The Journey Back to Authenticity

Welcome to the journey of an awakening spirit. 

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a sacred space where transformation begins. This podcast is your guide to rediscovering your true self, breaking free from old limitations and embracing the power of your soul's calling. Here, you'll receive practical tools, soulful insights, and uplifting conversations that remind you you are never alone on this path. We'll open the lines and dive deep into the questions that matter most to you. 

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Now, let's begin this powerful journey together with your host of the journey of an awakening spirit, Kathleen Flanagan. 

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Have you ever woken up in the morning, looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, I don't even know who I am anymore. On the outside, maybe you've done everything right. You've built a career. You've kept up with responsibilities. You played the roles you thought you were supposed to play. You look put together. People respect you. Maybe even admire you. But inside there's this quiet ache. 

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A question that whispers, where did I go? I know that feeling. I've lived it. And today I want to take you on a journey back to that part of yourself that may have forgotten the self you were before the world told you who to be. Because here's the truth. That self isn't gone. 

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She's still inside you waiting and when you reconnect with her life, life begins to feel whole again. Hello everyone and welcome to the journey of an awakening spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host. 

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And I wanted to go further into talking about this because we always don't know what's going on with ourselves. And I think back when you were a child, before the pressure to succeed, before the labels, before the rules of how you should act and who you should love. 

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Children are pure essence. They sing without caring if they're off key. They dance when they hear music without asking if they look silly. They create, they imagine, they play. But when the world starts to shape us, maybe you were told to be quiet or that your dreams were impractical. And maybe you learned that love and acceptance came when you performed a certain way. 

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or hid parts of yourself that felt too big, too loud, or too sensitive. And little by little, you learn to tuck away pieces of your soul in exchange for safety or approval. 

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Take a moment with me right now and think back. What lit you up as a child? Was it painting, climbing trees, writing stories, playing pretend? What was that thing you could do for hours and lose all sense of time? That memory, that essence is a clue. A breadcrumb trail back to who you truly are. 

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And I remember when years ago I was looking at who was I and what lit my heart up when I was younger because I knew at one point there was a time when I needed to exercise and I wanted to do something more and I wasn't sure what to do because I knew going to the gym was not what made me happy. mean, I would go to the gym but it wasn't something that kept me consistently going to the gym. 

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So I had to think back of what would I do that wouldn't feel like I was exercising, but I was still exercising. And it took some time to go back into those recesses of my mind because it had been a long time since I had been there and I came up with dance. I love to dance. I always love to dance. The music played and my body was moving. And so I decided that it was time to go into ballroom dancing and 

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I always thought you had to have a partner when I was younger and I was never going to get a partner because most of the men I was with was like, I'm not doing that. So I decided I was going to do it and lo and behold, I discovered I didn't need to have a dance partner. And it lit my heart up. My heart was so alive and so happy and everything in my world changed because I did something that made me feel good. I didn't care what people thought and I wanted to just constantly be 

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in a different place. I wanted to take those masks off because I did hide. I hid for a long time where I was putting on a mask, trying to be something that I wasn't, trying to prove that I was somebody different than who I was and I had it all together and on the inside I wasn't together by any stretch of the imagination. And I just felt like I was always like had, what is it? 

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duct tape, holding myself together because if it was anything weaker than duct tape, I would have fallen apart and I didn't like that idea. So it wasn't that I didn't have a lot of fun in my life. I didn't laugh. didn't carry on. I was always trying to stay reserved because I learned over the years that if I had too much fun, people had an issue or they got insecure and it was their stuff and not mine, but I didn't understand that yet. And 

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You know, today somebody, I was talking to a friend of mine today briefly and she said something about that I'm one of her more angrier people. I'm like, wow, okay, I think I've changed that and here I am still showing that. But she said it wasn't that way and I understood what she was saying. But what she said was that I allowed my anger to express. I allowed that full goddess energy to come out because you know the goddesses get cranky too. So just... 

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know that people that, know, just because it's Mother Mary or Mary Magdalene or Quan Yin, they're goddesses, they're women, and they get cranky too. And I have a case in point that they actually did that when a man violated me in a way where my mother had just recently passed away. I was in this deep state of grief. He didn't like me there. That was his stuff, not mine. And he said, I can take... 

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take it away and I said no. He said I can move it for you, said no. Because I just knew that I didn't want, whatever he was gonna do, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. Took me an hour to get off that table. I was in such a place of despair, I had never felt that to that degree. And I was so angry and it took months, months to get through this. And I remember seeing him several months later. 

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And he decided to come up and talk to me. And he said that he didn't know what happened, but he had gotten burned where his skin was all red. He couldn't wear clothes. The doctors couldn't explain what happened to him. 

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And as he's telling me this story, Spirit, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, all the goddesses were sitting here telling me what was going on. And I looked at them and I said, you know why this happened? It's because you pissed off the goddesses. I told you no, you violated this. You claimed that you cared about women. You care that you respected them, but you did everything but prove that. And so they got angry because you did not respect me when I said no. And so they burned you. 

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And the other thing that I got out of that was like, whoa, I didn't think they would do stuff like that, but they do. And we are women and we do that. We do have this place. But what she was saying to me was, feel, when I'm angry, I feel it. I don't think it, I'm not like a man who has to analyze why am I feeling this way? I'm in the raw emotion of whatever that is. And if I'm angry at somebody, 

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I've learned over the years to take it out and give it to the person who caused it, not come home and kick the dog or beat up my husband or whatever it is. I learned to do that. 

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And I realized at that moment that we're allowed to be that person. But see, I had a lot of that stuff beaten up out of me. I was told I was a crybaby because I would rather be angry than be called a crybaby. And I decided that I don't care if I want to be a crybaby, I'm going to be a crybaby because that's part of what emotions are. We are fully expressed emotional human beings. We have emotions for a reason. We learn through our emotions. And I wanted to just come back into that place of 

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If this is what I'm feeling, it's okay to feel that. And most people sit there and they stuff their emotions. And what she was telling me was how much of that she learned over the years from abusive marriage, previous marriage, and that kind of thing that she learned to stuff that. And this thing that happened yesterday triggered a bunch of stuff. And when it triggered it, what she was getting was... 

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my God, I just stuffed so much of who I am and not feeling and not allowing herself to feel the rage that she was feeling, but just really like not allowing anything to happen. 

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Excuse me. 

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Excuse me. 

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And I think that's really important to really look at and pay attention to is we need to be allowed to express who we are and not be in fear. And if our partner doesn't like how we're responding or doing things, then that's their problem. It's not our problem. We're supposed to be fully self-expressed. We should be allowed. And if we are self-actualized and we understand who we are and we're taking responsibility for who we are, 

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then that's what you do. You allow those emotions to express. You get to speak up and stand up for yourself. And we live in a society right now that if we stand up, we go to jail, we get killed, people beat us up, we get punished, whatever it is. And that's a form of bullying, it's a form of control over you. And then what you're doing is you're allowing your fear to take over that part of you. And I came to the, I'm gonna tell you something people. 

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I'm into the conspiracy theory and I'm just gonna leave it at that. So when I was in this process and I was studying what was going on, I had an ingia foot from dancing, I had tendonitis and I didn't know if I was ever gonna walk, be able to dance again because it seemed like it took forever. Well, I ended up going down the street I had never gone, it was a hill and it was a school at the bottom of the hill and there was a cop sitting there and I got nailed for radar. Now I wasn't going as fast as he claimed I was going because I know my brakes were on. 

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but it's his word against mine. So I decided I was gonna contest the ticket, so I went to court. 

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Because I went to court, I knew exactly what the judge was doing because he wasn't working on my favor. He was not an impartial judge because he was being paid by the city of North Glen. And when you're being paid by the city of North Glen, it's not you and you don't have any rights because they are being, their paycheck comes from the city. And I called him out on that. And then I went out and got his op steel, the lack thereof that was in the secretary of state. And I nailed him on that. And I nailed this man for everything under the sun that I could nail him for. And he knew I was right. Everything I said. 

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So he actually went to get the bailiff, like to haul me off. And when I took, when he, and when I saw that and I looked over and I saw the bailiff standing up, I looked back at the judge and I'm thinking, are you frigging kidding me? You are afraid of a female with a foot that I couldn't run if I wanted to. You are that intimidated by me? And I looked at him like that and he read, 

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my mind. And then he motioned to the bailiff to sit down because it was like, you have got to be kidding. You know what that judge did? He recused himself and there was another judge brought on because he knew that I was right and he knew that I could nail his ass to the wall. And I'm very proud of myself for that because what I did is I didn't stand up, I didn't let him intimidate me because everything that I said, I was right on. 

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I am a common law person. am a human being. When we go into the court systems, we are a corporation, all caps, corporation, the flag with the yellow fringe around it, Admiralty, we're on the water. We're now, we're supposed to be in a common law court and we're not. And I nailed them for that. But see, that was one of the first things that I did was that's when I started to take my mask off because I started to see what was going on in the world. 

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It doesn't matter if it's right, wrong, good or bad. It didn't matter. None of that mattered. What I got out of it was I understood who I was and not that I participate in conspiracy because I don't, I don't do any of that anymore. What it did is it took me back and made me remember who I was and it did something on the inside when I realized that I'm a sovereign. 

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and that I am a child of God and I am not a corporation and that everything on this planet is designed to torture us in my opinion. But I also know that it also let me to remember that I have something to say. I'm in control of my thoughts, words, actions, and deeds. So yeah, I'm hiding in plain sight if you wanna call it that because I played a lot of stupid little games about hiding in plain sight. 

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And I really understood how this all worked. It's not a big deal, didn't care. But see, that was me becoming aware of me. That was me becoming aware because, know, I still always believed in the golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated, treat people with kindness and respect, be nice to people, take responsibility for what you do. I did all of that and I still do that. So I figured as long as I'm living like that kind of person, 

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then I am still being the kind of person that I want to and it doesn't matter what other people are trying to do to manipulate me, is that's what I'm doing. So that's the first step is become aware of yourself. Reclaim what you don't recognize and simply notice where you've been living by expectation rather than authenticity because that's what begins the healing. When I remembered who I was is when 

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more of the mass of healing started to happen. The second step is develop compassion. And what I noticed that when I started, I mean, I was always compassionate, that wasn't an issue with me. But I think what happened was the more I learned about me and the more I understood myself, the deeper my compassion went for others, the more forgiving I could be instead of they're doing this to me. 

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or they don't like me or whatever the self-talk I was, I started to realize this isn't about me, it's about them. And there's more people in the world besides me. And people don't look at it that way, but there are. You when you got these road ragers or these people driving 100 miles an hour, they think they're the only ones on the planet. And it's like, do you realize you could kill people? And if you're gonna die, I hope it's just you who dies and nobody else goes with you. Because they think it's a game and they don't. 

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realize that cars can be weapons. And I just do what I'm going to do. If they don't like it, they can go around me. I don't care. I don't play games on the highway. I just don't. I think it's ridiculous. But see, when you don't, when you didn't lose yourself, 

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Okay, when you develop compassion, you didn't lose yourself because you were weak. You hid pieces of yourself to survive. And I did that. And I know I did all of that. I wanted to be safe and I wanted to be loved. So I knew that if I did those things, then I would be okay. And that was my wisdom for that time. And it's okay. What we did to survive is what we did. And it's all okay. There's nothing wrong with it. 

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but now you're strong enough to bring those pieces home. There's enough people out there that can help us get through and navigate traumas that happen, abuses that happen to us. That's what I mean by taking responsibility. You don't have to let those paradigms continually run you. And then the third step is start developing curiosity. Ask the deeper questions. If you're comfortable, close your eyes, take in a deep breath, 

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and exhale slowly. 

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I want you to take, I want to take you through a short visualization. 

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Imagine yourself as a child. 

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See yourself in your mind's eye. 

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What are you doing? 

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Are you drawing? 

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laughing? 

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exploring. 

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Notice the joy. 

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Notice your freedom. 

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and notice your light. 

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Walk up to that little child of you and sit beside him or her. 

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and ask gently. 

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What do you want me to remember? 

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Really listen. 

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Maybe the child says, don't stop singing. Or maybe you're enough. 

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or maybe he or she takes your hand and just smiles at you. 

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Whatever the child gives you, trust it. 

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Take another breath. 

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and open your eyes when you're ready. 

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That child is still inside of you. She or he has never left. And every time you honor the child by doing something you love, by speaking your truth, by choosing joy, you bring him or her back to life. 

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So how do we begin to live from that place again? 

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Do a daily check-in. Every morning ask yourself, am I doing this because it's true for me or because it's expected of me? 

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that one question can give you a lot of choices. 

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Establish boundaries. Learn to say no. Saying no to what drains you is saying yes to your soul. And that's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. And it doesn't matter what somebody else thinks or how they feel or what their reaction is. Stand firm in it. As scary as it may be the first time you say no to somebody, do it anyways. 

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When I first said no to somebody, it made all the difference in the world because it was a way of taking my power back. It was so incredibly subtle and yet I felt like I was moving mountains inside of me. You're not a bad person and if they think that, then maybe you don't need to be around that person anymore. You're allowed to take care of you because nobody's going to take care of you like you do. Nobody's going to love you like you do. And that's something that... 

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Boundaries are so critical. You have a right to be heard, you have a right to have your needs met, just like everybody else on the planet. And you learn to compromise if you need to do that or not. And then start reigniting your passions. Go back to something that you loved as a child. Mine was dance. My whole world changed when I got back into dance. Everything changed. 

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I moved to Illinois, I wrote my books. Yes, I went through a lot of stuff back then, but I still, I was excited, I was happy, miracles were happening, I was meeting new people. So much was being done and I was recreating my life the way I wanted my life. I did not know I had that much power in my life until I did this. 

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You know, when I bought my house, it was, well, what do I want my house to look like? Because I had pieces of my mother's furniture, I had grandma's furniture. It was like I had everything but what I liked. And then what I did like, it was like this was for my marriage, I don't want it anymore. And so that's what I started to do was, well, what is it that I want? And I wanted color. I have so much color in my house. You can see I have a purple wall behind me. 

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It was the way I did it with, I just brought in so much more color and it made me feel good. It made me feel alive. It made me feel vibrant. And it was me. It was me. It was, this is who I am. I went into mid-century modern. I love Scandinavian design. You know, I liked simplicity. Simple, but elegant. That is who I am. Simple and elegant. And that's exactly how I created my house. 

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And I love it because it's so me, because there's warmth in it. And yet there was, it's just, to me, it's just a perfect balance. And that's coming back to yourself. That's when you start rediscovering is that you bring your house back to you and you're not doing your mom's or your grandma's or your neighbor's or whatever. And then you find, and then whatever else, what are your hobbies? What do you love to do? Because that all brings you back to your authentic self. 

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And when you're living authentically, it doesn't mean you're abandoning your responsibilities. It just means that you're aligning with your life so that the outer world reflects your inner truth. It means remembering that you are more than the roles that you play and you are a soul here to shine. Because I know a lot of you are probably thinking because it's so crazy and hectic in the world today, who am I? Why am I here? What is my bigger purpose? 

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And until you can start answering those questions and until you go inside of yourself, you'll never have those answers until you actually start doing that work. And before the world told you who to be, you are already whole and you are still whole and complete just the way that you are. You didn't do anything wrong. You did what you needed to do. This is the path that you chose for yourself, but now it's time to wake up and take control of your life because you're already worthy. 

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and you are already radiant. And that self you think you lost, she's still there. She's been waiting for you to remember, just like me. The journey that I've been on in the last year and a half of taking me back and revisiting my entire life was the most perfect life I could have given myself. It may have sucked to be me. It may not have been the most pretty life that anybody ever had, but where I am today was well worth it. 

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everything I went through to be here right now. 

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And I want to leave you with this invitation. This week, just take one small step to honor your true self. And maybe it's saying no when you really, when you usually would say yes, or maybe it's dusting off an old passion, or maybe it's journaling with your inner child. Because I can promise you that when you do that inner child work and she's angry or he's angry at you, 

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When you start reconnecting with that inner child, your life will change because now you're honoring you. You're honoring what needs to be done and that little boy or girl inside of you knows who you are and wants to participate with you, but it's also afraid. So when you start nurturing that child, you're nurturing yourself as well. Because every step you take back toward authenticity brings you closer to peace, joy, and freedom. 

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And I promise you when you take off all the mask and live as who you really are, the world doesn't reject you. The right people, the right opportunities, the right life begins to rise up to meet you. And it's miracles. It's like miracles are happening in your life that you didn't know, but it's all because you are letting the world see you for who you are. I keep watching what's coming towards me. 

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because who I am and the more I stand up and do the things that I'm doing, the more I see what's going on, the more miracles that are happening, the more amazing people are showing up in my life. And who knows where this is going, but it's so exciting. And that's what you can expect too. 

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because life rises up to meet you. Isn't that a cool thing to say? I mean, I love that because life is meeting you. It's meeting you on your terms and it's also driving you to get closer to who you are and why you're here on this planet as well. So ask yourself, who was I before the world told me who to be? And then have the courage to live with that answer. I put together 

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a little questionnaire on remembering the self that you forgot. And I'm putting it together and I'll have it in the show notes when I get it finished. It's just about done, but it's not there. I also have the activation, the activation guide, the light activation guide. I do have a de-stress meditation on the Kathleen Flanagan site. I do have services. Feel free to call me if you need somebody to just help navigate through things that are going on. 

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I appreciate you being here today. It means the world to me. And if you like the channel and liked what you heard, feel free to subscribe to get messages when the new shows are coming out. And if you know somebody who is in need of hearing this, then feel free to send them the link. 

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I really appreciate it. My mission is to help you guys remember who you are because we are in such dark times on so many levels and yet the light is shining so brightly on the planet. 

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I'm here to help wake you up. I'm here to help you remember who you are. There is so much more that you can be than what you think. We are beyond the nine to five. We are more than sex. We are more than alcohol and drugs. We are more than reality TV. You know, the TV dramas that you watch, that's your life. Turn off that kind of stuff and create that kind of life for yourself. 

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It's all there for you. All you have to do is just change who you are, change your thinking and move in that new direction. And yes, it's going to have moments, but you know what? Every bit of it is worth it when you can get on the other side and you were the best that you could be because that's all I ever wanted to be. I wanted to be the best that I could be. And I wanted to experience life to the fullest, whatever that looked like. And you have that opportunity to do the same thing. 

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So I wanna thank all of you for being here and joining me today. This is Kathleen Flanagan with the journey of an awakening spirit and I will see you all next Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and from my heart to yours, I hope you have a fabulous week. Bye for now. 

Kathleen (30:25.674)

You've been listening to the journey of an awakening spirit with your host, Kathleen Flanagan. Join us each week as Kathleen invites those who are ready to awaken, heal and rise to live their highest vision anchored in love, joy and truth. Tuesdays, 4 p.m. Eastern. 

www.kathleenmflanagan.com

www.youtube.com/@KathleenMFlanagan

Dancing Souls Book One - The Call

Dancing Souls Book Two - The Dark Night of the Soul

Dancing Souls Book Three - Awakened

www.awakeningspirit.com

www.grandmasnaturalremedies.net

De-Stress Meditation

kmf@kathleenmflanagan.com