How to Trust Life When Your Kids Pull Away for Estranged & Alienated Parents

The world and the universe is not here to crush you. It's here to wake you up to who you truly are and were always meant to be. And in my experience, it will do whatever it takes as many times as it takes in order to support you in getting to who you're meant to be. So, you are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Fifer episode number 201. Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated [music] to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Fifer, a twice certified life [music] coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects [music] of alienation and you're

ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you. Stay tuned. Hey y'all. How we doing today? So, um first I want to say cuz I just said the number 201 for our episodes. I am very aware that I owe you guys a best of. I usually do it at like the 50s and the 100s. Um I think. Anyway, I know that especially in the 100s that I do a best of. And I haven't yet. It's coming. But I had this episode planned and I actually have next episode planned. Anyway, it's it's on the way. So, um just in case you think I forgot about that. I know some of you out there, the ones that I hear from really love those episodes. So, that's coming. And just as a reminder, I haven't announced this in

forever, but if you are enjoying or getting something out, maybe not enjoying all the time, but getting something out of these episodes, I would love it if you would leave a comment on YouTube, on Spotify, and then of course, if you're listening on Apple, even if you're not, I would love it if you would leave a review. Like leave a rating and then also write a review. That would be so amazing. Each review, written review especially, but rating too, helps other parents like us to find us. So, >> Um and if you were once feeling alone and like I said, if any of these episodes have caused you to feel less alone, then maybe we could just give that gift on to somebody else that's looking for it.

>> So, with that being said, today we are going to be talking about trust, trusting others. I did recently, I did an episode on Well, I've done lots of them, but I dedicated an episode pretty recently. It was a whole series, but one of them was self-trust. And that episode would be a great pairing with today's episode. Okay? So, I just wanted to say that off the bat. And now we're going to get started. Okay? So, if you clicked on this, the chances are that you spent a lot of time trying to take your life back. Right? You maybe you've done the work, you've read the books, you've gone to therapy, and your conscious mind, that logical part of you, is screaming,

"Just want to trust that things are going to be okay. I want to believe that life has my back." But underneath that desire, there's a tightness in your chest, maybe. Right? There's a voice whispering, "If we let our guard down, we'll get blindsided again." If you've ever wondered why it's incredibly hard to trust people, people outside of you, and even harder to trust that life is supporting you, especially during your darkest seasons, I want to help untangle that today. And I'm going to start by giving you a visual. Okay? So, I don't know where I heard this metaphor before, and I've heard it in two ways. The way I'm going to tell today is with a elephant and a bee, okay? Imagine

that a tiny little worker bee is sitting on top of a giant elephant. The worker bee is your conscious well. It's your desire to heal, to align, to find peace, clarity, have fun, expand, grow, all of that, right? It's the one that reads spiritual quotes, listens to this podcast, and says, "Let's fly. Let's fly towards trust." I say that because underneath it all, I think that's what we all crave, right? To know or to feel at ease, at peace with how life is going to pan out for us. So, back to the worker bee sitting on top of the elephant. That elephant is your subconscious mind. It is your survival system, your nervous system, and your memory bank. And your elephant remembers

every single bit of hurt. It remembers the things that happened in your childhood, your first traumas, any times that you felt betrayed, the moments that you felt completely unprotected, and of course, goes without saying, the experience you've endured through early nation. The worker bee is aching to fly into the unknown. But the elephant, your subconscious, your memory of everything that's happened in your past, is terrified, petrified. So, it freezes, or it runs backwards to what is familiar. Even when what is familiar is toxic. Right? I think we all have experiences with this. It's like the devil that we know, right? When it comes down to it, when the bee and the elephant have

disagreements about which way to go, the elephant is always going to win. It's the same thing I talk about this all the time, that our subconscious will always win the fight, you know? Because the subconscious is running us 90 to 95% of the time. Closer to 95 for most of humanity, okay? Most human beings. Um and maybe 90% for those of us who are actively um managing our minds, okay? And that doesn't have to be a problem, actually. It's not like that you always need to fight the elephant, but I'm going to go into that in a minute. So, today we're going to talk I forget what I write here. Today we're going to be talking about how to stop fighting your elephant, all right? We're

going to be talking about why the universe hands us chaotic seasons, not as punishment, but as a radical invitation to awaken. We're also going to explore how trust is not what born in comfort, it's born when we learn how to make our bodies feel safe enough to finally surrender the illusion of control. So, let's dive in. Now, we're going to be talking about safety in the body, which is basically it's the hardest part of this journey, but the most liberating. How do we actually start trusting life when we are right in the thick of the pruning process? Most of us will try to do it backwards. We try to force our minds force our minds to feel better, right? The worker bee sits up there

buzzing, screaming at the elephant, "Just trust the universe. Just look at the positive side." Right? But you cannot logic your way out of a nervous system response. I'm using logic as a verb right now. If your chest is tight, your stomach is knotted, and your jaw is clenched, your elephant is in survival mode. And when your body feels unsafe, your mind will only seek out things to fear. And if you focus on fear, that's exactly what you're going to find. So, the work doesn't start in your head. It can't actually start in your head. You have to create safety in your body first. You have to trust yourself first. And I'm going to talk about this more just a second, okay? But trusting

yourself doesn't mean knowing how everything's going to work out. It means looking inward at your own elephant and saying, "I've got you. No matter what happens out there, we are safe right now in here." And on top of that, no matter how chaotic life seems to be right now, I am choosing to trust that the universe, that my life, my world is actually still supporting me right now in the middle of it. Like even though we cannot see it now, because maybe it feels super dark and confusing and heavy, every little event, you guys, this is just a sneak peek to the rest of it, every little event that has happened, happening, is being weaved into one huge, breathtaking tapestry of your life.

So, your job in life is not to struggle. That's not the point. It's not to fight the current or to force people to understand you. And when you release the heavy weight of control, of needing to control, wanting, desiring to control, things will naturally line up. We Uh most of us, many of us, I know I did, think that controlling every outcome is what keeps us safe. But control is just a cage that we built coming from fear. Peace comes. It will arrive when you surrender the illusion of control, like I was just saying, and allow yourself to be guided. When you can relax, clarity naturally happens. It comes, right? When the elephant stops trampling around in

fear, the mud will finally settle, the water will clear, and you can finally see the path forward. So, like I said just a second ago, >> They >> the way that I see it is that you, in order to trust others, you have to trust yourself first. That it it it's an unskippable step. It's non-negotiable. Once you're able to get behind your own judgments and choices on judgments on yourself, right? And choices the choices you've made your past choices and your present choices. The present choices, like you getting behind your present choices, is much more important. And then yes, getting behind whatever decisions you made before, coming from compassion for where you were and what you knew,

what you didn't know before today. Coming from a place of understanding, oh, this is why I did or didn't do whatever I did back then. It's okay. I So many of us, and I did this too, I would I would used to want to beat myself I used to beat I not just want to beat myself up. I beat myself up hardcore all day long about the things that I should have done and I should have known back then. I should have known better. Blah blah blah. Which did nothing for me. In fact, I was watching um Wayne Dyer. I don't know when this was and I know that the taping of it was way back in the early 2000s, I think. And he was talking about how nothing new, like no great invention, no great discovery is

ever made or bred out as looking at the lack. Right? Like whenever the first flight took place, the Wright brothers or who I think that was who it was. Whenever that first flight took place, they didn't do it, even though there was all these naysayers that were like, "No, it can never happen. It It's tried and failed and blah blah blah." All the naysayers were focusing on the lack, on the problem, the fact that they it wasn't realistic to fly. And then the Wright brothers though, somehow they did because they weren't willing to consider that it wasn't possible. They believed that it was possible to fly. So by them focusing on the solution, look what happened, right? Miracle, people we can

fly, right? And today it's like such a normal thing. But when we focus on all the ways that we up, nothing comes of that. You're staring at the past. Do you Does that make sense? I'm not saying it nearly as eloquently and um effectively as Wayne Dyer did. I have to find that video and maybe later put it um down in the in the show notes. But it was just a blurb, you know, what he said, but and he gave more um examples in that. But look at any invention, any discovery, the people who were successful weren't focusing on the problem that was not solved. They were focusing on the problem they knew they could solve. So any judgments that you still have on yourself about whatever happened in the

past, however you chose, didn't cho- choose, and also any judgments that you carry about your today's self, will most surely come out in your ability to trust others. Absolutely, they will. So in order So basically what I'm saying here is is in order to trust others, you need to trust self. And also in order to trust others, you need to be able to trust in life in general. That actually comes before trusting others, okay? So choosing to believe all things that happen are one, I'm putting them into two different categories, are one, happening not to you, but happening through you. I know that that's cliche, but I'm going to go into it and explain it in a way that maybe I haven't before,

and maybe nobody else has either. We'll see. Okay? Well, definitely not in the exact way. And then number two, so the choosing to believe that all things that happen in the world are in direct accordance with your alignment, your level of alignment. So, let's start with number one. The world happens through you, not to you. When I got this one myself, it was so freeing. I was so liberating. It meant that I didn't have to feel like a prisoner in my own life anymore. And that And that I did for years. Even really before the alienation started, but definitely, I mean, it only hammered it in afterwards, you know? Now, I'm going to add to this >> [laughter]

>> to the metaphor of the elephant and the bee in a different way. So, imagine you're surrounded by an invisible bubble of energy. And that bubble that you're surrounded by vibrates outwards, and that vibration is determined by your thoughts, it's determined by your emotions, and your actions. When you walk into a room, your energy is felt by all of those around you, whether they know it or not. It's felt. And it it has a direct effect on how they respond. So, what you say, how you hold yourself, the tone of your voice, and the vibration behind each word that you speak, all of it. If your bubble is filled with doubt, and filled with resistance, suspicion, others pick up on that. And then it's

mirrored right back to you. And I'm going to talk about this in my own experience here in a minute, but think about a time when you were filled with self-doubt. Even if you shielded it, like you were filled with self-doubt, but yet you tried to shield it with some other confidence, you know, or something. The way your bubble vibrated attracted a certain type of person or people into your life. Yeah? Even if you didn't like that person or what they stood for. It doesn't doesn't even matter because your energy that vibration from your bubble was a magnet. It was a match for the people that came that were receptive to you. So, if your bubble on the other hand is

filled with openness and filled with trust and filled with overpouring love the world obviously responds to that, too. Synchronicities appear and flow begins to take place. The right type of people begin to show up. So, basically all of that just to say that how you see the world is what your experience of your world will be. How you choose, who you choose is determined by the current software running inside of your brain, inside of your body. How you perceive what happens with those people that you choose is also a product of that same software. Okay? For instance, when I chose my daughter's father the first time cuz there were several in there it was mostly out of scarcity.

I really actually disliked him the first time I met him, but I was the reason that we ever first started going out is because I was my friend Mary in college her wingman. She liked his roommate. And so then over the course of that night and a couple to follow because he, my my ex-husband, my daughter's father, had such a reputation, like the bad boy reputation that I kind of talked about last week I gravitated towards him because he was somewhat elusive in the way that he behaved and he was also a real challenge, right? Because I was trying to figure him out and he was anyway, it was just his reputation. And so then when I chose him again, like the final time, um because we went off our

separate ways after college and we were still in touch and it was like this back and forth start type thing. And then when we finally got back together the last time, when I chose him, I was smack in the middle of a breakup with another guy that I was actually engaged to. Who was also chosen out of scarcity and boredom. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> And at the time that I chose my daughter's father that time, I just wanted to escape all of it because I just broken up with this guy. Actually I was in the middle of it was like a was in the process of breaking up. It wasn't even fully done yet. So I just wanted to escape and my daughter's father was there, okay? With the guy after him, I'm

telling this there's a point to all of this. Um, with the guy after him, I wasn't genuinely attracted to him either, like at all. He was literally delivered to me at my home by a friend while I was cleaning my floors one Friday or Saturday night. And I was bored. Same. I wanted someone at the time. I can just remember that time frame. All of the had kind of hit the fan for the one of the first times with my situation with my daughter. My daughter was four at the time. And I desperately wanted someone to make a family with. But then the guy that was delivered to me after the first night really, all the signs pointed to no. This was not that guy that was going to

build a family with me. But I persisted anyway because he was a challenge. Someone I needed to fix, right? Which is laughable now because how could I fix anybody or myself at that point? And I'm not in judgement of myself at all. It's just that I I wasn't in the place to fix anybody. Not that we can actually fix anybody and not that anybody's broken, but you get my point. It was a anyway. At the time with my with actually with both, I just needed to make it work. Just show myself, I guess, probably, that I could. So, both guys were not actively chosen, more just kind of in my orbit. I made do with what I had, and then I doubled down. Both guys, very abusive. Again, no

judgments, no fault being made here. Just is what it is, was what it was. And if I look back, they were all sort of the same. Every person that I was ever with, it was either out of boredom and scarcity, or yeah, fear, wanting to be somebody else. I had very surface relationships, always, because I only saw surface myself. I beat myself up, and so did they. I erased myself, and so did they. I didn't trust myself or the world. I only ate to trust them. Which was such a struggle, because I was doing it all backwards. I attracted people who also did not know trust, or they didn't know themselves, too. And they didn't know themselves. It was like unconscious living at its core. Sort of like the

blind leading the blind. So, when the universe handed me challenges, I first looked to them to try to fix it, each one of them, right? And that all came from my own childhood, of course, right? But that's also not a problem anymore. It used to be for me for a long time. I blamed my childhood for my life for a very long time. Um, but it's not a problem anymore for me, because of a lot of what I'm getting ready to tell you today, and what I also share with you in all the other episodes. So, this actually brings us to number two, okay? That your job, your job, is not to struggle. I mentioned this in the intro, not to struggle, it's to align, okay? So, >> [clears throat]

>> when the universe handed me challenges, I'm going to go back up for a second because it'll fit with what I'm getting ready to say. When the universe handed me challenges, I first looked to them to fix it, of course, right? And that came from my childhood, which isn't a problem anymore because then I realized that those challenges weren't there to punish me or because life was supposed to be miserable, like that life was out to get me, which is definitely what I believed for a very long time. Those challenges were there to awaken the parts of me that were still asleep. Even from childhood, I can look back and see, and I'd like you, um, while I'm sharing all this to be

contemplating this for you for yourself, too, as I share my experience. From the start, every challenge that I endured or that I was faced with was building up to something. All of it was building up to something. All of my hang-ups were being carefully curated, not for my demise, but in preparation for my rise. I mean, there it's without a question. I can look back to every single thing that happened in my life, starting from the first trauma that I can remember, all the way up until I mean, till today, really. And though I didn't understand it at the time, and though I felt so confused and scared and, um, alone and full of distrust, mistrust, however you want to say that, full of it,

unsupported, unloved, unlovable, uh, you name it. So alone. All of it today, I can look back on it and see how it all fit together just like a perfect puzzle to bring me where I am today. Not to bring me down, but to bring me up. I know this all sounds like a bunch of cliches, all like into one, but I truly believe every single every single thing that I'm saying. Okay? And it'll continue, you guys. It'll continue to do this throughout the rest of my life because this is my mission while I'm alive. It's all of our missions, I believe. Though it can look different on the outside for some of us. It can present differently. Of course, life is going to bring challenges. That's its

way of pruning your environment. They're here to teach us, to refine us, to elevate us, our lives, our experiences, all of it. And the other thing I want to say is that trust is not birthed in comfort. It's born in chaos. Not because chaos is good, but because it reveals what is real for you. And what is real for you will point you straight to your desires. It's like a bee line straight there. And I also did an episode very recently on desires, and it actually um it that's another one that you could pair with this episode today, too. Um getting clear on your truest desires without needing anyone else to change, bear walk, i.e., your kids, the ex, whoever in your life now,

and then following those desires will cause you to raise your frequency from one of lack to one of wealth. And when I say wealth, I don't mean just like money wealth, outside wealth. I mean on the inside wealth. And that will ultimately put you in alignment with your higher self. So, what I'm saying here is that your deepest desires, y'all, are nothing to be taken lightly. So, alignment is what happens. I know it sounds like I'm going off of the trust topic now, but it's not at all at the same time. So, it'll all fit together. Alignment is what happens when your body stops bracing and your choices start matching your truth. When you release the need or the desire

to control, things will naturally line up. Peace comes from not managing outcomes. It's the same thing and I'm saying it a different way. Peace comes from not managing outcomes, but from allowing yourself to be guided. In Texas, we have these um we would go floating, especially in the summertime, because it was really hot in the rivers that we were floating on usually derived from natural springs, so the water was like super cold. But, so we would go floating and inner tubing, you know? And I imagine myself here when I'm saying this to you that like imagine resistance as you being going through some rapids and you, if you're relaxing on that, too, and floating through the

rapids, you will end up on the other side of those rapids feeling fine, completely dry, you know, except for your little fingers and toes, you know? But, untouched, unscathed, right? But, if you, on the other hand, are resisting those rapids and you are tense, then you either going to flip over, you're going to cause more splash, the whole experience is going to be a disaster. Relaxing equals clarity. It equals flow. When fear, doubt, suspicion, any of those are running the system, everything is filtered through threat. On the other hand, when trust is running the system, it makes room for possibility. When you make room for possibility and you're focusing on trust,

you will ultimately find goodness. So, in order to shift the program that your system is running, we've obviously got to start with reprogramming, okay? Each time that you tell yourself that your life is on safe, that you aren't supported, that's your elephant talking or that's you reinforcing the elephant's fears. So, instead, have compassion for it. Don't beat yourself up, but stop, take a deep breath in, hold for a count or two, exhale longer, like we talked about, and say, just repeat this to yourself even if you don't believe it. I am supported. I am safe. I am deeply loved. And if you don't believe that yet, keep repeating it, but also you can add it's possible. I am willing to explore

the belief or the idea that I am deeply loved, that I am supported. You can look, and literally, this is the one I always use, and maybe I think I got this from Byron Katie, but if you don't feel supported right now, and like there's not enough support out there, take it down to like the bare bones. I'm supported right now. I've got a roof under my over my head, right? I'm supported by my chair, by the floor underneath me. Right? I'm not under me, and then still I would be supported by something, the earth. This universe would be holding me up. Gravity would be keeping me down, keeping me secure, not floating untethered out into the abyss. You can think of it like that. When you

feel isolated and alone, remember that the greatest illusion of this entire world, and I have a quote that I put out there um for Father's Day a couple years back, few years back, and this is where I got it from anyway, is that the greatest illusion of this world, y'all, is the idea of separation. You, I don't care what you say, you are never ever alone. And for the material materialists, sorry, and for the materialists out there, this will take some consistent practice for you. Like if you need proof to show you, you have a hard time believing or having faith in the unseen, the un- touchable. It's going to take consistent practice to let go of the idea that you need

proof. But even if we wanted to look at it the other way, we don't have proof of I don't know. I mean, I don't want to get all metaphysical on you because some people don't love it, but like we don't have proof that there's a spirit world out there that when you die that you go up to heaven or that there's a hell. We don't know. We don't know any of that. We don't have proof of it, but we all have pretty solid beliefs foundations about it, right? But we also don't have proof that it's not true. So, those of you who want to say, "Well, that's not true because there's nothing to prove it." Well, there's also not proof against it because there's many things that go

unseen that are actually Like, think of the microscopic particles in the air and all the things that you can't see that are actually there and scientists proved it. Basically, what I'm saying is that just because you cannot touch this in a way that feels concrete, the idea that you're not alone, you know? Or that there's that you have support, whether you can see it or not. Ask yourself this. How does it feel to think that you are all alone? That you can't trust anybody. What are those kinds of thoughts born out of? It's fear. They're fear-based. You are only as alone as you tell yourself that you are. And I can prove this to be true for real in my own life. All of the

Christmases and the holidays, the birthdays, the Mom's Days, the the regular everyday days that I spent with nobody, not a soul around, or not talking to a person for years. I mean, I talked to people on regular days here and there, but it was I would go sometimes months without talking to anybody. And I still, when I started applying this work, I have I today I don't feel alone. I work in my house. I do not feel alone because of what I am telling myself. Being alone and feeling alone are entirely different things. And even when you are alone, my whole point about this is I don't feel like you're actually always alone. Not that you have ghosts running through your

house, maybe you do, I don't know. It's not my the the area of expertise. But still, there is life around you. And the more that you feel connected to the life around you, the more you're going to have an easier time of trusting, because feeling separate is what causes distrust in my mind, the way that I think about it. So, think of your thoughts as little seeds. If you plant seeds of suspicion and lack, suspicion and lack is what's going to grow, come out of the dirt, right? But if you plant seeds of support and trust and love, saying even it's possible that I am supported, you can say it like that, it might be possible. I'm willing to trust in the unknown, that life does have my

back, then that is what will bloom. And I went as far as to say that the soil that your seeds are growing from, they don't punish, they don't fault. The soil simply grows what is planted. That's its job. And so, what I'm saying here is the world does not punish and it does not fault. It simply grows the seeds that are planted. Your words are so so powerful. So, what are you planning planting and affirming in your life today? Okay? The way that you change your relationship with yourself, your trust with yourself, your relationship then with the world, the universe, how your life is supporting you or not supporting you, and also then your relationship with others, trusting them,

that they will also support you. All comes down to your thoughts about you and how you fit into all of that. If you trust that you are not separate, that you are not alone, and that you are supported, you will attract and find all of the goodness that life has to offer. But when you tell yourself that you're separate, that you're apart, that you're isolated, that the world is scary, then of course that is what you're going to find because life will mirror that right back to you. Not out of punishment because that is just simply a law of the world. At the end of the day, shifting from fear to trust is really just a snap decision. It's an overnight decision.

It's just you deciding like to have the capacity to trust that the world has your back and that you can trust out there. You can trust that you can trust. Yeah. But it's also a daily practice. So it's one decision first, making the choice to have the capacity to trust, and then it's a daily practice. That's exactly what Byron Katie experienced. It's been so long since I read that book where she talks about this. She was in a treatment facility and she went from a place of entire resistance. She was mad at the world and she was mad at her home situation and she even had some problems up and down with I think she's a daughter and son with her kiddos, with the connection with them. She doesn't

ever get into that much and I always wondered there was alienation going on, but anyway. She was experiencing and opting into a lot of resistance in her life. And then overnight, there was this radical sudden awakening into total trust, where she woke up laughing and didn't stop for I think like a full day or something. She thought that everything was so funny and not in a in a cynical way, but she just realized how silly she had been being for her whole life. And she just learned to trust and to love what is. That's one of her taglines, right? To love everything as it is and stop resisting. And when she did that, her whole life opened up for her. And now, of course, she's motivationally

speaking for her, she did for years for so many people and teaching so many people, changing so many people's lives. So, all of that happens the exact moment that we finally just drop the rope and stop fighting reality. And stopping fighting reality, like dropping your resistance, has nothing to do with permitting bad things to happen. Because y'all, let's be real and I probably should have mentioned this at the beginning, that life is going to bring these crazy, sometimes dark times, like maybe what you're going through right now. I was there. It was awful. It's going to happen, but that is the hero's journey. So, it's not that you're permitting this, it's not that I began permitting

for people to trample over me. But when I let go of the resistance, that letting go actually moved me out of being trampled on. And then I just saw that for what it was. It wasn't about me, it was about them. You know, they're whoever that you're thinking about, I'm sure you've got somebody in mind right now. Their actions, and I if you've been listening for a long time, you know this, that I always say that their actions say nothing about you. They may affect you, but they say nothing about you. So, nobody can actually trample over you unless you go back in with resistance and take it as that they're trampling over you. And always, as I've been saying recently, and I've said for a long time,

is that instead of hating injustice, love justice, and find your way through there. Doesn't mean that you need to stop, {quote} {unquote}, fighting for, right? You just don't need to fight against. That is what will reinforce the distrust in the world, in society, in the people in your life, and ultimately in you. Because when you don't trust them out there, then you don't trust yourself to handle them out there. You know? And it all it's all back and it's all one reinforces the other. So, that naturally I can go right back to my notes here because it says I've got here written, "Remember that you don't need to force the universe to look out for you. You do

not need to force that to happen. This universe, God, your world, life, however you want to say that for you, this universe adores you. You are the universe. All of us are connected. We are I know this may sound woo or like extra, but we are all connected and we are all one when it boils down to it. When I started to adopt this idea, and I started to look at even the alienator as and his wife, who's also, you know, also taking part in that. In fact, she might be the ringleader. But when I started to see them as almost like I don't mean to down look down on them. It had nothing really to do with them, but they were more pawns in the development of me. And I don't also don't take that as being

like super selfish, self-centered looking like they're there for me to for my growth, but it's all working in tandem. Everybody it's this interwoven, beautifully connected world of problems and solutions and love and also darkness. All of it woven woven together just like that tapestry that I was talking about of your life in the beginning. And so when I started to see them as just sort of tools that life put like they were always going to play the roles that they played in my life and me and theirs. And my daughters. All of it. It was always going to happen this way way before I even was born, they were born, whatever. And then when I think of it like that

then it I takes the personal factor out of it completely. We just entered some sort of contract long ago. And that it's it's all for the greater good. And I just stopped questioning after that. Because when I can get to the point and maybe you don't you're not going to get there yet because you're just like Shelby, what am I supposed to do? Forgive the person that has abused me and put me in jail and all the things. Well, I did and all those things happened with me, but that's for you to decide, but it's an advanced topic, you know, I definitely and this is an advanced application of it. But when I did and I was angry about this at first, but when I did it gave me freedom. And then I can

actually open up and trust the world in life, in myself, and all the things again. You know? So it wouldn't be bad to just maybe if you're not there yet, just it's possible that this might all be working for a greater good. Not that you you are the sacrificial lamb, which is another thought that or belief that I had for a long time, too, and I actually remember voicing that to my the one of the exes, right? The one after my my daughter's father. I think I'm going to be this I'm the sacrificial lamb. I'm the the one that's going to suffer. That's what I came on this earth to do is just to suffer. And then singled myself out and made it that that was my job here is just to be this

tossed aside, discarded person in all the areas of my life. And that is miserable, y'all. And it got me nowhere fast. It got me negatives nowhere. That's possible. It didn't work for me. And now believing that it's all working towards a greater good and that I'm not just the only one singled out or not one of the many that are singled out and we're like the island of the misfit toys, you know, from Christmas movie. I don't know if that's Rudolph or whatever. It's not about that. It's all in our connected. It's all going to work out. I think I've said it. I said my peace. But so, you are the universe. The world and the universe is not here to crush you. It's here to wake you up

to who you truly are and were always meant to be. Okay? And in my experience, it will do whatever it takes as many times as it takes in order to support you in getting to who you're meant to be. So, again, I'm going to repeat. Create safety in your body first. Trust yourself first. Find understanding and compassion for you. When you stop letting that anxious worker bee of your conscious mind your will, your willpower is what I really mean to say, micromanage the world and instead focus on soothing that powerful, strong elephant of your subconscious everything changes. You stop surviving and you start aligning. One day, you will look back, if you haven't already, and you'll see that all

of the events, none of them were random and they weren't working against you, they aren't working against you. Life was never falling apart but instead falling into place. So, as you go into this week if you find yourself in a dark season and you've been in a dark season or a season of heavy pruning take a deep breath bring safety back into your body first surrender the illusion of control relax into the chaos, like let it go and trust that you are being guided exactly where you need to go. That whatever is being pruned or Ooh, when I say pruned, just know that I don't mean that your kids are being pruned from you, okay? I mean, well, let's just for sometimes it's for a

season. Sometimes it's not in the way that we That's what I've This is another whole episode yeah, itself. But just trust that you're being guided who exactly where you need to go and trust that your children are being guided exactly where they need to go. And in the end, in the end, what I do promise you is it will return. In some way. Okay? It just may not be in the timing or in the way that you thought. So, thank you for walking this road with me today and I will see you next week.