank God I'm doing this while I'm alive! Like people aren't

going through my journals when I'm dead, like my God. it was so

cool to witness. I think I shared this in last week if you

heard Marla's episode, but it was so cool to witness like my

small self venting like, oh, I'm afraid of this, and like, I

don't want to experience this anymore. And then I would always

flip it into, okay, well, how do I want to feel? And what do I

want to experience? But then I would forget I even wrote those

things down, right? That's true manifesting, because if I'm

attached and I'm trying to control having the thing that I

say I want, well, now I'm in my fear-based conditioned mind, and

I'm afraid that life doesn't have my back. I'm afraid that

there is no plan for me and that I'm not going to be led where

I'm meant to go, so I'm going to try and control it, right?

Control is rooted in fear, and it is. I'm here to tell you that

even if you have a saboteur that's a Monica, shout out to

all the Monicas out there. I have I have some heroines that

have Monica as their saboteur name, or a Jane. Like, if any of

you have a saboteur that is like Monica from Friends is the

inspiration for that saboteur name, which is why it's ended up

being so many women's saboteurs, because Monica in Friends was

like really controlling and rigid, and she was like

everything had to be perfect, and she was like, you know, it

was always controlled and rigid, and you could even feel that in

her energy. I feel like the the the heroine of the Friends group

is Phoebe, right? She's the one that's wild and free and doesn't

give a fuck what people think, and she's connected to her own

joy and her spirituality, and she's she's like wild and

doesn't like literally she channels, she connects, she's so

rooted. Like, she's such a model of a heroine. But Monica was so

rigid and so controlled, and and Rachel was a fantasy addict. So

not to say Phoebe didn't have saboteur qualities as well, but

but that type of saboteur or Jane, G.I. Janes that are like,

I got this, and I got everything myself, and I'm going to control

my life and where it's going, and I'm going to be successful,

and nobody's going to ever hurt me, and I'm going to I'm never

going to let a man take advantage of me again, and it's

got that like rigid, guarded, like, that is not who any of us

are. I'm here to tell you that no matter how Type A you might

see yourself to be, you are not that. You were not that when you

were three years old. You were not that. You were living from

your soul. You were living for your pleasure. You were devoted

to your pleasure. You were devoted to feeling good. You

were just present in the moment. That's your heroine. Your

heroine is present with what is. If she's feeling sadness, she

just fucking cries till she's at the bottom. Maybe she kicks and

screams, and then when she's done, she's done. And now she's

back to chasing butterflies, right? That's your heroine.

She's present. But your saboteur, your protective

mechanisms, if you are guarded and rigid and trying to control

any facet of your life, that is not you. That is your pattern.

It's a pattern that you picked up along the way that made you

feel safe when you were a child, right? Either your your

childhood felt out of control, so you had to control yourself,

or your you you had to create that perfectionism and control

because everything felt really chaotic in your childhood, or

maybe your family was very rigid and controlled, so you just

learned it from them, right? There's so many reasons why we

control. Maybe you were abused, God forbid, abused as a child,

and if you didn't get good grades, or you didn't perform

perfectly at your dance recital, right? There's a reason why your

saboteur learned to be control, and why on some level that's the

only safety she knows, right? But the reality is control makes

that little girl feel so unsafe. And she doesn't trust people,

and she doesn't trust life, and she doesn't trust anything. She

doesn't trust the universe, she doesn't trust God, she doesn't

trust anything. She's like, I got to do everything myself. I

got to control everything because I'm not safe, right? But

control is her own prison that makes her feel unsafe. So as a

child, control made you feel safe on some level, made your

nervous system feel safe on some level, right? Because you could

control your environment, you could control your grades, you

can control people's perceptions of you to try and feel safe. As

an adult, now that you have sovereignty and choice, right?

Children do not have choice; they don't. You get dropped off

at the babysitter's house, you don't get to choose who your

babysitter is, unless you have amazing parents. So your job now

is to come back to the truth of who you are, which is the

opposite of control, right? Watch a three-year-old, watch a

two-year-old, and then like take notes, because they are your

gurus.

I I'm working with an amazing heroine from South Africa.

Shout-out! And her daughter is two and a half, and this morning

on our call we were talking about how her daughter is her

guru. Like she's so blessed to be on this journey and to have

this little two and a half year old showing her and reminding

her of who she is, right? Because that is the spirit and

soul of every one of us. So if you believe that you're just

type A, and you're just controlling, and that's how it's

always going to be, you're creating your own suffering, and

that's a choice. You get to choose that. That's an option.

If you want to live a life that's controlled and rigid and

restricted, if you want to constantly feel disappointed by

everything that happens in your life because it's not going how

you think it's supposed to go, I don't care what age you are, the

timeline, all the that's all the brainwashing, right? Oh, you're

a woman, you're this age, you should be at this place in the

timeline by this age. What? Are you a robot? You're following a

timeline for your life? You're following someone else's

timeline and script and story of what your life is supposed to

be? What? Are you are you a robot? Do you want to be a

robot? That's a very anxious, very lonely place to live,

right? No wonder people feel so bad and feel so anxious and feel

so depressed, because they're repressed. The truth of who we

are is repressed. So how to break free from controlling your

life? I mean, you feel stuck because of control, right? You

feel unsafe and don't trust anyone because of control. So I

often hear women saying to me, like, Kate, how do I learn how

to trust? Live from your soul and you will fucking trust life

so much, because you'll get to see the magic, right? I think of

when women when we're all together in Ojai or in, we we

were in like The Immersion, or in Kenya, or coming up Egypt and

Japan, and all these magical journeys and adventures. When

heroines gather, it's like magic non-stop. And this isn't just

women in my community. This is like retreats, like every time I

or even just traveling with women that are living from the

soul. Like I was in California with Mariana and our friend

Sandy, and we had non-stop magic synchronicity magic

synchronicity magic the whole time. Because we're all living

from the soul. Right? So the more you hang out in the soul of

who you are, the more you magnetize other people who live

in the soul of who they are, and the more you get to experience

the magical life that was meant for you. Right? But as long as

you're trying to control it, you are at the helm of your own

suffering. It's not your fault. You've been brainwashed. You've

been programmed. Go watch David not David Attenborough, I love

him, too. David Icke on Emilio Ortiz's podcast. Look up on

YouTube Emilio Ortiz, O R T I Z, a very handsome he's Gen Z-er

who has some really great guests. But he did an episode

with David Icke very recently. There's one from a year ago, but

the one he did really recently really spoke to me. But he'll

tell you all about the systems that have programmed you, the

systems that are keeping you stuck in your human self and

actually not remembering who you truly are. Right? Why does

Michael Jordan have the extraordinary gifts he has, or

Michael Jackson, or all the Michaels? Michael, there's all

the Michaels. Michael J. Fox. But why do some people have

these absolutely extraordinary gifts and other people don't?

Like do you actually think we come to this planet and some

people are gifted and some people aren't? What? Absolutely

not. Like not a chance. We all have an extraordinary gift

inside of us, many gifts. But if we're not honing those gifts, if

we're not getting to know the magic of our own soul, if we're

not spending time with ourselves and creating that space inside,

we're we're gonna miss the mark. Right? What is that? Reminds me

of the Ferris Bueller quote. Life moves pretty fast. If you

don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Right?

And it does. It's moving faster than ever. So what are you doing

with your time? Are you wasting your time brainwashing yourself

with fake Instagram? Right? Looking at people's fake lives

and their fake faces and their filters and their like is that

where you're hanging out? And if you are hanging out there at

all, can you delete everyone that you that that you feel bad

when you see their account and only add, you know, people who

expand and inspire you, but also spend less time on your phone?

Right? Are you watching Netflix every night? That is so common

in North America. It's wild. I used to do it, so I'm not saying

that from judgment. I that used to be me. I was I'm a I was a

projector, still a projector, and back in the day, I used to

do so many calls, and I was so exhausted. I would just end the

day with watching a show that was light and fun, and that was

how I went to sleep, and maybe had a bubble bath and whatever.

And I think like, my God, I had anxiety all the time. Like I had

to work so hard to like do nonlinear movement and move

through my anxiety. Why? Because I was like filling all the empty

space with more programming. It makes it so much harder. So step

one, clean the, and I know you've heard me say this before,

but I'm just going to get roll loud today. Step one, clean the

programs up. What are you consuming? You know, how much

sugar are you eating? How much alcohol are you consuming? Like

how much how many things are you consuming in your body and

ingesting that actually feel stressful to your body? Or what

are you consuming with your mind? What are you watching?

What How much time are you spending on your screen as

opposed to being in nature where you belong? Right? How much time

are you spending around people you feel amazing to be around

versus being around people that you feel small around, people

who expand you and inspire you, right? Are you in community? Are

you supported? Have you invested in your growth? It's not going

to happen just from listening to podcasts every single week. We

have to courageously take steps, and, you know, that can look so

many different ways. There's so many different ways to invest in

yourself, but are you investing in yourself, in growing your

relationship to yourself, in deepening your relationship to

yourself? How are you treating yourself? How are you talking to

yourself? So clean up your consumption. That's the first,

most important thing. Clean up all the clutter, right? I'm even

feeling great about going through these journals. I'm not

reading every page, but every once in a while a page will jump

out at me, and I'm like, Oh my God, I literally have my life is

everything I desired it to be, everything. Oh my, it's crazy.

I'm I'm reading my writing and I'm like, I have maybe I

manifested it. Maybe it was a premonition, right? But you

can't just have a premonition of what what is to come without

taking action and doing things differently, right? If I just

kept operating from my patterns and doing the things that didn't

feel good and treating myself in ways that didn't feel good and

giving my power away in all the ways and trying to control my

life, if I kept operating like that, my life wouldn't feel how

it feels now, and wouldn't be what it is now. But that comes

from from devotion. My So clean up the consumption. Number two,

devote yourself to yourself. Stop looking out there. Take

your attention off of everyone's experience of you, and bring

your attention to your own experience. Period. Kate Harlow.

That's my quote. I said that in one of my coaching calls. Take

your attention off of everyone's experience of you, and bring

your attention to your own experience. How do I feel? How

does this feel? What would feel more nourishing? What would feel

more loving? What would feel more relaxing? What would feel

more grounding? Pay attention to that, right? Spend more time in

silence with yourself and learn how to be with yourself.

If right now, you know, from this place where I am in myself

right now and in my life, I look back and I think, oh my God, I

couldn't even be with myself for 5 seconds before. I always had

to be on the phone. I had to be texting. I had to be getting

validation. I had to be watching a show. I'd have to have a show

in the background cause I hated to be alone. Why? Because I was

alone with Regina, my saboteur, and she was real mean to me.

She's named after the Mean Girls girl because she was so mean,

and so I was always trying to distract myself and numb myself.

I'd have a glass of red wine every day, right? This was my

common in my late 20s, early 30s, and now I love being with

myself because I have sat with myself so much and moved through

the layers of feelings that come with that, right? If you feel

uncomfortable sitting on a on a sitting on a cushion, whatever

they're called, meditation cushion, sitting on a bolster,

and closing your eyes and breathing and feeling, if if you

can't do that, right? If you can't sit in front of the mirror

and gaze into your eyes and just be with yourself, with no words,

but just with love and presence, my love, you are not home, and

it's time to go on a journey. That is a huge red flag, right?

That means you're in you're in your mind, and your mind is not

you. Your mind is a tape recorder that's been tape

recording all the cray-cray people, all their saboteurs,

whether it's the saboteurs on the news, the saboteurs on

social media, the saboteurs in your childhood, the saboteurs in

your school system, right? The saboteurs in the patriarchy, the

saboteurs of everyone else become your voice and you think

it's you. That's why in my work women name their saboteur. They

name the voice in their head because it's not you. And if you

believe it to be you, and you're attached to it being you, and

you're like, This is how I am. This is what I believe. This is

what's possible and not possible. You are living a

limited life. Right? That little sneaky ninja in your mind is

going to try and control everything, and that leads to

suffering. So if you think you're like, How do I trust

life? How do I feel safe? Stop fucking listening to your mind.

Stop living from your mind. Clear the the the the

programming, clear the influences that are still

programming your mind, spend more time in your body, spend

more time present with yourself. Learn how to be. If you don't

know how to be, take Yin yoga classes. Take a million Yin yoga

classes, and then start doing guided meditations. But

eventually, you're not even going to want the guide. Like,

I'm at a place where I'm like, I don't want someone to guide my

meditation because I want to go in and just be in that place

inside of myself. And it's not like I think often people think

meditation is just like, you close your eyes, you go to this

space, and all of a sudden you get all these divine downloads.

It's like, okay, that occasionally happens when I'm

meditating, where I get some insight or something I was

wondering about comes through, an idea, desire, but most of the

time, it's just this beautiful, empty portal inside that feels

so juicy and delicious. And it's like crazy to think I couldn't

be with myself for 5 seconds before, and had to numb myself

at every cost with food. I used to be an emotional eater, with

alcohol, with distractions, with Netflix, with people. Netflix

didn't exist actually back then. I was doing I remember I'd go

get DVD series at Blockbuster in my late 20s, and or maybe

Netflix existed, but I I wasn't on the train yet. It was like

still new. So I would go to Blockbuster and get DVD series,

and I would watch DVD series, and I would distract, distract,

distract, distract, distract, num, num, num, num, num, right?

You go to the doctor and what do they say, Oh, you feel bad?

Here, take a pill. It'll make you feel better. No, it doesn't.

It actually puts a ceiling on your ability to feel, actually.

Numbs you. So, get to know your soul. Sit in silence with

yourself. Go go to a 11-day Vipassana or whatever, 10-day

Vipassana meditation retreat where you can't talk for a week

or for 10 days, and and learn to be with yourself. It's

learnable. It is learnable, and the reality is once you get

there, you're not going to want to go anywhere else. I had a

hero in with me. We we were It was in Ojai in California,

beautiful, magical little town in California. It's like so

sacred. There's no There's no chain stores. There's no

Starbucks. We were having matcha lattes, it was so magical.

Pistachio milk matcha lattes, by the way. If you're from

California, I'm sure you're all up in that, but I didn't. I've

never had pistachio milk, it was amazing. So, we were having

pistachio milk matcha lattes, sitting in the sun, it was so

beautiful. And, and she said to me, Are you excited to go to

Vancouver? which is a very normal question, right? Most

people would like, Are you excited? I think she said to see

your family, because I was leaving in a few hours for the

airport. So, that's a very fair, normal question. But I'm so

present with where I am, especially in that moment. It

was such a good moment, it was like sunny and warm and buttery,

and we were all together and we were like basking in each

other's energy. And to have a question, I get this question

questions like that all the time, like, Oh, do you miss

Kenya? Are you going to go home soon? Are you excited to go

home? And I'm like, I love Kenya. I'm I'm home right now,

like, not in Vancouver, everywhere I go. Right, because

I'm just being here now, I'm here. And we The more time you

spend just like paying attention to your inner experience and

following what feels good and becoming devoted to moving

through the discomfort of being with yourself. Right, if that's

uncomfortable, just sit with the discomfort. Marla talks about

this last week in the podcast about how, you know, people are

so afraid to feel their feelings, but just feel them.

It's energy. Your feelings change form when you let them be

there and you feel them. Right, if you're in your mind saying, I

can't do this, I can't meditate, I don't I gotta go get on my

phone. What if someone's texting me? What if I'm missing

something over there, over there, over there? You are not

present here and now. And so it's and it's a practice, and it

is a learnable skill. And it's not even a skill. Let me take

that back. It is who you are. Okay? Control and being in the

future, and worrying about the past, and obsessing over the

future, and worrying about the past, and talking about your

vacation, talking about the end of the day, and talking about

what's next, and talking about where you're going, talking

about what's coming, and what your future's going to be, and

planning your future, and planning your future, and

planning your future, and worrying about the past,

regretting the past, and wishing the past didn't happen, and

planning your future, and talking about the future, and

being in the future. That's the program. That is how we've all

been programmed, which is robbing everyone of the magic of

their soul. You already know how to connect with your soul. It's

who you are. It's who you were when you came into this world.

You came into this world fully expressed as your soul from the

moment you came in. They say little babies cry because they

feel the contrast and how dysfunctional the energy is on

this planet, and beauty, right? But they feel the contrast, so

they scream when they come out of the womb. So they're like,

What is this place? It doesn't feel good. Right? And then they

find feeling again, and then they feel sad, and they feel it.

And then they feel good again, and then they're joyful, and

then they're giggling, and then they're screaming, and then

they're just riding the waves. You already know how to do this.

Children are present. That is who you are. Look at your hands

right now. Look at your hands.

Those are the same hands you do. Unless you had a hand

transplant, you have the same hands. They might be a little

bit bigger. They might be a little bit wrinklier or drier.

You have the same hands, my love, as you did when you were

two. That is the same. Those are the same eyes. Those are the

same lips, unless you've done something to your lips. Please

don't do things to your lips. The same heart. It's the same

heart that's been pumping blood through you your whole entire

life since the moment you came into this life, Since the moment

your soul chose that vehicle. It's the same, right? So the

part of you that believes that's not you, and like you were, Oh

yeah, I was like wildly expressed as a kid, but not

anymore. Like that's just because you're believing the lie

of being who you've been taught to be, and you've been

performing it quite perfectly for a long time. Right? Your

saboteur has been doing a show, people pleasing and controlling

and in fantasy and shape-shifting and, you know,

shutting herself down and shutting her truth down and

putting everyone first and lying about what she is and wants and

who like, and obsessing over the future and the past. That was

all learned. That is literally a robot, okay? It's a robot that

you've been perfecting for a long time. Yeah, everything's

fine. Oh yeah, I'm great. Or miserable, or complaining, or

blaming, or victim mentality. Like all of that shit was

learned, my loves. You are That is not who you are. You are a

sovereign soul who is here to be wildly expressed and free and to

feel good and to be to bask in pleasure and to feel pain when

it's there. Like so if you're in meditation and you feel awkward

or uncomfortable, breathe. Explore the awkwardness. Move

your move your body a little bit with your eyes closed and like

make sound. If that if that feeling could make a sound, what

would the sound be? Like play. let let these icky feelings

express, and then come back to the present moment, and come

back to the space, and come back to the quiet, and come back to

build a relationship with you. There is no greater skill, and

again, it's a skill, but it's not because it's your nature.

Actually, it's your nature. It's who you are. So it's, but it's a

practice. It's a practice. So if you're a highly controlled

person and you plan everything, fucking throw your planning book

out the window and start living moment to moment. Practice being

spontaneous. Do things that are wild and spontaneous and totally

not like you, right? How do we wake up all of who we are? Start

doing the opposite that you would normally do. And so, if

you are normally like a hyper planner, you don't go on a trip

without planning every detail. I always say to the planners

whenever I'm a woman's coming to the immersion, every woman the

immersion's the the live intensive in Greece that the

women who go through my the intensive expanded love method

training they end with the immersion or the immersions at

some point in their journey it's the cracking open that happens,

and I always encourage them to stay after so they can be

experience travel Greece from their heroine, from their soul,

from their sovereignty. And all the cute little controllers want

a plan. They want to plan. They want to know where they're going

next. They want to know who they're rooming with, who's

going, who's going to do this, who's going to do that, and I

always say, let go of the plan. You're coming to Greece at the

beginning of tourist season. There is no problem booking an

Airbnb or a hotel last minute unless it's Easter long weekend.

There's no problem doing things last minute, being spontaneous,

going with the flow, letting life lead. And I think of like

how many countless magical stories heroines that have been

on this journey with me have, of lovers they met, of adventures

they went on.

Someone went on a one of the heroines went on like a two

month road trip on a motorbike, a motorbiking road trip, and

made all these amazing friends, and went to all these different

Greek islands, and and met the Greek family, and had these

magical experiences. There have been so many stories of the most

magical experiences after the immersion, because women are are

now connected to their hearts and souls, and all they care

about is feeling good. So the more you hang out there, and the

more you pay attention to what feel how you feel inside, and

the more you lean into the things that feel really good and

pleasurable, and keep expanding into that, knowing your saboteur

zone is gonna be like, no, no, no, this is dangerous. You're

not supposed to live your life for you. You're supposed to live

your life for everyone else, right? Even though they got

their own life, but your saboteur will tell you like, No,

no, no. You're supposed to be make your family happy, do what

everyone else is doing, make sure you follow the timeline

because all your friends are, and if you don't follow the

timeline, you're falling behind and it means you don't belong.

Don't follow the magic of your own soul. You'll be different.

Your saboteur is going to try and freak you out every time you

go to to to follow your heart and your soul and your body, and

every time you try and go deeper and connect with yourself. Your

saboteur is going to be right there waiting to quote-unquote

protect you, aka keep you small and control you. And your job is

to say, Thank you so much for trying to protect me, Regina.

That's so sweet. I'm good. I'm going to do this thing anyways.

I see that you're scared, and underneath that is a little girl

that's scared. But the truth is, your soul is not, because your

soul trusts the divine orchestration of life, and the

more you live from that place, the more life opens up and opens

up and opens up. So you don't have to learn how to feel safe,

you don't have to learn how to trust life, the more you anchor

into that space inside and follow those heart yeses and

honor those body noes, you will naturally trust life because it

keeps getting more and more richer, more beautiful, more

like I even when I was talking with Marla yesterday, I was

talking about all the things in my life that have come from her.

And she and I have not spent very much time together. We've

barely spent time together, in fact. I met her at a weekend

workshop. We, she came to Vancouver once and I spent like

two days with her in Vancouver and that's it. And like, I met

Mariana because of her, I live in Africa because of her, I

would live in Greece because of her. Like, so, I think of all

the epic, unbelievable people and extraordinary gifts and

amazing experiences. I've I'm sponsoring a a boy, Elijah, in

Africa to go to boarding school, and me and a bunch of heroines,

actually, and like the gift of that, and seeing him start to

thrive, and he was struggling at school at first. Like, I

wouldn't even have met Elijah had I not met Mariana, had I not

had a random call where she said, Let's go to Africa or

We're going to Kenya, and I was like, Where's Kenya? and she

like, and that's like a few tiny things. Like, my, I mean, okay,

it's not tiny. Elijah's huge and it's magical, but but the the

the amount of countless moments, people, experiences,

opportunities that have come because of one connection, one

woman that I met randomly at a randomly, divinally at a at a

weekend workshop. It's like you never know the purpose of any

connection. So, like, are you walking through the world with

your heart open? That helps. When you get into Uber, are you

silent the whole time, or are you curious and chatting and

connecting? And you never know who's sitting next to you on an

airplane. You never know who's driving you. You never know

their story might inspire you. You might end up writing a

documentary series including their life story.

You never know what magic will come when you walk through the

world present with your heart open. So right now, if your

heart is guarded, your practice is to open your heart, and even

just when you're in meditation, doing breath breath work,

imagining your heart opening, massaging your heart, opening

your heart energetically, using sitting sitting with your

posture with your heart open, that there's so many practices.

But getting out of your head and doing somatic practices to open

the frequency of your heart and to and living from the heart

means being present, right? And and presence, again, is your

nature. So it's if you if you keep telling a story that you're

not present, or you keep bombarding your mind with

distraction, or you keep not making the space and time to

learn how to be present again, to remember, I'll say, how to be

present, then you're going to keep suffering, right? So let go

of the script, burn the fucking script, burn the script of what

you think your life's supposed to look like. Your life is

supposed to be way more expansive than you could ever

imagine. Your mind only has the same story as everyone else. Oh,

at this age, I'm supposed to get married and have kids and live

in a picket fence and be with that person forever. What? How

are we all saying the same thing? Hello. Why are we not

waking up to this yet? You know, it's quite profound. Like,

actually, it's quite extraordinary, I'll say, that

it's 2026. We live in a completely different world where

anything's possible. We can literally create our own jobs.

We can live anywhere in the world. We can go to other

dimensions. We can like the sky is the fucking limit, and yet

we're all still following the same script. Burn the script. No

matter how attached you are, if you want to be a mother, feel

into why. How do you imagine you'd feel being a mother? And

start to cultivate the feelings inside of you, and start to live

as if you already are that, right? Start to live into the

archetype of that rather than be in agony that you don't have

this thing, or that your life should look this way, or that

maybe it's never going to happen and feeding the fear. Start to

curate the feeling. If you want to be in a relationship, become

your own lover, become your own romancer, live a life that's

romantic, live a life that's filled with love, and then you

don't need love, but you'll be a magnet to it because you're

living from love, right? Stop looking for everything outside

of you to rescue you from some empty, painful place inside of

you, because your small self, nothing will ever be enough for

her. When you are trying to control it, and trying to lose

10 pounds to feel beautiful, or get the guy to feel like you

matter, or get the job to feel like you're smart enough, like

whatever you're trying to get from outside is a

self-fulfilling prophecy, it will never be enough to your

little girl. That wounded little girl is in charge when you're

trying to get it from outside. But when you learn to sit with

yourself, to be with your own soul, to be in your own body, to

connect with your own pleasure, to follow your own heart, now

the life that's meant for you, you're a magnet to, and you

don't have to work so hard, right? That's why I don't. I

always call this this practice not the work, because it's not

fucking work. It's the opposite. Being fake and trying to control

your life is absolutely the most exhausting work you could ever

imagine. Pretending it's a yes when it's actually a no, that's

work. That's exhausting, right? Pretending you're happy when

you're actually bitter and resentful, and you don't know

how to feel your feelings and how to just get to the bottom of

the feelings, that's exhausting, that's work. But knowing how to

be in relationship with your feelings and how to alchemize

them, and how to merge with them, and feel them, and express

them fully, and then also feel your joy, and receive joy, and

receive pleasure, and receive a a pleasurable, abundant

life—most women can't because they're in their small selves.

It's like you could have the most pleasure and abundance come

your way, but if you are not home in your body, you're not

going to be able to receive it, right? So, so as always, come

home, meditate, be spontaneous, and pay attention to where your

mind is and what you're believing. Your Your energy

matters. What you're believing matters. If you're just in the

future, in the past, trying to control, and your energy—how do

you know? It feels rigid. So start like use Phoebe as the

archetype—Phoebe from Friends. Dance like Phoebe would dance,

right? Like if you are a rigid person, do everything that's not

rigid. Loosen up with movement, loosen up with singing, loosen

up with breathwork, loosen up with meditation, loosen, like do

everything that has you feel loose and and wild and free. And

then start to make choices that are spontaneous and wild and

free that aren't planned, that aren't rule-based, that aren't

controlled, right? In in the moment, rather than trying to

plan the next 20 years. That's the brainwashing that robs us

from our souls. That's the conditioning we've all been had.

You have been tricked. You have been fooled to to believe you

need to be somewhere way out in the future and have it all

planned out in order to be safe. That's a lie. That was a lie.

And now you're not home, and you're way out there, and

nobody's experiencing this moment right here, right? You

spend 3 months being so excited about the fucking vacation, only

to get on vacation and feel anxious the whole time because

wherever you go, there you are, and you had some fantasy that

you go on vacation and feel amazing. And then you drink a

lot because it numbs your pain, but then you feel even worse,

and then you come back from your vacation and you need a

vacation, right? That's a fantasy addict. That's control.

That's like some idea that I'll feel better in the future when I

have something else, or when I am somewhere else, or when I'm

with someone else, or when I look different, right? That's

all a lie. It's an illusion. You cannot control your life and you

don't need to. And if you want to experience an extraordinary

life, stop trying to control it. Put the oars in the boat and let

the stream carry you. Spend more time with yourself, create more

space inside, listen to those sparks, listen to those nudges,

follow your heart, say yes, and then you naturally will trust

life, because you can't not. And I've been redirected infinite

times in my life, and every time it's led me to exactly where I

meant to be. And I look at my old journals and I'm like, holy

shit, I hated myself. And I was so far. I was like, I just want

a life's purpose, dear universe. Please show me my purpose,

please! And look at look at my life now, right? It's like,

you're so much more than you could ever imagine, and I feel

like I'm just getting started, and we all are. And it's like,

and it's not about like, it's not about the things. It's about

who we're becoming and how we're feeling in the moment. I sit

here in Vancouver, and it used to, I used to feel like

resistance to Vancouver. I feel like kind of old parts of myself

I got here, and I'd be like it it would take a lot of practice

to stay rooted in myself here since I've lived abroad for five

years. And now when I'm here, I'm just here, and it's like

every day. So, when that I go going back to the story of the

the woman who said to me like, Oh, are you excited to go to

Vancouver and see your family? And I was like, What? I looked

at her like, What do you mean? I'm not going I'm going to

Vancouver. And Brandi was like, Yeah, we're leaving in like

three hours to the airport. And I was like, Yeah, but I'm I'm

just here in this moment receiving this moment. I'm not

thinking about the future. Like what? I'm I'm never. I'm on the

airplane. I'm on the airplane. I'm still not thinking about

Vancouver when I'm on the airplane. I'm not thinking about

Paris. I'm not thinking about Kenya.

I'm on the airplane, and then I'm at the airport, and then I

Like, presence, it's a practice, but it is your nature, right? So

now I don't have to try to be present, I just am. And the

moments I'm not, it's like, Ooh, there's a little part of me that

needs some attention. It is your nature to be present. It is your

conditioning to not be. So, practice presence in all ways.

Practice pleasure in all ways. Become a researcher, as Mama

Gena says, of your own pleasure, of what lights you up, of your

own temple, of your own body, of your own senses. Spend more time

sitting in space and and and get uncomfortable and just breathe

through it. Do the breath of fire, right? Do some Kundalini

yoga breath practices. You can handle it, and the more capacity

you build internally, the more you can navigate life with

presence and with grace and with ease, right? Even the hard

things. Like you can navigate it so differently when you're

present and home in yourself and rooted. And it's a practice,

it's a learnable skill. And if you're ready for guidance and

mentorship, we're always taking new heroines. There's always

space on the journey for you. I would love to support you and,

you know, we would do a call and explore if if you're ready for

it. And if not, there's other other possibilities, other

places to start, which I'll recommend. But get guidance,

right? We have so many blind spots, and so much more is

possible than you could ever imagine. So, for those of you

that are trying to control your life, let it go, burn the

script, let life lead you, let the stream carry you. You've got

this. I love you. Share this with every woman you know who

needs to hear this message, and I'll see you next week.