Something's Still Missing

Kathleen Flanagan (00:01)
You did everything right. You showed up, you built a life, you showed up for it and you can handle anything. You're the strong one that everyone counts on, but inside, why does it feel like something's missing? That quiet emptiness. It's not burnout. It's not failure. It's what happens when you've been living out of alignment for so long. You stop feeling yourself in your own life and here's the shift. You don't fix this by doing more.

You come back to yourself and I'll show you how. And if you're ready to go deeper with real support, come join me in my community at school.com forward slash I am the light sanctuary forward slash about. Hello everyone and welcome to the journey of an awakening spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan and I am your host. You did everything right. You built the life, you handled the responsibilities.

You became the person everyone can count on. So explain this to me. Why does it feel like something is missing? Nothing is technically wrong, but something feels off and you can't explain it. So you do what you always do. You push through, you stay busy, you keep going, but that feeling, it doesn't go away. It gets quieter sometimes.

but it's always there. And at some point you start wondering if something is wrong with you and it's not. What you're feeling has a cause and more importantly, there's a way out of it. So I'm going to start giving you some tips on what you're going through and how to move forward. So most women I talk to live in this exact space. From the outside, they look fine, capable, strong.

put together, but internally, they're exhausted in a way sleep can't fix. They overthink everything. They can't fully relax. They feel disconnected from themselves. And the hardest part, they didn't feel like they can talk about it because they're the strong one, the one everyone relies on. So instead of slowing down, they hold it together even tighter.

and that's where the cycle continues. This is where most people get it wrong. They call this burnout. It's not. Burnout is doing too much. What you're experiencing is different. It's what happens when you've been living out of alignment. You learned how to perform, how to achieve, how to handle everything.

but not how to stay connected to yourself while doing it. So what happens? You override what you feel. And this I can tell you, what happens is,

One of the things that I used to do is when I accomplished something, it was always on to the next. I never stopped and gave myself credit because I didn't think that I was worthy. I didn't think I was deserving. I didn't know what was going on. So I just always, well, got that one done off the checklist onto the next thing.

And that's what I always did. So if there was any sense of pride or accomplishment, it wasn't lived through. I didn't feel like there was anything there for me. It was always on to the next. Or here's another great one. I hate being sick. And I used to get really angry at my body for being sick. And then one day I discovered that, you know, maybe it's okay to be sick because sometimes being sick with the fever, it breaks everything out. gets rid of...

you know, whatever creepies are in our bodies and just gives that whole cleanliness feeling when it's done. So what I did instead of pushing through it, I said, okay, here we are, we're going to give myself 24 hours. It's like, got 24 hours. I will stop moving. I will go to bed. I will drink the fluids. I will eat the chicken soup, whatever it is I got to do, but you got 24 hours to get over it. And that's what I did.

That was a way for me to compromise because to me being sick was a waste of time and I didn't feel like I had the time to waste and I didn't want to waste the time because I didn't like being sick. I know there are people out there that actually like being sick. This is not one of them. So that's pretty much what I do and what I did to override that feeling of emptiness because if I

accomplish something, it always felt so undeserved in so many levels. Or it was, well, why didn't you do more? Why didn't you do this? Because I had a nasty family that just kind of tortured me. So I got over it. I just never gave myself any credit for anything. And that's really sad. And there's so many other people that do it that they don't think that what they're doing is enough.

And women are probably the worst about that because we're told to just keep going. We plow through it. We're the mother. We deal with the sick kids. The husband's off doing whatever he's doing. And we just had, you know, to be there for the family, we had to cook the dinner, clean the house, do all of this. And we had to be this all encompassing person with no help. And if we weren't, then we were viewed as slackers. And that was the last thing I think any woman ever wants to feel.

We're just always exhausted that way. So when you push back what you need, you ignore your body and over time your system stops feeling safe. And that's why slowing down feels uncomfortable. That's why you can't just relax. That's why nothing feels like enough because you're not actually in your life anymore. You're managing it. Pretty scary thought.

So the answer isn't doing more, it's not thinking harder, it's not fixing your entire life overnight, it's this. You come back, back into your body, back into what you feel, back into yourself. I call this the alignment reset, and it's simple, but it's powerful when you actually do it.

So the first step that we're going to do is we're going to pause. And I don't mean scroll your phone or distract yourself. I mean actually stop, even for a moment, because if you never stop, you never hear yourself. So right now, just take one breath, nothing fancy, just stop the momentum for a second.

Now, put your hand on your chest and take a slow breath.

And instead of thinking, just notice. What do you feel?

not what you think you should feel, what's actually there.

Attention.

Pressure.

Numbness.

This is the part most people skip, but this is where everything changes because your body is where safety is rebuilt.

And I want to take this one step further. There are moments that we have in our life that something happens and we just kind of go crazy off the charts. Like we don't know what happened, where this thought came from, but you feel like you're out of control. Like you're the Tasmanian devil, or you've gotten really cranky all of a sudden, but you don't understand what happened. And so you're running around with your head cut off. And this happened to me.

probably a year ago when I really stopped. And I was in such a frenzy panic and I don't understand what I did or why I did it. But it was like I had to scream in my head, Kath, stop, sit down and breathe. And that's what I did because I couldn't

I didn't know what happened. I couldn't feel in control. Everything was going fine up until whatever happens. And you know, we are energetic feelings and we pick up energy from all sorts of different places. And when I did that, and I'm going to sneeze in a minute. Excuse me.

And when I did that, I just sat there and I just stopped. I closed my eyes and I just started to breathe. It was long, slow breaths, deep in holding and exhaling probably about three times before I could just get a handle. I don't know what happened at that moment. I don't think I ever did figure out what happened other than something might have shifted energetically. But what I did,

is I just got back into center and I got regrounded. I got back in control of my thoughts. I got back into control of my body because I didn't like feeling out of control. And that was because I was present. And that's what this work is when you're going back into getting back into alignment. It's about being present. What are you feeling?

Not always what we're thinking up here, but what are we feeling because it's what we feel. This is how we react. This is what we do. This is how we make decisions is based on what we're feeling inside of our heart. So when I got back into center and I felt good, then I was able to get back up and start moving again. And it was like, it was almost like, you know, a little mini squall came through and I just

instead of sitting with it and being crazy for the next three or four days, because I could have very easily done that. I was a master at doing that, of staying crazy and analyzing it from every which way and what did I do wrong and whatever I would think back then. I just said, no, I'm just, no, I'm gonna get in control. I don't know what this is. I don't care what it is. I'm just gonna get in control of it and I'm gonna move forward. And that's exactly what I did. And then I was able to get back and come back into my day.

Do you know how empowering that was? Because a lot of times we don't think we have the power to do that. We think we're victims to our emotions and we're not. I was able to respond because when you're conscious and you're present, you respond, you don't react. And that was the one thing I wanted to change was I was always reacting. Like my buttons got triggered and I went off the charts with it and I didn't want to do that anymore. So this was one way for me.

to gain control of my life when I felt crazy was to stop and think about it. If somebody pulled it, pushed a button or did something, yeah, I still went in the head trauma, the melodrama in my head sometimes, not always, but sometimes trying to understand what did I do wrong? And you know what? Sometimes it wasn't me, it was them. That maybe our season together was finally over. And it may be not because it was they wanted it over, it was that.

I was over it. It was time for me to move on because I've had a lot of people in and out of my life and I've always thought I was the one that caused it. Well, not necessarily. Yes, I did in some ways, but not the way that I thought. I just outgrew people after a while. And that's something when you start getting back into your own personal alignment, you're going to start making the conscious decision.

decisions, do I want this person in my life? Are they toxic? Are they not toxic? Are they kind? Are they not? And what I found, the more that I did that, the more I didn't want drama. I didn't want the toxicity. I wanted somebody who respected me and my boundaries. Yes, I still have stuff come up. We all have stuff come up. But it was how I was handling it. And it was the quality of people coming back. And you're the one that makes those decisions.

No one else, if you don't want somebody in your life, they don't have to be in there. So that is something to really think about when you want to take control back is being present, feel what you're feeling and then move on. And you don't have to have any answers. Just get back into your body and keep moving forward. Excuse me. So now just stay there for a second and just notice what's coming up without fixing it, without analyzing it.

Just noticing, because your clarity isn't gone. It's just been buried under everything you've been carrying. And the moment your body starts to feel safe again, that clarity starts to come back. And that is, I live this. I know exactly what this feels like when you actually can come back into your own clarity. Because some people are like, God, you're so psychic. How come you're so psychic? It's like, no, I just listen.

I listened to that inner voice of me, what it says for me. Because I remember years ago, I was talking to a friend of mine and he was saying, you know, he got this message or whatever. And I remember looking at him going, wow, I am not the psychic. I don't have to be the psychic to read people. They can do their own. And I was like such a huge, I don't know, relief or something. It was really bizarre what went through my body of realizing

that we all have the gift of intuition. And our guidance, and there are guidance counter, if there's a message coming in and we choose to listen, it's going to make our life a lot easier. Because what's right for me may not be right for you, and vice versa. And so it's trusting that and staying in your own personal power because you know what? People will respect you. People do respect you. It may not be fun and

uncomfortable in the beginning and you might have people bucking you but you know what when you when they know they know and there is nothing better than that.

And this right here, that is the beginning. It's not a massive life overhaul. It's not a complete reinvention. It's just a return. And if you do this consistently, something starts to shift. You feel calmer, clearer, and more like yourself again. And isn't that what we all want is we just want to feel like we're okay.

I know that was for me. I walked around my whole life, aside from looking over my shoulder and not fully comprehending that at the time, but I just wanted to feel okay because I never felt like I was good enough. I always felt like a misfit. I always felt like I was born in the wrong time. And thank God I was born when I was because I'm really grateful for

the life that I had in the time that I've lived it. Not that it was an easy life, but I'm grateful because of what's going on in the world today is like, I don't even know how I would have survived this at this point.

But the whole point was is that I just always wanted to feel okay with this.

I don't care how thin I was, I was fat in my mind. I was taking up too much space. Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say. Nobody loved me. These were the things that I perpetually said. Now yes, I was trained for a lot of that as a child, and I understand why those things came up, but I didn't then. And all I wanted was peace of mind. I wanted this head trash up here to go away.

I just wanted it to go away. And I thought I was the only one who ever had all that head trash because in my day, we didn't talk about head trash. We all just silently suffered. And that's what we did. We suffered in silence. That's what my generation did on a whole. And I remember when I became an esthetician and I remember the first time when it hit me, I was in a spa.

and I had a client on the table and I had been doing aesthetic work for probably about a year now, I think, somewhere in there. And she just started talking to me. I just put my hands on her face to wash her face and she started just dumping all of her stuff out. And I noticed that every woman that came into my treatment room, with just the minute I touched their face,

They vomited whatever was going on with them. And I remember, I just listened. I didn't say anything, because I was trained that if they talk, you can talk, but basically keep your mouth shut, which I did. And I just listened. I gave them a space for them to get rid of it, because that's what I created in my treatment room. I created a place of safety, because we all carry too much stuff, especially women. And when they started...

telling me things and saying things, it's like, my God, I thought I was the only one that felt that. my God, I thought I was the only one. And that was when my genuine truest healing started, when I started to realize I wasn't alone, that other people felt what I felt, other people experienced what I experienced, the exhaustion, the feeling tired, you know.

them giving themselves an hour to get a facial, even though everybody says facials are a luxury, they are not a luxury. If you have any idea how much stress you hold on your face and you can slow the aging process down by just taking care of your skin, I've seen miracles on people, miracles on what good skincare does for you. But that's not what this show's about. What the show's about is just understanding it was a whole new level

of awareness that I had that started to make me go, ⁓ hmm, I'm wondering. That's why I can talk the way I talk now because now I feel like I've lived it. I know this. I know that there's other people and I'm starting to find more and more people that are talking like this and partly because I talk like this. But there's other people that felt the same and I'm now

gravitating more to the people that are more in alignment with me because the more aligned I became with myself, the more I found the right people finding my tribe, so to speak, finding the right people to do business with. All those things that were always having issues and it was because I stopped.

is because I did the forgiveness work. It's because I stopped and dealt with everything. I read somebody wants to be on my show and what she said is she talked about my show last week and she said, wow, you're really doing the work because you're talking about this and this and this and this and I'm thinking, okay, if you say so, like I didn't know that, right? But it was just kind of an interesting thing that somebody

would actually say something like that to me, because I've never heard anybody quite say something like that to me, because I'm usually the one that everybody's running from because I'm doing the work. So it was such a pleasure and such a breath of fresh air that here's like, drew somebody in who has done the deep, hard healing work, because I am healing. And my awareness is getting bigger.

I realized over the weekend that I'm still playing small. I go and do a book signing, had a lot of fun, talked to this one woman who's just an amazing mentor and has done amazing things as an author. And she's like somehow taken me under the wing and just gives me ideas. And as we're talking, I'm going and very loudly and very subtly at the same time, I'm sitting there going, wow, I'm still playing small. Wow.

I'm still thinking I'm unworthy. And it was nothing she said. It was nothing that triggered me. It was just something in how we were showing up in the world because, you know, she's of my generation and we were talking about the things with women and how we evolved in my generation as far as having credit and things like that. Because, you know, up until I think it was what the late seventies, women didn't have their own credit cards.

Credit cards weren't a big thing yet, but they couldn't get their own credit. They had to go through the man. Okay, this is in the 70s, people. That's not very long ago. But it's funny because it was like, well, that explains why my mother always talked about having credit, because I didn't understand what she was talking about then, because I didn't know then that it was just becoming available for women. But the whole point was realizing

in just a simple conversation, a simple conversation of how small I'm still playing. And I don't even think I'm playing small. I'm doing things. I'm coming out in ways, but it can be bigger. And I've been going, well, what is that mission? And it revealed itself. I don't know where it's going, but it's revealed itself because now here's a whole new level of magic starting to happen because I realized I'm still playing small.

and I still have some worthiness issues and I decided as of what, two days ago, three days ago, was like, nope, done, it's over, gone. Checked it, threw it away. That's how fast you can change. And that's what I'm doing. And I'm just busting through it because there's an excitement now inside instead of, my God, what's gonna happen to me? I'm gonna die. No, I'm not gonna die. I already know that. Now I'm excited because if I've done this and I was learning how to do this,

Now that I know how to do this and stay in alignment, what am I capable of achieving? Because most people are not afraid of being small, they're afraid of being great. And I found that to be very true. I played small so nobody would see me and I didn't want to step into the true magnificence of who I am and I'm choosing to do that just like anybody else who wants to do the work, they are stepping up to do something even bigger and more important in their life.

So you don't need more information. You need support actually doing this. And that's what I guide women through step by step in a space where you don't have to hold everything together. So if something in you knows this is what you've been needing, then come join us at school.com forward slash I am the light sanctuary forward slash about.

where you can be with other women that are learning and growing and working on coming out. Because the one thing that people have said inside my community is, your bravery is helping me not to be so afraid, or you're just so cool, I just wanted to come kind of thing. It doesn't matter what they say, I'm not doing it for that, I'm doing it for others, for they can calm themselves down, so they can take control.

So they're not spending years going, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? And then what they're doing is overtaxing themselves. This is for you. This is about finding people that know you, that understand you, that can relate to you and the support. Because what I have found since I started my community and I've been in a few other communities,

My confidence level has grown immensely. The thing that I ran from my entire life is the thing I am running towards now. When I first started my community, was like, don't know why I'm doing this and no, I don't think so. And now I'm all in. And I've met some of the most amazing people, people I would never meet any other way.

So come join us, come join me. It's free, so just come in, join, have a look around. If it doesn't feel right, it's okay, you can leave. I don't force anybody to do anything. I hope this video helped you, gave you some quick little easy tools to get back into alignment, to reset yourself, to get your face, get yourself back to center and calm. If you know anyone who could use this,

needs support, feel free to give out the link to the YouTube channel. And if you want to learn more about what I do or want to know when the next show is coming out or anything along those lines, then click the button below and subscribe to my channel. Otherwise, I will see all of you next week, Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. And from my heart to yours, I hope you have a fabulous week.