Episode 6: The 7 Things I've Learned about Growth, Healing, and Personal Power in the First 6 Months of 2023
Today we're diving into the seven valuable lessons I've learned during the first six months of 2023.
From the mental exhaustion of constantly striving for the next goal to finding unexpected moments of reflection on a mountain peak, we'll explore the power of ancient practices, such as ceremony and reverence, and how they can bring healing and connection. We'll uncover the magic that exists in every moment, even in the face of sadness or challenges, and we'll explore the power of discipline, commitment, and consistency.
From microdosing psilocybin to climbing a mountain and practicing Kundalini Yoga, this episode is filled with profound experiences that will will leave listeners inspired to shake things up and master their minds.
[00:01:40] Trying new things brings expansiveness. Breaking routine and being open to change is important.
[00:03:13] Connecting with the body heals emotional wounds from the past.
[00:08:46] Commitment, consistency, and the power of the mind in personal growth. Start small and make daily habits a priority.
[00:14:33] Every moment is an opportunity for ceremony and finding magic, even in challenging times.
[00:16:53] Embrace childlike wonder, find joy in simple moments, appreciate growth.
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Read the full episode transcript here:
Speaker A [00:00:00]:
You welcome to Flip the Script with Vic, your weekly pep talk to expand and shift your perspective. I'm your host, Victoria Nielsen. Together, we'll unwind all the things you thought you knew and awaken to what's possible when you flip the script and take control of your own life. Are you ready? Let's jump on in. Hi, loves. Welcome to another episode of Flip the script with Vic. I'm your host, Victoria Nielsen. I hope you all are having a wonderful day.
Speaker A [00:00:30]:
I have been contemplating the last couple of days about the first six months of 2023, and how this year has been such an expansive year for me. And not to say that all the other years haven't been expansive, but this one feels particularly profound. And I wanted to talk about the six things that I have learned over these first six months, because I really feel like they're the things that have brought me into this new level of expansion, this new level of groundedness, and this new level of myself that I think absolutely anyone can achieve. I know absolutely anyone can achieve. And yes, I've been on this healing and spiritual journey for quite a few years now, but these are things that anyone can do at any time to really step into that next level, really embrace that next level of themselves, because that's what we're here to do. We're here to be bright, expansive, fully embodied beings. And some of these things are really easy, right? We want to make things hard for ourselves. Sometimes our mind wants to complicate things, but it can be really, really simple.
Speaker A [00:01:40]:
And the first thing that I have learned this year or found to really bring me into a place of expansiveness was trying something new and shaking things up. And again, this seems really simple, but how often do you stay in your routine, do the same things over and over again, and not veer or change course in any way? And I'm not talking about, of course life is going to come and change is going to happen and things are going to shake you up. But you, in your everyday life, how often do you take the same exact route to work, follow the exact same routine, do the exact same thing every single morning? And this isn't something that needs to be changed every single day. There is something to be said for continuity and consistency, but is there something that you've maybe been wanting to try, that you've been a little fearful of or that you know will bring you new creative inspiration, but you just aren't willing to let yourself go there? And for me, that was actually micro dosing. So at the beginning of this year, I joined a small group of women who are micro dosing Psilocybin for 30 days. And it truly, I think, had a very profound effect on opening me up and allowing me to reconnect with my body. And reconnecting with my body is probably number two of the things that I've learned this year, because our body knows so much, it is so intelligent, and it stores so much information, and you may think that you're connected with your body. I thought I was connected with my body.
Speaker A [00:03:13]:
I went every single day doing something intuitively. So I'd go for a walk or I would do some yoga or I would do a hit workout, whatever it was, but I wasn't actually listening to what my body had to say. And on the days that I microdosed, you just take a very small amount and you're still able to fully function. You don't hallucinate. I'll probably do a whole nother episode on just micro dosing, but it really allowed me to be in conversation with my body and listen to what my body had to say. And some days it wanted to dance, some days it wanted to cry. One day I actually had a very visceral, almost muscle memory of high school and of the way that I used to lay on my bed, on my stomach and write in my journal and cry and be like super emo. I had a moment like that, that I was brought back to a moment in time where I was able to really forgive myself and heal and give love to that angsty teenager that really needed it in that moment and in that place in time.
Speaker A [00:04:14]:
And I was able to unlock that through listening to my body. And now I make it a practice to stop and listen to my body every single day. Last night I gave myself a self massage, just rubbing my calves and my neck and asking my body to release anything that was no longer serving me, anything that was keeping me small or holding me back. And I burst into tears. I burst into tears and just allowed myself to cry. Whatever was in my calves, I fully released it last night. And this may sound like a lot of crying, I do a lot of crying. But as I've said before, emotions are just energy in motion and tears are actually medicine because they're allowing you to move the things that are stuck within your body.
Speaker A [00:04:57]:
And so maybe trying something new for you is not as radical as micro dosing. Maybe it's just going on a retreat or going on a trip with your girlfriends or allowing yourself free time in the afternoon to do absolutely nothing. Whatever it is for you, let it be simple and let it be easy, but allow it to bring new inspiration, energy into your life. Allow it to really reinvigorate you in ways that maybe you didn't expect. And that brings me to my, I guess, third lesson, that you've got to show up for yourself every single day. Nobody else is going to do it for you. Nobody else is going to make lasting change in your life but you. So at the beginning of this year, I was determined to lose more of the baby weight after having Rocky in 2022.
Speaker A [00:05:49]:
I really just wasn't worried about losing it and was letting things happen naturally. But I noticed that no matter how much I was working out or how much I was moving my body, I wasn't moving the needle on the scale. And so I decided to take my nutrition into my own hands. And now I am a pretty healthy eater. I have a sweet tooth, but other than that, I eat pretty healthy. But I decided to do the sakara organic delivery meal since January. And yes, the weight has come off, and yes, the number on the scale is great. But what I actually found in doing that was that I was nourishing myself in a whole new way.
Speaker A [00:06:29]:
My body actually craves and enjoys these healthy foods, and it is a treat to myself to be able to eat them, and it's a treat to be able to pay for them every week. It's a luxury, but it's a luxury that I am willing to give myself, because that's how I want to show up for myself. And this also shows up in my Kundalini Yoga practice. So some of you mentioned that you weren't sure what Kundalini Yoga was. And it's ancient yogic technology that combines mantra, which is sound or words, with movement, and mudras, which are specific hand placements and gestures. And the three altogether are kriyas is what they're called in Kundalini Yoga, but it's just a specific sequence of the mudras, movement and motion that allow you to move through certain things. So you may be doing one specifically for prosperity or specifically for grief or whatever it may be. But you were supposed to practice these for 40 days.
Speaker A [00:07:33]:
And I have only ever practiced one for 40 days once before, and I was like, oh, it doesn't really matter. You don't need to do it for 40 days. It's just a number. But what I've come to realize as I've started this new Kriya over these last 15 or so days is that 40 days, there is a specific reason for that. A, you're changing a habit in 40 days, but it also allows you this sense of discipline and to know that this one thing in your life isn't going to change every day. So your emotions may change, your environment may change, but the Kria stays exactly the same for 40 days. And it really allows you to see yourself in a whole new way and really allows you to see how you show up and maybe the excuses that you're making for yourself. The example that I always give is, okay, it's a rainy day outside, and I feel like shit.
Speaker A [00:08:23]:
I don't want to do anything. Well, is it sunny outside and you still feel like shit? Then the weather's not the answer. The weather is not the thing. It's you. That's the thing. And you've got to dig deep and figure out what's going on with you. And so showing up for myself every single day with my nutrition, with this Kundalini practice, has allowed me discipline. And I will be completely honest with you, that word discipline, I hate it.
Speaker A [00:08:46]:
I feel like it has such a negative connotation, but I've come to flip my perspective on it because I'm realizing that that's commitment and that's consistency, and maybe commitment is the better word versus discipline. But you're the only person that's going to show up for yourself and to make these changes for your life, and you're the only person that cares enough. So why wouldn't you do it for yourself? Why wouldn't you make these changes? Because they could be the big thing that gets you to that next level, that can be the catalyst for your growth. And it's okay to start small. You don't have to do an hour Kriya every single day if that's not even where you're at right now. Maybe just doing breath work for three minutes a day is where you're at. But making that commitment to do it every single day for three minutes and making a habit out of it is really important. And that leads me to my next thing that I've learned, which is that you can do hard things, and that your mind is actually the thing that tends to be in the way most.
Speaker A [00:09:50]:
So this last week, we had a family vacation in Colorado, and I climbed a 14,000 foot elevation mountain with my husband and the Kundalini yoga. And the commitment and the discipline of that really helped, not just from the aerobic perspective of being able to breathe at a high altitude, but also because of the mental discipline that it took to get to the top of that mountain. And I'm still unpacking what I'm calling a spiritual experience because it was beyond and I'm finding it really hard to put into words. But I know that it's going to have a profound effect on me for a really long time. And not just because of the majestic views or doing something with my husband that I know made him extremely happy, but kind of an amalgamation of all these things. Right. Of trying something new, of showing up for myself, of doing the hard thing, and of mastering my mind in that moment. Because all you really can do is put 1ft in front of the other.
[00:10:50]:
All you really can do is look down, keep your head down, and keep going. And when I got to the top of the summit, I burst into tears, which I didn't expect, but I was just mentally exhausted at that point, trying to keep moving forward, keep going, keep it up. And I had to really kind of talk myself into a moment of relaxation at the top of the mountain, because I had this realization that I personally am always pushing to get to the next thing and then I accomplish it and I check it off and I move on. And I was like, wow, that's a fucking bummer. What a bummer. That I worked so hard to get to the top of this mountain, and all I want to do is get off. All I want to do is go back down the mountain and get the fuck off of this thing. And that was a big realization for me of like, wow, I do that in a lot of things in my life that I'm just ready to move on.
Speaker A [00:11:44]:
I'm ready to go to the next thing, and I don't sit and really appreciate what I've accomplished or what I've done. And that is the next thing that I have learned. I'm bad at counting. I don't even know what number this is. Maybe this will be more than six by the end. But I think that was really big for me to conquer my mind and relax and open myself up to breathe and make space. And for me, in stillness comes all of the answers. And that's a very recent learning after climbing this mountain, is that I need stillness to integrate what I'm learning and what's happening for me, energetically, physically, spiritually, that if you're always on to the next thing, if you're always just go, go, there's no time for the energy to settle.
Speaker A [00:12:37]:
There's no time for you to integrate. Come back to this fully harmonized state of self and then move forward. You're always going to be missing a piece of yourself. You're always going to be missing a piece of the puzzle because you're moving too fast and because you want to be go, go instead of stopping to receive. And that you may actually receive even more than you could have imagined if you allow yourself to stop. And I know it's scary because when you stop, then the feelings come, then the tears come, then all of the emotions come. But that is what's important for you to then alchemize and transmute them and move through them to get to the other side, to up level, to expand, to get rid of those low vibration emotions and energies that are keeping you down. And a big way that I've done that over the last six months was ceremony.
Speaker A [00:13:31]:
So in sacred ceremony, I have done a rite of the womb ceremony where I specifically focused on my womb space and ridding it of any fear and negative energy and calling in the creativity and love that it's meant to. I do full moon ceremonies every single month where I write down my intentions and I connect with the energy of the moon. I do burning rituals and ceremonies every once in a while where I write everything down that I'm releasing and literally light that shit on fire. It is so cathartic. I highly recommend burning shit when you want to get rid of low vibration emotions. But I also have started to treat every day like a ceremony. So whether it's how I make my cup of coffee in the morning or how I take time for myself and my morning rituals and the ceremony, I think, is like the missing key for a lot of people. Because when we can blend the ancient with the modern and bring them together, that's when we're going to thrive in this world.
Speaker A [00:14:33]:
Because those ancient practices are so healing and so profound and they don't have to be crazy involved and you don't have to be an indigenous person to practice ceremony and to practice reverence. Yes, there are specific ceremonies that only indigenous people should and can participate in or facilitate. But an everyday ceremony of just blessing your cup of coffee, of speaking your intentions into your water before you drink it, of having a moment sitting in the sunlight, calling in the light codes, all of those things can be little moments of ceremony that really unlock the big picture for you. Because when you stop and realize that every single moment contains magic, every single moment, even the sad moments or the moments that you perceive as sad or unlucky or bad, are they really or are they an opportunity? And can you find and see the magic in there somewhere? Because I was actually reading a quote this morning, it was like a cheesy quote on my son's blanket, but it really resonated about the rain coming in and maybe the rain is not here to disrupt your life, but it's here to make things better. That is not a direct quote. It was a terrible paraphrasing. But I think you get the idea, right, that maybe these things are here to clear a path for you. Maybe they're here for your highest good and in the moment, yes, they may feel shitty, they may feel icky, but if you can be patient and navigate to the other side, you can look back and see, wow, that was something that was for me.
Speaker A [00:16:12]:
That was something that I really needed. And lastly, I'll leave you with my this may be the 6th thing I've learned, maybe it's the 7th, I don't know. But that there is always, always room for more play. That no matter what's happening around you, there is always room for more play. And this one came through Micro dosing as well. But also just from interacting with and being around my children, they can find joy and make a game out of anything. And as adults, I feel like we stop doing that. We tell ourselves that these things can't be fun, or that we can't be silly, or that that's not how an adult should act and that's just simply not true.
Speaker A [00:16:53]:
And finding time to do cartwheels in the backyard, or handstands or paint and draw with your fingers or literally just do anything that you can with childlike Wonder will open you up for so much more joy and expansion. And again, really noticing that the magic happens in those simple moments, the magic happens in those in between moments, and maybe it'll allow you to appreciate the big moments a little bit more. And this list is ongoing as the year goes on. I'm sure I'm going to learn and lean into even more things, but I really like taking the time at this halfway point of the year for introspection and to see how far I've come, because that's something I've learned about myself. Like I kind of already said, with the mountain where I'm already onto the next thing. And I'm not stopping to appreciate what has happened before. But taking time to celebrate everything that you've been through good, bad, and otherwise, is really important. Because A, it allows you to see how far you've come.
Speaker A [00:17:55]:
But also, it's an energetic thank you. And hell, yes to the universe letting the universe know that you want more of these things in your life, that you're grateful for everything that's come your way. Because when you're grateful, more will come to you. And I also think that there's just something about this year where I am ready to take no shit, to be seen, to do the damn thing. And I think that's a personal thing, right? Like, not everyone's going to be at this point, but I've gotten to this point little by little, every single day. Taking the baby steps, taking the actions, showing up for myself, trying new things, meditating, coming back to stillness, having fun in ceremony. This beautiful life can be such a dance and a co creation if you allow it to be. And it doesn't have to be this overproduced thing.
Speaker A [00:18:50]:
Let it be simple. Let it be simple. And those things I have found are what ends up being the most profound teachers on my journey. I would love to hear what some of the things are that you have learned this first six months of the year as we journey together. Please let me know on Instagram at Victoriamargot Nielsen or at the podcast Instagram at Flipthescript with Vic. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week. I love you.
Speaker A [00:19:21]:
Be good to one another. Did in trying Sakara organic delivery meals. I've got a code for 20% off. Use X o spirit mamas at checkout. That's sakara. Sakara.com. Use Code XO Spirit Mamas for 20% off.
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