THE ACCRESCENT™ PODCAST EPISODE 127

Leigh Ann Lindsey: Welcome to the Accrescent Podcast. I’m Leigh Ann. This podcast is an extension of my personal philosophy and commitment to continual growth in all areas of life. I firmly believe that optimal health comes from addressing all areas of us as human beings, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Through expert interviews, I hope to both inspire and enable you to create sustained change in your own life. Thank you so much for tuning in and enjoy.

I am laughing at myself as I sit down to record this episode because I literally just recorded a little video talking about discipline and how I’ve overcome a lack of discipline so much. Over the last few years I’ve become, I’ve been able to become so much more consistent and that video spurred out of listening to a podcast where they were talking about how we just need to have more discipline.

And one of the points I was making in that video is that I really don’t think for the vast majority of us if we’re struggling with discipline if we’re struggling with consistency, I don’t think it’s a matter of laziness. And I think sometimes there’s even this perception. It’s almost like a moral failing.

If you can’t be disciplined, you’re lazy, there’s something wrong with you. Maybe you’re just not even a good person. Sometimes that’s like the underlying sentiment that’s being expressed when these whatever life coaches or gurus are talking about this need to be disciplined. But when I look at it from more of a subconscious approach, I think a lot of us are struggling with discipline and consistency because of unresolved experiences, and limiting subconscious beliefs that are keeping us stuck.

And so anyways, with all of that said, I was laughing at myself because I had just recorded that little video. Meanwhile, I haven’t released an episode on my podcast for two weeks, so not a lot of discipline and consistency there in these last two weeks. And I actually thought that was a really good topic to talk about in today’s episode why did I disappear for two weeks?

And I even did an EVOX session on it this week because there are so many deeper threads to it. And, for those of you who don’t know, the last episode that I released was an episode sharing about the trauma that I had experienced as a child, and I’m not gonna, we’re not gonna go over all of that today, but if you haven’t listened to that episode, I encourage you to tune in if you want to understand where this.

Week’s episode is coming from. And then something I just wanna say really quickly here is for those of you who have been longtime listeners, I promise this show isn’t gonna be all about this topic for the end of time. I really am gonna try and as I mentioned in the last episode, I want to record some guest interviews on this topic of abuse and early childhood trauma to be able to dissect it through different lenses and hopefully help anyone else who has experienced something similar.

However, not every single episode is going to be about that topic. I still want to bring in experts and have solo episodes on a variety of other topics related to emotional wellness, and holistic health. So that is still all on the menu. I wanna encourage you. But I do think this is an important episode to record just coming off of the last episode that I released.

And the reason for that is it was even surprising for me after releasing that episode. That I suddenly felt so vulnerable, shameful a little bit. And so I think that’ll be interesting to talk about today. Why did I disappear for two weeks after releasing that episode? And it’s something that I was, puzzling out myself as well, and even did an EVOX session on myself looking at that deeper, and I call it hiding.

I released that episode and. on a subconscious level. I think, at least at first, I went into hiding after releasing that episode. And what I mean by that is after releasing that episode, I, there was this felt sense of, I just wanna be invisible. I don’t wanna be seen, I don’t wanna catch anyone’s attention.

I don’t wanna come back on the podcast and have to show my face again. Right? All of these in a very subliminal way, were coursing through me after releasing that episode. And on the one hand, it’s frustrating. On the other hand, it’s fascinating, right? When I step into that role of the observer of myself, I actually find it really fascinating.

How even on the most minute level in releasing that, and even though when I released it, I was actually doing it from a place of confidence, from a place of calm and composure and regulation, which as I said in that episode was really important to me. I didn’t want to speak on that topic when I was still in a huge place of dysregulation, and I feel really confident that was the case.

However, I don’t think I was fully prepared for how I would feel internally after releasing that information publicly, and I don’t know that there’s much more I could have done to prepare for that. And it’s not like there was a huge. Right. I went inward for about two weeks, but it didn’t last much longer than that.

I’m back. I’m feeling safer and confident again, but it’s interesting to start to dissect that a little bit. At least I think in my own brain it is, and I do, I’d wager that this is something many other people are experiencing. frequently, but they might not be able to or have yet been able to put words to what it is that they’re doing on an energetic, on a subconscious level, which is that hiding that kind of going into their shell, trying to be invisible.

What surprised me about the hiding and the fact that it surfaced is, as I said, I’ve spent a year working on this. working through the shame, which was a huge thing that was coming up initially. The grief, the sheer terror and fear, and panic that came up with it. More recently, it’s been the anger that has come up with it, and so, but particularly that shame I feel, I felt like I had worked through quite.

And then after releasing that episode and then going MIA for two weeks, when I came back and was like, Hey I’m sick of this. I don’t wanna hide anymore. I don’t want this pattern to be surfacing anymore in my EVOX session, what started to surface about, why did I want to go into hiding on that subconscious level?

It really was this, first of all, this shame that was coming up of, oh, people are gonna. I don’t know. They’re gonna think poorly of me. They’re going to, now they know this like dirty secret of mine and I feel, I guess still on some level like I did something wrong. Like I played a role in that abuse.

People are going to look down on me or I don’t know, maybe wanna avoid me because I’m this like, tarnished thing. Who did, who had these dirty things done to her? It’s so… It was interesting cuz as I said, I felt like I had worked through some of that, but I guess I couldn’t have anticipated how it would feel releasing this information on a larger, much more public scale because I think in relation to myself and the shame I felt towards myself, which was a big thing I had to work through, is not only did I, was I so afraid of anyone else knowing this information because they would be disgusted and ashamed of me. I genuinely was disgusted and ashamed of myself, and so I can very confidently say that I’ve come through to the other side of that.

I no longer feel that way towards myself. However, it was interesting to see that, at least on some level subconsciously a part of me still is worried about what we, what people will think when they hear this information about me. Are they gonna look down on me? Are they gonna be disgusted by me?

And then the second piece that was coming up, again, fascinating because this wasn’t on my radar consciously, was. A feeling that people were gonna be like, seriously, you think this is a big deal? Way worse things have happened to people. Being sexually abused as a child isn’t something that you should be wounded about.

Isn’t something that should have caused. this many issues throughout your lifetime. You’re so, you’re so pathetic for having let it affect you this way. You need to just get over it. And even as I’m saying those words right now, I know that’s not true. That is a serious thing to have happened to you, especially at such a young age.

And absolutely it can affect you in those ways, but it’s so wild to see that there’s a part of me that feels so, so afraid. That maybe other people won’t take it seriously or that I’m just weak and not strong enough to deal with it correctly, that I don’t deserve to be hurt by that, that I don’t deserve to talk about it outwardly.

That because other people are experiencing worse things. I don’t deserve to talk about how this thing affected me. All these different things. And by the way, one of the things I just wanna say right here is I tell clients all the time, I don’t like to compare trauma. Trauma isn’t what happened to us, it’s what happened inside of us.

And so, yes, there are people experiencing horrendous. All over the world that doesn’t invalidate our own experiences and the trauma and the wounds that we have picked up throughout our lifetime. I think that’s super, super important. And yet the fact that I tell clients that all the time, doesn’t stop me sometimes on some level from thinking that myself, towards myself, but thankfully I can bring in that dialogue to myself and remind myself, no, that’s, it’s not the case.

Yeah. Trauma’s what happened inside of you. It’s not what happened to you. You’re so validated in this, but it’s an interesting journey. This really has been such an interesting journey to see the different layers. That continue to surface as each week passes, as each month passes. This has certainly been the longest I’ve ever spent trying to heal a topic.

And on the one hand I have to say that a year, I think compared to maybe some other modalities a year for how far I’ve come working on this trauma. I have come so unbelievably far and I’m so proud of myself. I’m so grateful to have access to my own EVOX technology. And yet there’s still more, there’s still more to bring up and clear out and replace with new expansive beliefs and patterns.

But having done so much of the work before, . That doesn’t deter me. That doesn’t make me feel sad or heavy or exhausted. I get excited because I think one of the most beautiful things about healing work is as you heal and you step into more joy and you step into more peace and alignment and authenticity, you start to go.

you mean there’s even more joy available? You mean there’s even more peace I can step into? Great. Yeah. Let me tackle this. Let me tackle this problem. Let me tackle this wound, this next wound, this next layer of this wound, because I want more joy. I want more peace. I deserve more joy. I deserve more peace.

And those things are boundless. They aren’t finite. There is not finite joy available to me. There is always gonna be more joy I can step into and that gets me so, so excited. . So with all of that said, there were these two very subliminal things coming up for me. This fear of people being disgusted by me being ashamed and then this fear that people were going to discredit or invalidate or look down on me for feeling like this was a big deal and so what does my brain and body.

let’s check out, let’s shut down, let’s hide, let’s become invisible. That is what will protect us from these perceived threats. And by the way, this is a pattern I am very familiar with because that hiding absolutely, I think is. For me, it presented a lot as self-sabotage. When I would start to be doing, well start to be getting busier and busier, connecting with more people, I would self-sabotage.

And really what that was is it was that hiding. And if I wanna get really specific with it, it was that freeze stress response just full shut down. Disassociate from reality and really sabotaging myself because of those perceived threats, whatever they may have been. What I’m so proud of myself is this was like two weeks.

Two weeks of hiding. Right? And I don’t know, maybe to some people that sounds like a really long time, but I can tell you that in the past, if we were to go back a few years ago, that hiding period, that shutdown period for me could have. Truly months of me being checked out, months of me not being fully present, months of me energetically repelling people and opportunities.

And as I started to heal those month long periods of that pattern maybe turned into weeks, a couple of weeks and they would show up less and less. I would go into hiding less and. , I can confidently say I haven’t done that hiding routine for several months now. Now, to be fair, in 2022, especially with this trauma that surfaced, I was hiding hardcore, and I can definitely get into that a little bit more.

But in healing this deep core wound, which I really believe is the core root cause of this whole lifelong pattern of self sabotage and hiding. I, there’s such a deeper sense of safety that’s been asa established in my core that I don’t need the hiding so much anymore, and so I’m proud for a number of reasons.

Number one, this pattern hasn’t been showing up for me, and number two, when it did show up, I was able to recognize it pretty quickly and sit down. Process through it. Let the emotions that needed to come up, validate those emotions, let the limiting beliefs come up associated with that, and then bring in the new expansive beliefs that I need to help me pivot out of this limiting pattern.

The other thing I wanna point out about this last two weeks that I’m actually really proud of is about a week. , a week after I didn’t release an episode, I didn’t record anything and right away I was like, Leigh Ann, you’re hiding you’re doing your little invisibility cloak thing where you just wanna disappear.

You don’t want any attention. And I actually got really annoyed with myself, which. . know, On the one hand I was working through that because I wanna bring in the self-compassion. I wanna bring in the self empathy for, okay, I see that you’re scared. Let’s talk through this so that you don’t feel scared anymore to be seen.

But I do wanna just note that I think just the fact that I was even getting annoyed with that is a big sign of growth because I was like, oh my God, I’m so sick of this. I’m so sick of hiding. I’m so sick of being scared. I wanna be seen. I wanna feel safe to be seen, and I’ve come such a long way with that.

But it’s when I compare and contrast to how I was years ago, months ago. , first of all, years and years ago, I wouldn’t have even been aware that I was doing this sort of shut down, freeze, invisible hiding thing. I would just be in it for however long, until I naturally came out of it. And then the, the progression of it was I started to become aware of that pattern, however, , when I would go into hiding, I didn’t wanna come out of it because it felt so safe, it felt so familiar.

And so I’d be like, can’t I just stay here? Can’t I just stay in this place of hiding and invisibility? I like it here and now I’ve gotten to a place where actually I’m so safe inside and I have trust for myself and I have confidence and inner peace. Actually, the hiding doesn’t even feel good or safe anymore.

Maybe it does initially in the very, very beginning when I’m a little dysregulated, but after a week of hiding, I’m like, Ugh, no, I don’t like this. I don’t want this. This is actually keeping me from my goals and my dreams and my hopes, and I think that is a huge sign of progress for me that place of hiding.

can only offer me so much peace anymore that I’ve healed so much so that I don’t wanna stay there very long. And that pattern doesn’t surface very much. And when it does, I’m not stuck in it for weeks and months or years. So I thought that was worth pointing out. Now the last thing I wanna touch on here with this is I wanna just speak a little bit to how this hiding pattern showed.

when this trauma first surfaced in March of 2022, literally a year ago I don’t think I’ve ever gone into that hiding pattern like I did when this trauma surfaced. And I feel like it’s helpful to describe this because again, maybe others are experiencing this currently, but they don’t realize what’s going on.

So when the trauma first surface, I, not only did I just isolate myself, I didn’t want to go to any parties, which it’s not like we’re partying, we’re not party people. But any kind of gathering, any kind of gathering, even if it was just a family gathering with eight people, nothing, I wanted to hide and be so invisible.

I wasn’t reaching out to friends. When I would go out anywhere to the grocery store, I would wear the Baggiest loosest clothes. I didn’t want my body to be seen at all. Truly. I think I probably, even in just like a few months, I think I probably gained about 10 to 15 pounds at least. I don’t have a scale in my house, so I’m not totally sure.

But if I had to guess at least 10 to 15 pounds and. , I could feel it. I could feel myself not wanting anyone’s attention. I don’t want anyone to look at me, I don’t wanna speak up, I don’t wanna be seen. And what that actually started to trickle into, even though I wasn’t consciously doing this, is it got to a period in the middle of last year where, I had an entire week without a single client and then maybe the next week I had one or two clients and that’s when for me, it really hit me square in the face of like, Leanne, you are energetically repelling everything and everyone, because you’ve gotten to a point of such fear and shame and terror and low self-worth because of this trauma.

And so for me that was like, and by the way, I have been doing plenty of work. This surfaced in March. The sort of like standstill came probably around, I don’t know, maybe August or September. So it’s not that I had just this trauma surfaced and I didn’t do anything about it. I had been actively working on it.

But the depth of the fear and shame and grief, especially because those were emotions that had been repressed for 25, 26 years or so. That I just needed, they, it was like this unending stream. I just needed to continue to let those emotions come up. I needed to continue to reestablish and reiterate safety to myself in a variety of different ways.

Nervous system work, therapy, evox, intense meditations, all these different things, which I’ll, I can definitely get into in future episodes. But when I really started to dissect. Wanting to be invisible. That energetic repelling, that energetic hiding, it boiled down to two things, really. One of which is that safety, it’s not safe to be seen with this trauma coming up.

I was thrown back into that experience and just feeling like, yeah, when I was seen in the past, I was abused. I was treated really poorly. and so wanting to be invisible for safety purposes. But then there was the other layer of it, of that shame and the worthiness and oh, if if people look at me for too long and too deeply, they’re gonna discover this and they’re gonna be disgusted by me.

So I need to hide from people so that they can’t find this out about. , it’s like my dirty secret that I need to keep. And so for those two big reasons, safety and worth, I was hiding. And once I started to see so clearly how that was affecting literally every aspect of my life and even my business, my income, my, my financial stability, I was able to go.

what’s the next step I need to take here? And by that point it, it had become really clear because I had been doing all of this work with myself. I had even gotten to a point where I had told some members of my family, and for probably three months, I knew that I needed to have a conversation with this person who had abused me.

And I needed to tell. You can no longer be a part of my life. We can have no contact whatsoever. Setting that, that I’ll call it a boundary, although it felt like so much more than just a boundary, but r really a complete end to that relationship because this was a person who, it was my father. It was the person who was still a part of my life, albeit not that we had a super deep relationship.

But I wasn’t able to do that, which of course, , that’s such a hard thing to do. And so for three months, every fiber of my being, my intuition was all telling me like, this is the next step in the healing journey. And I just wasn’t at a place yet where I was safe enough inside to be able to do that. And slowly, everything in my life came to a stands.

one week with absolutely no clients, turned into two weeks with absolutely no clients. And the absolutely bizarre thing about all of this is that I did finally have that conversation with that person, which was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. And there was, a whole nervous system fallout from that.

The bizarre thing is that after I had that conversation with him, the very next week, my schedule was full again. All my clients had just like miraculously come back. . It doesn’t, to me, I don’t believe that’s coincidence because after having that conversation with him, there was this deeper sense of safety that came into me.

I was, there was more confidence that came into me and I. energetically repelling so much anymore. I think on some level I was, but not quite as much. I felt safer to be seen again because I knew that I never had to see, hear from speak to look at this person again. So I say all of that because I think it’s worth asking ourselves, especially if there is a trauma that is still repressed or a little bit unresolved for any of us.

and we find ourselves in that yo-yo or in that dance of being consistent and then being inconsistent with anything in our lives or we find ourselves. Yeah. If we are someone who works with clients or with patients. Is there inconsistency there? Do they do I have a hard time keeping a full schedule and.

is it on that? On some level, I am energetically playing small. I’m energetically repelling people. I’m energetically wanting to be invisible because of anything that might be unresolved within me. I think that’s a question worth asking for all of us . And for me, being able to recognize that pattern.

Like I said before, it’s helped me become so much more acutely aware of it when it does surface, but also then when it surfaces, because I know, oh, when I go, when I start to repel, when I start to wanna be invisible, when I start to hide, it’s because I feel unsafe and or unworthy. So now when I, when this pattern does surface, I can jump straight to the root cause of it.

Okay. What am I feeling unsafe about? What am I feeling unsure about? What am I not feeling confident about? Is there something I’m feeling shame about that I feel like I don’t want people to know? So I need to hide from them, and it allows me to get to the root of it 20 times faster. Have whatever conversation, whatever dialogue, whatever emotional healing I need to have with myself, and then move and pivot out of that pattern so much.

So I hope that was helpful. I hope that was insightful for you guys. I am so grateful for every single one of you who listens to this show. I had several really kind messages about the last episode that was released, which was so encouraging to hear, so encouraging to hear that at least some people don’t, I mean, aren’t disgusted by me, aren’t ashamed of me, aren’t judging me.

They’re. energetically loving on me and energetically sending me hugs and confidence and assurance and safety, and so that was so, so kind. Thank you to every. , every person who sent me a little message of some sort. As I said, not all the episodes are gonna be about this, so if this isn’t your cup of tea, I totally get it.

Don’t worry, there’s more guest interviews coming your way. There’s more solo episodes talking about any other variety of topics. But because I did disappear for two weeks, I wanted to the first episode coming back address that and use it as an opportunity to share. Was going on within me and the work I’m continuing to do healing around this.

Thank you to every single person who listens, shares, episodes, with friends, subscribes. You all are amazing. I’m so grateful for this community, for this platform, and I can’t wait to bring just so much more expansive, hopefully inspirational, hopefully educational episodes. So with that, everyone have an amazing weekend and until next week.