Below is a transcript of the episode as generated by Otter.ai. (*please note, this transcript has only been edited to put in line breaks for easier readability and may contain errors where a word or phrase got lost in transcription.)

[0:35] Introduction to Episode

Aloha everybody. This is Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wright. And this is your heart magic. And today's topic that we are talking about is the art of compassionate detachment. And if you can hear any laughter in my voice, I'm laughing because I actually stopped and started this a couple times, I didn't love my introduction, which, if you've listened to this podcast, it's just it's spontaneous. I'll write down a few notes that come through on what I might want to talk about. And we just go from there and see what presents itself.

And one of the things that we're talking about today is detachment. And how do we detach from like old stories that we might tell ourselves expectations that we might have of people, things that our situations are something that we get really stuck with, and it's keeping us from moving forward. And taking the next step on our journey, we've attached something sticky to somebody or something around us or something within us, and we feel dysregulated and don't feel calm because of it.

And we keep maybe mentally going back there and obsessing about it or over focusing on it. And the laughter was about after like, the third time that I restarted this, I just had this moment, I was like, Oh, BethAnne, you need to compassionately detach from this perfectionist story that says that if you don't say it perfectly, or in a way that feels like free flowing articulation, that somehow it's not good enough.

And you just need to keep trusting the flow of whatever wants to come through when you sit down to do these episodes, which is how I've created your heart magic. I usually before I hop on here, and we'll press record, I do some spiritual work, I call in some angelic guidance, I often will open the Akashic records, I will ask for spiritual support. Sometimes the talking points will come through to me earlier in the week during a journaling time.

Sometimes they'll come through to me right before when I'll really kind of open up I call it opening my channel to inspiration. And saying this is what we're talking about today. Come inspire the space and help bring through what would be helpful for the individuals who might listen to know. And usually a few talking points will kind of pop into my mind a little write those down, and then we just go from there. So it's this loosely structured creation.

 And I like to think of it as a co collaboration with spirit and Muse and the universe. And one of my rules for self is that it has to be fun, and it has to be joyful for me. So not only will that energy translate to those who listened to it, but it stays like vital light and energetic and doesn't become a half, two, but it's always like, yeah, I get to sit down and make the podcast.

So one of the things that I am working on compassionately detaching on in my journey, and this is an ongoing process is old stories around perfectionism, and having to do things in a way that is either perfect or somehow meets my expectation of what it should look like. And I have been doing since I started this podcast and in life in general, a lot of letting go of those expectations and those ideas, and a lot more of trusting the process and just letting it happen and trusting that it will be whatever it needs.

[4:06] The Power of Compassionate Detachment

And there is a compassionate detachment piece to it. Because compassionate detachment is not saying I don't care. It's not about apathy. It's not about letting go of an idea, or an ideology or a relationship or an old wound from a place of I can't even think about this anymore. That actually almost feels defensive to me, it doesn't really feel compassionate. It's more about saying like for the peace of my own heart, and the peace of my journey.

I am actively working on letting go at this with compassion for the humanity of the situation for the humanity of maybe whoever's involved for the humanity of whatever happened. Um, and I'm working on doing that in a way that feels self kind And, and feels like it is not making me attached to sort of a new stickiness of anger or resentment, compassionate detachment really exemplifies truly learning how to divest ourselves of some sort of story, hurt, expectation, relationship, something that we're hanging on to.

And instead of investing in it, by continuing to nurse that story, idea, whatever it is a grudge, sometimes an expectation of self that might not be sustainable and expectation of a relationship for somebody else that might not be sustainable. We are divesting ourselves, we're taking our energy out of it, and surrendering it to a greater process in life, surrendering it to higher power, giving it over to God, this is sort of that let go and let God and we get to be the mindful conduit, who lets go with trying to do so through a lens of compassion, and having compassion for those that are involved. And why do we want to do that? Like I said earlier, we want to do that. Because when we let go from a place of apathy, or a place of anger, I'm actually not sure if we're trying to let go from anger, like fu I don't care about this anymore, I don't have the energy for you. It's not really letting go.

Sometimes you'll see on social media where you can tell somebody's done something a cryptic post, and they're mad at something, somebody, I don't know, something must have happened. And they'll post some like spiritual coat quote, or something like that. And it's kind of like, you know, leave behind the ones who aren't supporting you on the journey. And, you know, or if they can't support you and who you're becoming, then leave them behind. And there might be the saucy caption or something that kind of gives you this intuitive sense.

Or sometimes you're just reading what they wrote. And you can tell they're angry, and you're like, Oh, there's more to this story. This isn't just like a neutral quote that they like, like they're trying to work on something in their life. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's zero criticism for like, that's not my style at this point on my journey, but I'm sure I did stuff like that, when I was a little bit younger. I'm certainly not above it.

This is not about better than worse than these are spiritual things to do. These are not not at all this is a judgment free zone, we are exploring our processes, and all trying to figure out together, how do we keep moving ourselves forward on our individual paths, and a way that we feel that we're growing or light growing, or wholeness growing or inner peace, so no judgement to this. But I think that when we see something like that, it's not really letting go, it is somebody trying to let go, they are in the process of saying, I need to shake this off, I want to be in a place where I say I release What's no longer serving me.

And whatever comes with me was meant to stick and anything that falls away, you know, was no longer for my path. Like they want to be in that place. And so a lot of times we are attached to something. And we're kind of upset at ourselves that we're still attached. And we're like, why can't I let go with this? You know, so and so isn't worth my time and energy. Like they're not sitting around thinking about me probably as much as I'm thinking about them, I really want to let this go.

Like why can't I and it's not uncommon for empaths and energy sensitives highly sensitive people to be big over thinkers, who will keep looping around something again and again and thinking about should I have done this different? Should I have said this differently? Why is somebody acting this way? You know, here's a conversation that I wish I could have had. By the way, if you are in that spin cycle in your mind, that is probably a nice yellow flag that might make you want to pause and ask Is there something somebody in my life that I could maybe benefit from the art of compassionate detachment and I'm attaching something and I'd really like to work more on letting go.

[09:19] Understanding Compassionate Detachment

Compassionate detachment is not the same as healing trauma, and not the same as
letting go of something if we've not done the work of witnessing it inside of ourselves. Compassionate detachment is not saying oh, that's in the past. And I try not to think about it because I get really upset when I do.

So instead, I'm focusing on moving forward. There's nothing wrong with that at all. If we're in that place. Sometimes it's it's great to focus on moving forward if we know there's pain in the past, but I think the art of compassionate detachment is the potential that maybe at some point We can either look at the people who've hurt us and find compassionate detachment from them. Our true letting go, maybe we can let go of that time in our life.

So we say, you know, it's in the past, I know there's a lot of pain there. But I've let go of my need even to work through all the pain, I just don't know that there's anything to learn. And so I've made peace with the fact that maybe I'll always feel a little bit hurt when I look back on that time. But I also really affirm who I am now and affirm my right to move forward and joy. And I don't let that define me that there's space there, there's room for growth there. It's not sort of this either.

Or, if we can't aspire to getting to a place where we forgiven everyone and everything, and we truly are at peace with all of it on the journey, we can always just look at making peace with a part of ourselves that might still be hanging on and say, I've just accepted some part of me, still is kind of stuck. And I made space for that part of me and my whole so that I can move on with my journey.

Compassionate detachment is about witnessing the whole of who we are. It's about figuring out where we might be stuck, why we might be stuck, like what part of ourself is stuck. And it's about figuring out how can I create space, if attachment is attaching stories, feelings, ideas, beliefs, are energy to something or somebody else than detachment is beginning to take those things back for ourselves in a way that creates space between us and our light, who we are in the present, who we want to grow into in the future. between that, and between sort of this thing that feels hurtful, harmful, sticky or heavy to us.

So compassionate detachment is something that potentially creates space. And when we create space in our lives, and we're creating space and our emotional processing centers, we create space in our mind, because we're no longer obsessing about or thinking about it all the time. We create space, in our energy, that allows for new things to come in new perspectives to come in new lessons to come in new relationships to
 come into our life.

[12:36] Reflections From The Journey: You Have to Learn How to Let Go

I remember back in, it was 2013. And that was probably September of that year, and the movie, gravity had come out with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and really beautiful movie, really beautiful, symbolic, very deep movie. And I saw it in the theater with a friend of mine.

And there was this line in the movie where George Clooney says to Sandra Bullock's character, whatever their characters are in the movie, you know, at that point in the movie he has passed, and she's imagining that he's there. And he says, You have to learn to let go. And she's got this trauma, this grief that she's holding on to have a daughter who died. And he actually says that, I think in real time in the movie, and then comes back later on and more spirit form.

And he says the same line, and it really sat with me, you know how you watch a movie. And something about it strikes a chord in your heart with something. And sometimes you don't even know why it was that one line or phrase or idea. But you can just feel this resonance that it's really meaningful for you. And what really came through the rest of my fall is that I actually had quite a bit to let go of, and I remembered that movie, it helped me let go of the last part of a relationship that I've been working on releasing, and like really moved to a place of what I felt was more compassionate detachment than I had accomplished so far, and a really healthy place for me to be compared to where I'd been six months earlier.

And then two months after I saw that movie, my sweet, sweet, old dog happy my little guy who made it to just at 15. And I found out four days after he turned 15 that he was in a lot of pain. And I was told by the vet that you need to put him down tonight, and I was at the emergency vet and I said can I just have 12 hours? Is there something you can give him I will go to my real vet tomorrow. I just need this one more night. I was not ready to let go.

And I'd been saying to him, come on, but like prior to knowing that he was in pain. You know, I just knew that he was old and I really hope that he'd be one of those dogs that made it tonight. 1820 Because he was sort of the scrappy Chihuahua Yorkie mix. And I figured if any dog can do it, puppy can do it. And I remember like saying they have not fallen like, don't you leave me I need you too much like, you know, I was single at the time. And he was the other half of my dynamic duo.

He was my best friend, he was my ever present companion. He was my little everything he'd been through so much with me. And I would be like, I love you so much. Don't ever leave me even though I knew that was unrealistic. And at some point, I'd have to let go. And I remember going home that night. And, you know, I mean, just I'm crying my eyes out, I was a wreck, I was crying so hard on my car in the parking lot, some stranger came up on the window and was like, Ma'am, are you okay? You know what I'm sobbing and like my dogs dying, and I have to put her down.

And oh, my gosh, it was a really difficult time in my life. And anyone who's ever lost a beloved pet like, you know, I remember going home and sitting down and I did what I did so often, then I wrote a blog about it, because that was kind of one of my vehicles for processing and gaining perspective, gaining space. And in the blog, I quoted that movie, and I said, you have to learn how to let go. And like that was really it for me, when I really said you're going to have to let go like you are going to have to learn to be braver and stronger than you want it to be, you did not want it to happen.

So soon, I had just come out of a dark period of my life and had was only like a couple months into what I felt was like new sunlight again. And I felt a lot that fall that I was like really close to this cliff edge of a call at the abyss, this abyss of darkness that I had just come from, I let go of a toxic relationship. And there was a lot of really challenging things involved. And that was from a string of other relationships, I had quite a bit of wounds around romantic relationships, those kinds of attachments, I'd really done a lot of empaths and narcissists type lessons by that time, and I come to this place of rebirth, and I was getting my legs underneath me, I was feeling stronger.

And I often felt that I really had to focus on moving forward. But if I look too long at the past, I fall into this abyss and fall back into a depression. And, you know, my dog, Pepe had seen me through all that he had been a light and had been a reason some days to get out of bed, get dressed, go somewhere, take him for a walk, go on a double date with dog Friday. You know, he sat in the car while I watched that movie, as he so often did. So the attachment was there and it was hard. And I was blogging and I wrote in it, you have to learn to let go. And that is when I really started telling him it's okay to let go. I you know, if you need to leave me before tomorrow, I understand and really, really started tapping into that

core ability to begin to compassionately detach, not necessarily from Pepe. But from the idea that I couldn't do my life without him. I started to do it with love versus loving, letting go. And you know, that was really you have to learn to let go. I think that was the beginning for me of beginning to work with the idea of compassionate attachment in a more mindful way.

There were so many profound lessons of letting go that came through that fall. And it certainly wasn't the first time I let go of anything, I'd had other things before that I'd really had to work through and process. But I remember feeling like I had gained some level of mastery over the ability to let go of something to look at it from this higher perspective and say you cannot hang on and this version that it is, you are going to have to let go, you're going to have to find your way through this.

[19:04] Letting Go With Love

And you're going to have to do it with love. And for me that is when if I look back on my writing, I see myself really beginning to write about this idea of divesting ourselves from some form of an attachment that we had, more often than not, this attachment might be to somebody else. A lot of times what we are trying to let go of is a relationship that's really hurt us. It might be something in our past that we still have a lot of bitterness or resentment over.

And it might be something that it might be a current relationship. It could be somebody that we love very much. And we keep running into kind of falling into the same hole over and over and this friendship or partnership or some kind of other relationship because of the fact that you're two different people and And because of that, there are these areas that things don't always match up.

So sometimes you're trying to let go of not somebody that we left behind, and we're moving on, and we're trying to let go of the idea of them in our mind or cut out contact, you know, we're trying to find a way to compassionately detach, while the relationship is still active, and we have no plans of walking away.

But we recognize for our own peace of heart and our own well being, we have to let go of a story that we have about somebody else, or an idea that we had about how the relationship should be. Sometimes we need to divest ourselves of somebody else's process, and just give them space to be themselves and let go of the expectation that they needed to be any sort of thing in order to have us be okay with them.

So there's many ways that this applies. And just to be clear, when I say compassionate detachment, I'm not talking about attachment style, and some of the stuff about are you in anxious, attacher insecure, attacher, or you know, those kinds of things. That is a different psychological school of thought, this is more of this general idea of using more of a sense of like mindfulness, and I'm using our spiritual light to help us let go of something, when we realize that we're hanging on to something so tightly that we need to loosen our grip.

And the object of what we're hanging on to can be completely different. Like I said, it could be a person, it could be a situation, it could be a time period, that we're not willing to let go of that we keep looking back and mourning the loss of who we were at some point in time. And maybe we're not that person anymore, or the circumstances aren't there. But in our head, we keep circling back. And maybe we're trying to, like, reclaim it, or make it happen all over again. And we need to let go of this idea that it's repeatable, and instead, catch ourselves up to the present, and say, How can I be like my best and brightest right now, in my present circumstances.

Sometimes what we're letting go of is something within ourselves, and it is an expectation, it's the ideal of perfectionism, the idea of who we thought we were supposed to be. So there's many ways that this can apply this is a really fluid concept. And that brings me to the first point that I wrote down, and that is compassionate detachment.

[22:23] The Art of Compassionate Detachment

Today, I call this the art of compassionate detachment because it is an art. It is beautiful, to spiritually aspire to be in a place where you nothing disturbs your peace and calm, and you're able to just kind of find this very high priestess last week, we were talking about the high priestess in our archetypes in Tarot series, you can sort of find that high priestess energy, and from this very high minded place be like be well on your journey. You know, life is all a process, every human is traveling their own soul path. All situations are held by a higher order.

And so I can just let go and trust all that is going on around me and release people to be who they're meant to be. I release myself to be who I meant to be. And I trust that all situations are held in the divines hand. Please say that affirmation if it feels good to you, I think it's great. But if you expect yourself to be living from it all the time, and having your feelings match up with that affirmation, you might fall short, unless you've spent a lot of time devoted to the art of your spiritual practice.

Part of why we're here as human beings is to learn about attachment is to attach to people in our lives, it's to learn how to love it is to learn how to get really passionate or excited about something, if we walked around and had no attachments, or we're so detached from the outcome of something we might never find like the fire and the Mojo that we need in order to like get ourselves up and going and take a leap of faith in the first place.

So we are actually here to learn about how to attach. And I think when you have gone through the death of a loved one, it's almost like this cruel trick of life where you're like, I feel so trapped right now. You put this person in my life or this relationship in my life, and I went and I fell in love with them. You know, I love them as a friend, or as a partner.

I love them as a family member. You know, I love them and whatever relationship we had to them, and I developed all these feelings around it and these hopes and these wishes and these dreams and these desires, I had expectations for what might happen and who we might be. And now they're gone. And I have to somehow figure out how to like flip and let go and make peace split that and go on with my life and try and find a way to, like be okay without this person situation, presence in my life, like what in the world is happening like is this some cruel joke, you know, there is something about that that feels like so unfair.

And yet it is how we learn about love, we find love, only to lose love. And we have to learn to let go sometimes in order to keep learning about this bigger truth of love. And this bigger truth of our spiritual connection. And when our heart is broken, oftentimes, and that breaking open when we're cracked wide open by something that is where new light comes through, it is where new growth comes through. It's how we become a bigger person. It's how we transcend who we used to be, and what we expected for our life. And now we're invited to become this bigger version of self, and to step into a higher expression of ourselves.

And if we can figure out how to work through that pain, and take the wisdom, there's potential growth to be found there, where we actually do have a little bit more of that high priestess perspective, we just aren't meant to have it all the time, we're meant to be able to find ways to access it when we need it. Especially when we feel like we are preventing growth in our own lives, because we're so stuck on something that we can't let it go.

So we find compassionate detachment, so we can move forward with more freedom and peace in our heart. But attachment is a very good, very healthy thing, it's a very necessary thing. And part of how we grow is to get upset about things it is to say, I thought it was supposed to look this way, and it didn't at all. And now I'm disillusioned, or I'm really mad at so and so whether or not those feelings feel good, they are the alchemy, there are lessons through the raw material that we can learn from that we can grow from this is how our soul gathers new experiences to itself.

So we're not meant to
have some sense of apex of compassionate attachment, we walk around like that all the time. I do think the more that we work with this, the easier it is to invite that in a little sooner rather than later. But you know, it is not realistic to expect it, that of ourselves. It's more about when we realize we're feeling really stuck. We feel like we can't let go of something that we might be like, I think it's time to work on divesting myself of this.

[27:51] Understanding Compassionate Detachment As a Process

Art is a work in progress. It is an ongoing expression. It's an ongoing creativity, any artists, whether it's a writer, or a more traditional artist, somebody who works with Mediums with their hands, somebody who might just consider themselves a vocal artist or some other kind of artists, they will continue to evolve and the work, whatever they produce will continue to evolve as they evolve.

So it's not uncommon for somebody to look back on what they did 10 years ago and be like, that's not even me right now. My voice has changed so much my self expression has changed so much art evolves as the person evolves. So the art of compassionate detachment and our understanding of what that means to us will evolve as we evolve. If we should find ourselves in a place that we are, I call it looping or being in a spin cycle. We're obsessing about somebody, every time we think about them, we just get this better nurse or this something.

If we feel like we could run their life better than they're running their life, you know, I see so clearly what they could do. If they would just do this and stop doing this to themselves, then, you know, like their life would be so much better if we're trying to manage somebody else. In our mind, if we are having dialogues with somebody that we feel like we can never have in real person. But we say everything perfectly in our mind. Those might be indicators that some situation person or aspect of self perhaps needs to have some compassionate detachment in letting go happen in our lives.

As I said, sometimes it is us that we're stuck on and we keep going back to something that happened in our past or we keep rehashing it, and we can't figure out how to get ourselves out of those memories. Again, that can be an indicator that compassionate detachment might be a supportive aspect The process. As I said, this isn't about healing trauma, but it can be part of healing trauma. If something traumatic has happened to somebody, it's going to be a lot harder to let go.

Because trauma can get stuck in the body. In the emotional processing centers, there's a reason sometimes we hang on to trauma. So if something has been traumatic for you, and you're listening to this, and you're working on letting go, just to know that the things that we talked about in here might be helpful for you. But there might be more release work that you might find that is also helpful, whether it's therapy or somatic release work, or some kind of energy work, there's a lot of things we can do. So I just want to clarify that point. But if you have been trying to forgive or let go, and it doesn't feel like trauma, maybe it's distressing.

[30:52] Creating Space Throught Energy Release

Compassionate detachment can give a lot of freedom. And it can help us really start to create space and a situation. So when we find ourselves looping, and on that spin cycle, and we realize that we're talking about the same thing, or we're thinking about the same thing. One way that I know that I am not at peace with something is on, a lot of times, we walk the dogs, my husband, and I will walk the dogs together in the evening.

And that might be a time that we talk about our day, talk about something you know, when you're walking the dogs for especially if it's a long walk, and it's like a mile or two, all sorts of conversation topics come up. And if I find myself talking about a situation, maybe somebody did something, and I'm still upset, and I realized that like, wow, like, I've brought this up to him now like three or four times. And there's nothing new to be gained from rehashing this. It's not like I'm sharing it because New information has evolved. I'm not sharing it because I had an epiphany about myself.

So I'm referencing the situation and saying, Hey, remember this? Well, here's what I figured out today. Like nothing new has happened. I'm talking about this, because I'm still really upset by it. For me, that's such a big red flag where I can say like, what is upsetting me so much. And that is always an invitation for me to do a little bit of inventory and look at some things like what's keeping me from letting go? What like why am I so upset by this? Like, what am I feeling stuck on. And that allows me to better assess if something is happening where I can take an action step, and part of why I'm obsessing is because I need to make a change. And that's going to help the situation.

Or if it's just that I'm still really upset by what it was. And I need to sort of detox and start working on this compassionate, letting go. That's a good way to know. The other one. And I already mentioned it this, I used to do this a lot, especially in that empathic phase of dating that I said to you earlier, where I was having like a lot of relationship stuff, I would have a lot of conversations in my head that I didn't feel that I could actually have with the individual things that I wish that I could say, or wanted to say.

But I didn't feel free to say because the relationship either wasn't safe, or something about the way that it was set up, I didn't feel that they would be able to receive it. And so I would find myself having these conversations, and sort of again, looping. And when I look back on that now I can say like number one, I eventually learned to recognize that is a flag. Like if you're never able to say the thing.

Sometimes that can be a really good indicator that asked us to explore the health of the relationship because in close relationships, there should be a reasonable amount of safety and trust to be able to speak to one another with clarity, and to say what's on our mind. And to say it in a respectful way, but to still be honest. So I was learning about what those flags look like.

But now I would go back to that younger self and say girlfriend like you are so like, rocked off your center right now like out here in left field, because you are trying to manage this other person and you are investing so much energy worrying about them and their process. You need to learn to let go. And guess what once I figured out that, that like lesson for myself and I really mastered that as an empath is about the time my relationship health really started changing. And I really stepped into not only a higher expression of myself, but after all about letting go that I did in the fall of 2013 I actually met my husband. You know, right after my sweet dog puppy died about a week later.

So there was this whole series of events that happened. But at the time that's the lesson I was learning was how to let go. And you know, where was I stuck and why am I so bothered by this? And then what stories might have around this? And why do they have to meet my expectation of them, sometimes we are really crushed because who somebody says they are and who they actually turned out to be aren't the same thing. What's even harder is if they don't know it.

So who they said they were, and who they actually are, aren't the same thing. But they're kind of in denial about that. So they continue to present themselves as virtuous or, you know, saying I'm a certain something. And, you know, we can get really stuck on that if we feel like somebody's bamboozled us or Plato's false, or somebody said, they were spiritual and of the light, and we learn otherwise, and see decisions that they're making, like we can get really stuck on that stuff. So identifying where we're stuck, what was the story? What was my expectation?

[35:48] How It Helps to Evaluate Our Beliefs and Boundaries

You know, is there any room there for me to work with that and to reevaluate my beliefs, beliefs and boundaries is an important thing to look at when we're talking about compassionate detachment. Because if we have a belief that somebody was meant to, like, has to meet an expectation or do something for us, if we don't have good boundaries, and don't have good energetic boundaries, and feel like, well, they just have so much potential, and I feel like I can bring it out in them. And if I, if they just would do what I said, or if they would just like listen, and would just believe in themselves like I do, gosh, they could be amazing, you know, there's a boundary there, they're where we might be trying to control or live somebody else's journey for them.

And it's amazing to reflect back and somebody somebody else's potential and to say, you have so much potential, I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to find yourself and to find your way through this. But it's another thing to be trying to actualize their potential for them, and be the one who believes in it, when they're not investing in their own potential, if somebody is not showing up for themselves, and you keep showing up for them, and they are a capable adult who has resources that they can tap into.

And maybe they don't want to, or they like you being their resource, or they really like your light, but they have other avenues where they could get support, then that is a great indicator that you might want to consider, might it be time to invest in yourself and divest your energy from their potential and then start investing in your own, because here's the thing, nobody can come along and live our potential for us.

Nobody can come along and actualize our potential. Nobody can come along and carry our emotional burden for us, they can't do our grief work for us. They can't work with our loneliness, or our self esteem wounds for us, they can't shoulder or carry whatever it is in us that we are working through and trying to find peace on.

Now they can come along and say I think you're a remarkable, and I don't know that you're seeing this, clearly, I see this in you. And I'm going to hold up a mirror and reflect that back to you. And I hope you can see it too. Or here's an idea for how you might better support that part of yourself. Because it's phenomenal. And it deserves support. They could help us but they can't do it for us. If we're trying to do it for somebody else, we probably need to figure out how to compassionately detach.

So we want to evaluate boundaries. We want to evaluate beliefs, if you feel like it's your responsibility, your job to do it for somebody else. That's a beautiful gateway to do a little bit of inner work and say, Well, where did that come from? Somebody teach that to me? Did I learn that in my own family system? Have I been placed in situations where I was told sort of this up the good one, or you're the strong one? So I don't have to be? Where did you get that from that it's your responsibility to do that, if you have a sense of but I just feel so bad for them. And I just want to fix it and I just, it just tears me up inside. And there's nothing that you can do to support them.

There's not a practical action step you can take, there's not a discernible way forward for you to be of assistance on the path. Again, you might want to look at the boundaries and beliefs that you have and ask am I taking responsibility for something that's not mine to carry? My trying to manage something? Am I shouldering too much? Am I shouldering the burdens of something or somebody else?

And yes, this is heartbreaking, but I cannot carry the whole of this issue on my own shoulders. And I can't do it at the expense of feeling so pressed down all the time that I can barely get a clean breath of air, a joyful breath of air. And so I'm actually not being a fan active, and the ways that I could potentially be effective in my life, because I'm trying so hard to take responsibility for this.

So all of those feelings are just these nice indicators that we might want to do a little bit of investigative work in our own process. And if those things start going on for us, that's okay. They are for many people, for many reasons. Because many of us weren't raised in family systems that had healthy boundaries. The system that most of us are in at large of society, I don't really look at society and think, wow, society as a whole has excellent boundaries, and is living according to spiritual principles, you know, sort of the collective as a whole, is there's a lot of fear based consciousness going on a lot of reactivity.

There's a lot of wounded people out there that instead of attending to their own wounds, or just continuing to perpetuate the wound and wound others, and justify themselves to doing it because they were hurt. So I don't look at what we marinate in on a daily basis and say that there's these amazing principles surrounding us. We pick up on that stuff, whether or not we think we do, we are subject to learning and internalizing those lessons.

So there's like nothing, we're not doing anything wrong. When we identify those things in ourselves. It is just the areas that we can say, oh, okay, I've got some work to do here. I've got some reconciliation work to do within myself. I've got some forgiveness work, I've got some growth work. I remember after my brother died,

[41:37] Doing The Work: A Time of Evaluation of My Beliefs

I really went through this period of just kind of feeling angry at people. And this is kind of an a generic sense. You know, I say this with sensitivity. Because if you knew me, then and you listen to this podcast, look at me being a good little codependent, and taking responsibility for your feelings. I was like, I don't want somebody to be like, Oh, my gosh, does she need me? No, my relationships are great. Right now. I'm good with everybody in that time.

But I just had this collective sense of so many people that I felt like I'd been there for, or people who felt free like pm me on facebook back when I didn't have good boundaries, and didn't always just either ignore them, or say, Hey, this is a therapeutic question. I'm not comfortable answering it, we have a personal relationship. You know, I overstepped a lot back then, and didn't have the best boundaries and was, you know, like this overly nurturing person to so many people. And I didn't know how to take my energy back for myself and just say, I really can't offer that to you. Because I don't have much left to give me. And so I kind of really had given myself to a lot of people around me and a lot of situations.

And then my brother died, and I was the one in need. And I had this kind of generic anger, of feeling like people like either weren't there for me or weren't there appropriately, or said the wrong thing. A lot of times the wrong thing was not saying anything at all, because they were freaked out and didn't know what to say.

And I've moved really far from that. And I've grown a lot since then, and realize, like people were doing the best that they could and somebody's death really will show you where other people are at in their own relationship with death. Like people who are more comfortable with pain are probably more likely to say something and say, What do you need people who have been through it might be more likely to do that. People who are uncomfortable with death and pain, probably won't feel comfortable and know how to appropriately support. And people who are struggling with their own stuff might not have the bandwidth.

So there's many reasons for it. But I remember expressing to this mentor that I used to work with back at the time, you know, how he was feeling. And then I kind of had this bitterness. I'll never forget what she said. She said, Beth, and they don't owe you anything. Oh, it was like snap. You know, she's like, they don't owe you anything. They don't owe you anything right now. And she went on to clarify and say like, yes, it would be nice to receive it. Like, yes, you have perhaps like given more to some of the relationships in your life that have given back to you. You know, yes, there's different things that could have been done.

[44:20] Our Energy Isn't Owed, It's a Gift To Give

You know, she didn't invalidate any of those things. But she just brought up the point. We don't owe each other in this life. We choose to give to each other. We are not obligated. And there shouldn't be a scorecard that says, Well, I did all this for you. Now it's time that you give back to me. And if the other person can't, and we recognize that we have that scorecard.

And we say wow, like I really did all these things and in my time of need, they weren't there that's going to be hurtful. It's probably going to give you information about that individuals have been Ready to show up in your life. And it's probably going to give you an opportunity to evaluate if they even stay in your life or if you rework the boundaries in the relationship to kind of remap the kind of friend that they are, and change your expectations around that.

But nobody owes us anything. And we don't owe anybody anything. We choose to give it from a space of freedom and clarity inside of ourselves. And compassionate detachment can help us recognize that. And that is when I was already working with the idea of loving kindness practices and loving kindness meditations prior to this time in my life. But I found it extraordinarily helpful.

And a loving kindness meditation, I'm sure I've mentioned it on the podcast before. It comes from mindfulness and more of a Buddhist philosophy. But it's a blessing. And there's many ways to say it. But a typical one might be, may you be safe. May you be well, May you be peaceful and at ease, may I be safe? May I be well, may I be peaceful and at ease? May we be safe? May we be well, may we be peaceful and an ease.

When I first heard about these in an article on compassion and empathy, fatigue years ago, I can't reference that I have no idea who were what it was just that I remember running across this thing. And they said, and this was for therapists who were suffering from, sort of this caregiver burnout, and compassion fatigue. But the article said it was really empathy, fatigue, and just this empathic over attachment of caring so much and caring, and after a while, kind of coming up short, because of the amount of needs out there. And maybe the individual themselves getting some, again, empathy, fatigue, just a little bit of burnout from holding that space.

And so the article said that practitioners who use the loving kindness meditation reported much better. That's the word I'm looking for much less empathy, fatigue, and much more of an ability to stay engaged to stay present, to really stay in a good space for their work.

[47:15] How Loving Kindness Meditations Helped Me

And I think that's what brought it to my radar. Because at the time, I would often come home from my private practice, and I would be probably pretty moody and irritable, I was carrying a pretty heavy caseload, I saw a lot of people, and I was giving you know everything my best. And then I would be burned out by the end of the day, be so tired, and I'd come home and I would just not be in a good place. And I started working on like using this loving kindness meditation, especially on a long day. And it wasn't anything or anybody, it was almost like as an empath, just the sheer velocity of information stories and things I taken into my energy was so much and I hadn't had adequate time to release it, or process it, or organize it.

So I felt like an accordion that was like crammed together. And I just wanted room to stretch out and breathe. So at the end of the day, I would go back through and if I could tell I was going to be really tired, I started doing this loving kindness meditation. And maybe I would go through my day and think of everybody that I worked with, and I would do the blessing for them and for me than for the Wii. And after a while, that issue really cleared up, like I will still use that if I need it. But it's not something that I really actively think about.

Now, in that context, I don't need to, I've had a lot of growth since where I was out at the time. So it doesn't come on my radar a lot to even do so. But I will do it. If maybe if something is troubling me, and I really want to let go of it. Or I'm concerned about something or somebody like I'll do it like you know, not even in my work just in life, if there's something that I'm like really holding too close to, and it is keeping me from being present, I will do a loving kindness meditation towards them. And what I started to do was practice it towards situations in my life that felt sticky. Like if I was angry, something felt where I just didn't have this sense of clear flowing energy. But I felt like I couldn't let go for some some reason, even if I couldn't identify why.

So maybe I would do it with a friend that I felt like let me down and I'm upset at this friend. Or I felt like I let them down. And now I'm obsessing that I didn't meet their expectation and I had to say no to this thing, and I wasn't there for them. I started using that and thinking about this person and I would bless them I would bless me then I would do the Wii. And sometimes I might do it. I think traditionally you do it three times in a row and do like the three the you the the me the Wii and you do that like three times, you know all the way through.

But I would just say it whenever they came to mind and you can feel space opening up when you do that because really you're blessing them, and you're turning them over to spirit to God to the universe, you're turning them over to their own journey. And you're reminding yourself that you have a right to walk your own journey, you have a right to be in your full energy to be peaceful to be present. And then this morphed over the years, because I started running into situations where I needed to let go of somebody. I'm going to give a really good example here.

[50:28] Practical Tools: Variations on Loving Kindess Meditations

A few years back, when we moved into our new home and the rental property that we left, it was a very bad situation and how we left and there was a lot of injustice done towards myself and my husband from the parties who own that property and a few others involved. And it was a really ugly situation, I kind of felt like I got sort of hate bombed at the time. And there were some things done, that felt deliberately petty and personal towards Eric and myself, because of the nature of the relationships and some backstories that aren't worth going into.

But what is worth going into is how I felt, and it was like being poisoned by somebody's pettiness and their bitterness and kind of going after something that they could, which was money, it was keeping a lot of the rental deposit. And at the time, I did not have it in me to be like, we're gonna go to court and fight this and get all of our money.

And it was post COVID, but not that long post COVID. So the courts were pretty backed up. And I was like, I do not want to be thinking about these people a year from now, you know, I want to be free and clear to be in my new home to be in this new cycle that we're working on. Like, I deserve peace. And I was angry, I felt the poison, I just felt all this like icky energy. And it wasn't mine, a lot of it was coming empathically from what I felt from them. And then the rest of it was sort of the after effects of this sort of bomb that had gone off with some of the manipulations done at that time.

And I didn't want to hang on to it. You know, I didn't want to I didn't want to perpetuate things by going around and gossiping about what had happened for us or continuing the story. I certainly have had opportunity to do so. And I really just kept my mouth shut. I'm it's something that most people don't even know that we went through. It's a small island, I've not felt a need to talk about it beyond a couple of people who came to us and said, I heard this, could you clarify and it was like, here's the real story.

You know, I really just wanted to kind of extinguish it so that no more harm was done. And that was in keeping with where I was at in my life and my spiritual journey at that time. You know, it was kind of like they keep harming people because they were harmed, and they tried to harm me. And if I lash out in anger, it's just gonna keep sort of perpetuating this hateful energy, this ugly karmic energy.

So I really felt challenged on how do I compassionately detach from this because I don't really have a lot of compassion for them right now I just have anger. So sometimes compassionate detachment, right? You start with ourselves, and being like, well, whatever I feel towards them, like, I have compassion towards me, and I don't deserve to internalize somebody else's-- I just checked the word that I really want to say, somebody else's stuff. I don't deserve to be carrying around the heaviness of their ugliness within me.

So I need to free myself from it. I'm going to start with the compassion there. And I could not say May you be safe, may you be well, May you be peaceful and ease and mean it, I did not mean it, you know, those were not the may use that I wanted to come out of my mouth. So I really, really, really worked with this. And I finally reworked it and came up with some version of May you find what you need on the path to learn the lessons of the light and come back to the light. It was like some version of that, like, may you find what you need to move towards the light or to step into the light, you know, it had something to do with the light. And I had to make sure that I could say it to myself.

So it wasn't a like may you reap what you sow in. You know, it wasn't some like gangster rap of that really was, you know, had a lot of like anger in it. I really had to feel like can I say this to myself and can I mean it for myself? You know, I think I felt pretty okay saying May I report if so, and I feel in a lot of integrity on my journey. But I think there's times that Spirit gives us grace and says like, you know, kind of what you did here. Maybe you took a misstep, and there might be times Are we have a little bit of extra grace. You know, just because we say an L word towards somebody doesn't necessarily mean that we need to sew back L words towards ourself, if we really recognize I did not mean to do that, you know, I acted out of character.

So there is room for grace. But I did feel that I could say, May you find what you need to help you move towards the light, because I can mean that towards them. And I can mean it towards myself. And that could also be taken multiple ways, I don't know what will move somebody towards the light, it could be good things that move them towards the light.

Sometimes we get more broken, though, because in order to find that, we have to be humbled and cracked open, you know, and so I really had to make sure that I was okay with saying it and that there wasn't a hidden motive attached to it. I felt good about whatever I came up with. And I've reworked it other times throughout the years to tailor it to a situation or person, or something that feels very specific. May you find what you need for support on the path, you know, I've done that I don't tend to do it.

From a space of May you be blessed with somebody who's invested in continuing to live in a way that is not necessarily like serving goodness, like they're continuing to, we'll say, invest in the dark side of things, I would really probably take a step back perhaps from doing it, then and maybe just say, like, I realease you to the universe, I realease you to life, too. And you know, the left the light do with the light needs to do, and I release myself to the light to carry on with my journey, like I would really, you know, kind of take a step back of blessing them maybe, and maybe just focus more on the letting go part of things.

[56:46] The Importance of Releasing The Outcome

Again, if you're doing it, because what you're really hoping for is that if you do this enough, they're going to come around, and they'll see things from your way or there is this attachment. So what happens, then it might not be compassionate detachment, we're still attaching to an outcome.

So we're trying to do it in a way that we're actually releasing the outcome. And so we could do that as well. I really shoot to the universe, may you find whatever you need for the path, and I release you from my energy, you know, so that I that you don't have to do anything, in order for me to to meet an expected outcome that I have an I release myself to the universe, my I find whatever I need on the path, and I release myself from an outcome that maybe you've put on me, or any outcomes that I expect, so that I'm truly free to experience whatever the universe has for me. Again, be creative, be flexible, work with this as a guideline, make it your own. But it is a very helpful way to create energetic space.

Couple other helpful things, and be an observer of your experience. This is kind of an old one that a lot of people know about. It's a mindfulness technique. It is one use in cognitive behavioral therapy quite a bit. You know, if you were on the outside looking in, what would you say? Or what would you say to a friend about the situation like what advice would you give, but it can help to kind of step outside of it and try and see it through a higher lens, and really access that high priestess archetype that we were talking about last week and say, well, like, well, what would the High Priestess say?

Or we've got some fun taro archetypes coming up. But like, what would the hierophant say? Or the Empress or the Emperor? Or some of the figures and the deck? You know, what would my wise self say? What would my Compassionate self say? That is a great way to give us a new perspective and to kind of break through our mental chatter if we are trying to let go and compassionately begin to detach.

And we could turn that into a mantra or an affirmation, or if we find ourselves being pulled into the old story, we can say, ah, that's the old story. And the new story that I'm working on is really being my wiser self. When I look at this and my wiser self says, you know, that's part of your past. It doesn't have to be your future. What would it look like to choose to let that go right now.

Ah, I have nothing more to share. I think I reached the end of what I had to say today.

[59:24] Coming Up Next Week

So with that, I will start to let this podcast go and coming up next week, we will be talking about the Empress. This is kind of a fun one because I feel like the High Priestess archetype which we talked about last in our Tarot of our archetypes of the Tarot series. To me, she feels very detached. 

The Empress feels more attached, but I actually feel like she also has a lot of really nice energy that can support the idea of letting go and seeing things from kind of this bigger source of all giving all new returing perspective. 

So we're going to be looking at who's the Empress? What does she have to do with our individual journeys? How can we understand the archetype of the Empress? How there might she already be showing up for us and our lifes and ways that we can relate to, and diving into that and continuing our archetype of the Tarot series, and I released my new podcast every Thursday night, so it will be out soon. In the meantime, have an amazing week. Happy September to you. 

And may you be well be love, be you and be magic