Ep 112 How To Rediscover Your True Self with One Simple Routine

When I peeled back the layers of my small-town dreamer persona, I unearthed a profound truth about the relentless grip of anxiety and how it shapes our lives. I've journeyed from the depths of imposter syndrome to the liberating landscapes of self-acceptance, and in this heartfelt exchange, I’ll take you through my transformative odyssey. Embrace the warmth of your favorite tea and settle in as I recount the pivotal moments that led me from the edge of mental exhaustion to the calm shores of Soma Breathwork. This episode isn't just my story—it's a beacon for anyone seeking solace from the storms of self-doubt.

This time, we venture beyond mere coping mechanisms into the realm of spiritual awakening. The power of controlled breathing, the clarity brought forth through meditation, and the cathartic release of sound baths; each practice a step on the staircase to emotional freedom and inner joy. With vulnerability as our compass, I reveal how journaling my thoughts cracked open the door to self-discovery, inviting you to unlock your own path to personal greatness. Let’s celebrate the milestones of growth together, discovering tranquility, love, and an invigorating sense of happiness on this shared journey.

Transcript

Time for Tea With Makita

Speaker 1 0:00

You know, this is my true self, like this is who I am. It may not be who I was before, but it's the me that I want to be in the future, and that's enough. So I know sometimes, you know, as we go through this thing called life, people like to remember us as we are versus who we've become, and that's their problem, it's not ours. So don't let that stop you from becoming who you are meant to be. Hey, there I'm Makita, a small town girl with dreams who started a podcast with an old headset and a laptop at my kitchen table and made my dreams come true On my podcast.

Speaker 1 0:40

Time for Tea with Makita. We chat about living life unapologetically, on your terms, from career advice, entrepreneurship, relationships and everything in between. This is your one-stop shop for real conversations and inspiration. If you're looking for connection, then you've found it here. Join me every Tuesday as we dive into those sometimes hard to have conversations. So grab your cup of tea or coffee and get comfy, because this is time for Tea with Nikita, and the tea is definitely hot.

Speaker 1 1:17

Ever feel like you need a superpower boost of motivation with exclusive tips and tools with your goals in mind? Well, say hello to your new inspiration hotspot. The Tuesday Tea Newsletter your weekly infusion of big thinking energy that'll propel you to chase your wildest dreams and never shy away from using the power of your voice. Sign up for the Tuesday Tea Newsletter today at beautifullyunbalancedcom and elevate your goals to the next level. All right, welcome back. It is definitely time for some tea. First of all, thank you so much for sharing your time, your space and, of course, your amazing energy. First of all, before we just jump into the conversation today, I just want to check in with you and ask you how are you feeling? Feeling Like, seriously like in this moment, like, how are you really? I hope your day has started off really great and, no matter where you are in the world right now, that you have some joy and happiness in your life and you are feeling centered and, if not, you're definitely in the right space and place.

Speaker 1 2:23

Okay, so in today's episode, we are diving deep into the transformation of talking about our spiritual journey, and I want to share with you how I've navigated through anxiety, which a few years ago was an overwhelming presence in my life, and I've been able to find myself in this amazing space where I feel so much freer, so much more centered and I am just loving where I'm at now and, as I continue my journey into just spiritual connection and groundedness, that I hope, by the end of this episode, that you maybe decide to either start your journey or just deepen your practice of whatever that is and what that looks like for you. So, as I said before, a few years ago I was really in a place where I was just waking up every day in this cycle, where I just had this never-ending anxiety. I went to bed with it and I woke up with it, and this was in a space where I think I was just choosing to mask what was really happening, mask my pain with anger rather than facing it head on. And this living in this state of constant exhaustion that drains you and that leaves little room for anything else. And if you are in that space right now, I am just going to ask you to just have a conversation with yourself. You know, sometimes it's easier to talk with ourselves and have the conversation first before we open up and share that conversation with other people.

Speaker 1 4:13

But in the space that I was at before, when I was having all of this anxiety, to be honest it was coming from a place of feeling like I was a fraud, like I was. You know, somebody would find me out that I was attempting to be someone that I wasn't and the truth was that I'm pretending I'm in this imposter syndrome where I'm not good enough and I'll never measure up. And what am I doing? Why am I trying to do this and why am I trying to even do half of the things that I'm attempting to do and to be attempting to do and to be? And once I was able to be open about that is when I really was able to look at myself and say you are more than 10 times the people you think you are Like, you are fucking amazing.

Speaker 1 5:19

But first it just took that anxiety, like I was just really waking up, just waiting for someone to say you know what? You're not good enough to confirm this belief that I had in myself, that I had about myself in that time space led me back. So when I get back to that, like it was a journey, like I didn't just have this confrontation with myself and just say, okay, I know what's going on, because in reality I really wasn't sure what was happening. I just knew that I could not live with this anxiety, the way that I was Like. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted and drained and emotionally exhausted and drained and I could not be in this space and be the mother, the wife, the podcast. I couldn't show up in spaces in this condition. You know how that is. I know that you've been there before. But this exhaustion, it led me to yoga before. But this exhaustion it led me to yoga. And well, I'm going to say back to yoga because I've been in yoga before, but I stopped years and years ago. But I was like, okay, I remember yoga really helped me to slow down. It really helped me to find this centeredness and peacefulness. So I was like, okay, let's go back to that practice.

Speaker 1 6:45

Beyond its physical benefit, it offers profound mental and emotional relief. Yoga's combination of physical postures and breathing exercises and meditation, it really can significantly reduce stress and anxiety levels. And there was actually this study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine that actually says that yoga not only helps decrease the physical effects of stress on the body, but also promotes mental clarity and calmness, which is essential to managing our anxiety. So this has been proven, that yoga really does a lot of amazing things. But it didn't do it for me. I did the yoga. I even went so far as to take a course to be a yoga instructor to deepen the practice and maybe, like, maybe if I immerse myself in this more, I could find, you know, a better space and I enjoyed the yoga teaching class, but I realized that I didn't want it to teach yoga. I love that I was able to find this deeper level of connection, but I still was having the anxiety and I just wasn't feeling like myself and I'm like, okay, yoga did something, but this is not it.

Speaker 1 8:15

And I got on the internet and I started searching all these different ways and I came across breathwork and I had never in my entire life just did breathwork and I was looking at some of it online. I'm like this is crazy. These people are breathing so rapidly and how do I know if I'm breathing deep enough? Like I don't know about this. This looks a little unorthodox, like just breathe. And I signed up for um Soma Breathwork and they do like these. They were doing like three Sunday morning um breathwork course classes actually that you could like join virtually. So I was like I mean all right, like and it's what's the worst that could happen if I try this thing. You know it has to be better than what I'm currently doing.

Embarking on a Spiritual Journey

Speaker 1 9:09

So I sign up and I'm just blown away by the thought of the power of breathwork. I guess it's because breathwork, you know, offers this controlled breathing exercise. And it just immediately took me in a place of calm. Because even when I was doing yoga, my mind was still running like a thousand miles a minute. And if you've been there where your mind just does not slow down and it's just constantly going, going, going, and even at night when you go to bed, you can't even sleep because your mind just will not shut off, the thoughts won't stop coming in. And what I found was that when I did breathing, my mind shut down because when I was in that space, the only thing that I could think about was my breath, feeling the air, feel my lungs up, focusing on breathing and inhaling and exhaling and feeling the energy around me. It gave me a moment to just quiet my thoughts.

Speaker 1 10:17

And if you've ever tried breath work, if you're thinking about trying breath work or you're trying to find something that helps slow you down and slow your mind down and just help you to not think for a second, we have so much going on in our lives that sometimes we just need a moment to just kind of zone out. If you've ever been in the car and you're driving and you get to a certain place and you're like I don't know how I got there because you completely zoned out, I mean, that's how I feel. I feel like I can have a moment to zone out and find peace, inner peace, and this newfound feeling of just feeling grounded and spiritually connected to myself in a different way. And you know, breathwork is amazing because not only does it reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression and stress, but it also helps heighten, you know, our awareness, our awareness, our self-awareness. It's one thing to have this opportunity to de-stress and hit that reset button, but being self-aware and understanding where your emotions are coming from, that's what I felt like breathwork did for me. It allowed me this great opportunity to get really real with myself. And that's when I started asking myself the hard questions, when I was in my breathwork and I was able to have a moment and come out of that like, okay, what are you hiding from? Because it is easier to.

Speaker 1 12:06

When you get mad or you feel hurt, like usually, you're hurt, that feeling of hurt and betrayal and just feeling those raw emotions can make you feel really vulnerable. So it's easier to feel mad. It's safer sometimes for you to go into that space of feeling mad versus vulnerable. And when we peel back the layers and we start to say, okay, let's get honest, like I'm hurt in this moment, I'm not feeling as worthy in this moment, I'm feeling like an imposter in this moment, and just being honest about what that feels like and looks like for you, and then you can actually start laying out real truths and real facts and saying you know what? That's not true, because not only am I showing up and doing, and you know, like preaching what I say or preaching what I say, or you know, I'm being myself, I am being authentic. You know, this is my true self, like this is who I am. It may not be who I was before, but it's the me that I want to be in the future and that's enough. So I know sometimes, you know, as we go through this thing called life, people like to remember us as we are versus who we've become, and that's their problem, it's not ours. So don't let that stop you from becoming who you are meant to be. So you know this, the spiritual journey has really awakened me and like I'm just excited because I know that as I step into that, you know I stepped into meditation and the meditation piece just really was like the icing on the cake per se, because with meditation came a sense of allowing emotions to flow through me, into me and out, but also connecting with the most powerful part of me, connecting with that, the me. That is just great.

Speaker 1 14:22

And sometimes people say don't brag, but you should brag on yourself. Like if you don't brag on yourself, who else will? Like you should be thinking of yourself as amazing, as great, because you are, and there's nothing wrong with understanding that you have a profound sense of empowerment about yourself and that you can do amazing things and that we all have a talent that we're really good at, and sometimes it's not just good. We're great, we're amazing, we do it like no one else does it. It is okay to toot our horn and pat ourselves on the back and shout it from the rafters if that makes you feel good, because sometimes we need those moments of celebrating ourselves and all the things that we accomplish. So we don't let those feelings of imposter or feeling of what am I doing? Why am I here? Creep up into our lives those feelings of doubt and we take a step back and center ourselves. If we find a practice that really connects us to our true self, that's when we feel our most powerful.

Speaker 1 15:34

So you know, I started this journey because I was having all of this anxiety and it led me to this amazing space and place and it actually allowed me to pick back up my pen and pencil and start journaling. And journaling actually gave me another layer to look at and just started asking myself even more questions about my feelings and where I'm at and where I want to be at and why I feel this way and how can I move forward. Because once you recognize where you are and also look at where you want to be and what steps you can take to break free from those thoughts that don't serve you. Because when we stay in a constant state of pain, you know that's the only thing we know. But we should know joy, we should know love, we should know profound happiness and as I move deeper into my spiritual journey, I have discovered sound bath healing, which has been like one of the most craziest, like the singing bowls and the gongs, to create this meditative and healing environment is more powerful than I thought it would be. You know, when I first, you know, jumped into like okay, I want to know a little bit more about sound bath healing and what that looked like and how it would feel, I didn't expect to have so much emotion connected to it, like I know they say like no, be prepared, you might cry, but it's like, you know, it was just a sense of relief and flowing and just feeling.

Speaker 1 17:26

I know I've looked at a lot of research and some of that you know indicates that sound therapy can significantly, you know, of course, decrease stress and promote deep relaxation. And the deep relaxation part was it for me, like just having a deeper state of relaxation and having the opportunity to hit reset just from sound. And the thing is, I think we don't think about it, but we use music the same way, like in the morning, when you get up, if you're a person that likes to put on your gospel music in the morning, or you want to hear some Beyonce or some DMX, or you're just like, all right, where's my Katy Perry? Wherever you're at, we all have these moments where we're like, okay, I got to play my favorite songs and these really get us in a mood. It's like going out, getting ready to go out with your girlfriends. You turn on the music that's going to inspire you and you can feel it. And I guess I was so surprised that just hearing a sound bath and just hearing, you know, those singing bowls just vibrate, those amazing sounds to really just make me feel so deeply relaxed and you can actually experience it on my.

Speaker 1 18:55

If you're not a part of the Take Back your Power Facebook group, find it and join. I do some workshops where I do some sound bath, healing and meditation and some journaling, and I would love to see you there. It's a free opportunity to just connect and vibe and enjoy all the ways that you can create your own sense of routine that helps deepen your transformational journey and whatever that looks like that aids them in their alignment and connection to self. Whether it be through daily devotionals, prayer groups or daily affirmation. It's whatever helps you find calm and peace and connect you with your purpose is worth incorporating into your life.

Speaker 1 19:52

So I just want to say this has been an amazing conversation and if you have been with me on this journey of just really checking in with ourselves and saying, hey, how do I want to redefine self-care for myself today? And that's what it's all about redefining what it's going to look like. It's going to look like, and I can honestly say I'm not really sure where this journey is going to take me to, but I know that the more that I show up for myself, the more that I am curious and have a curious mind that the possibilities are endless and no matter where it takes me, whatever new I discover, I'm going to come back and share this with you guys, and I don't just want to share with you, I want you to share with me too. This is about helping each other on the journey and strengthening the bonds of community, and it's always a two-way street when we are trying to form and build. And I am just excited that I get to go through this journey and feel like so many amazing blessings as they come my way, and I am more excited for what's going to come your way, and I'm excited for just. You know, I'm curious of what part of this you want to try or what part of this that you're like.

Speaker 1 21:23

Okay, I want to incorporate this into my journey or deepen this practice, whether it's, you know, starting yoga or deepening your yoga practice, getting into breath work and what that looks and feels like for you. Or maybe picking up that pen and pencil and starting journaling and just having a space where you can just be true to who you are. Or maybe your journey looks like just showing up for some sound bath, healing and seeing if it's a fit for you. You get to decide how you show up for you and redefine what that looks and feels like. All right, you guys. Now, of course, that's all the tea that I have to spill today, but guess what, my friends, you can join me each and every Tuesday for more delicious hot tea. Don't forget to go and find me out on social at Makita Smith and tell me where you're at in your journey, which one of these that you are going to be taking into your life, and also, stop by, leave a review. Tell me what you think. Let's connect. All right, my friends, until next time, namaste.