Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. And as you can see, we have a special guest here today. My good friend Karen Perusse. Hi Karen. Hi Anne. Thanks for having me. I am very happy to have you here today. Karen is a longtime practitioner of Raja Yoga meditation, 28 years plus of meditation practice and study, and she's also a spiritual life coach specializing in helping women and in relationships, so welcome, welcome, welcome, Karen, to the program. Thank you so much. So our topic today is opening your heart, open your heart. Mm-hmm. And what I'd like to do is just start off with you talking about what it is you do as a spiritual life coach, because I think it perfectly fits into the topic and mm-hmm. I just wanna give you the floor and just describe a little bit about what you do and how you help women especially, but how you help people in relationships. Right. Thank you so much Anne. So this actually came out of my own personal experience of, being in a bad marriage and then years later getting into another bad relationship. And so I really had to look within about what is it that I am doing to attract this type of relationship and to enable this kind of behavior. And so I had to do a lot of deep soul searching. And, um, now that I've gotten to the other side of that and really restored my own self-respect, because I feel like that's the number one thing to open my heart to is to myself. And so getting to the other side of that, then I want to share that knowledge and help other women who are struggling in a bad relationship that is just, you know, dragging their heart through the mud. So what do you think, if you were talking like, what would be the first kind of steps that you would take with someone and what would be a good match for your service? What kind of person, what kind of situation would be a good match? If anybody's listening out here, how would they know if they're a good candidate to work with you? So the perfect candidate would be someone who's trying to decide whether to stay in the relationship or go. Someone who is in a relationship that they don't feel that who they are is being honored. They're feeling disrespected, they're feeling like they have to play it small for the sake of the relationship. And so that would be ideal. And what I do is help women connect with their own inner wisdom. Because within the soul, within our true spiritual being, there is a place of wisdom. And that wisdom is there to guide us. But as women, we are often raised to seek other people's opinions and to live by other people's standards. And so we are trained through life to listen outside instead of listen with Ed. And so that's part of what I do, is to teach women to. To listen to and to trust their own inner wisdom and to let that be their guide and to return to that place of self-respect. How long do you work with people? What is the, what is the common amount of time that you would work with someone? It could be anywhere from 10 weeks to years. Hmm. Because what ha it, it depends on what you wanna invest in the journey. Like, do you just wanna get through the moment or do you want to keep going on? Because here's what happens, you solve the relationship, you get out of that and you go, whew, okay, I made it. And the next thing you know, now it's happening at work. Now there's something else coming up. And then you're like, wait a minute, I thought I solved this. How am I back in the same situation? Because you know, as humans there's layers. And as soon as you peel back one layer, well there's another layer. And so it's, you know, it's a journey. It's not a snap done, solved over. It is a journey. So, to the point of the topic today, open your heart. I was also in a relationship, a, a prior marriage that I was not, that was not good for me, and I. I didn't even know that my heart was closed. I knew I was not happy, and I knew I was in pain, but I didn't even realize that I had the potential to express myself authentically and express myself truly into the world. I like what you said about having to ask other people and feeling like you don't even know. It's just so ingrained. Mm-hmm. That it doesn't even feel like I'm asking. It just feels like this is what I do. It's so automatic that I wouldn't even notice that I'm doing it. It's all the time. It's every time. The, the idea of. Taking my own counsel wasn't even on the menu. Right, right. So I, I mean, for me, I know with, I'm a practitioner of Raja Yoga meditation as well. So I know that this process brings you back to my self-respect and part of the hurdles were to be able to trust myself and then past that is the opening your heart. So can you talk a little bit about what is it like to begin to trust yourself? What happens and what are the pitfalls? Like is this a place where people quit? Is this a place where the old stuff comes back, and then what happens after that? Where does the opening of the heart begin in the process? Right. So I feel like there's three main steps in learning to trust your own inner wisdom. The first step is to recognize the voice of your wisdom, because we have a lot of chatter going on inside our head, and it's all coming from different places. So step one would be to recognize, oh, this is the voice of my inner wisdom. The second part is to quiet the mind down enough so that your wisdom gets a worded edgewise, because your mind is constantly in. Right. And so when I say quiet mind down enough, what you wanna do is to be able to hold on to an elevated spiritual thought for a few seconds. So if I were to think I am a peaceful soul, so I'm able to hold that thought without getting distracted for a good couple of seconds. So that's what I mean by slowing the mind down. And then the third step, which is a huge step, is trusting that inner wisdom. Because very often we have so many habits. Our thoughts are habitual. How we handle relationships is habitual. How we handle adversity, all of that is habitual. And your inner wisdom is gonna wanna take you out of that comfort zone and say, let's handle things a little bit different. And so it, it's a big step. To trust that, but I think that that is also a big step to learning, to trust yourself and to come back to self-respect. Hmm. Yeah. I'm wondering like when you're, when you do the coaching mm-hmm. Are you working with people? I mean, I've done coaching before and it seems like coaching is like the person is using you as a way to reflect a situation, let's say, and then you are bringing in another level of understanding. And then because it's a situation that's actually happening, it kind of brings realization or transformation. Is that kind of how you work it with the, with the clients? Yes. Yes. And a lot of it is looking at old patterns. Mm-hmm. Because believe it or not. Unfortunately, we tend to attract the pain that we are comfortable with, and so if you really study it, whatever emotions are coming up in your relationship are probably very familiar to you that you suffered as a child, and so you are finding people that are going to trigger those emotions for you. And so part of that is correct? Correct. Why would we do that though? So tell me why would we do that though? I mean, I kind of know the answer, but kind of the answer, but why? I mean. Just, just for the sake of somebody who's watching this, like, and they're listening to you and they, maybe they're not aware, right? Mm-hmm. Maybe they're not fully aware that they're doing that. Why would somebody keep going after the painful thing? Why would we do that? Right? Because we, we absolutely would not do it if we were aware, right? But, um, right. Nobody would do it in their right mind. So why is it that we keep doing that? I think there's a couple of things going on here. One is that it's comfortable, it's familiar, and part of it is our own self image of what I feel like I'm worthy of. Part of it is our thoughts about ourselves, create a vibration. And every soul has their own vibration. And so other souls, there's this very subtle thing going on between souls that you're sign sending out this signal of this is my pain, this is my hurt. And the right person that's going to supply that pain and hurt is picking up on that signal. And we feel somewhere on some level that there's a match going on there. Hmm. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I, and then like, there's pain and it's like, it's confusing, isn't it? It's confusing it. That's why we need, that's why I have a job, right? Yeah. Because it is confusing and it, it helps to have somebody help walk you through that. It's very hard to walk alone. Uh, yeah, I, I, yeah, I totally agree. And then just to bring it to the opening of the heart piece, what happens after you work some of this out? What does it mean to open your heart and what does it mean to come out on the other side of this, of these scenarios? 'cause I think that there's so many people, it's not just relationships, although that's kind of pretty common and deep because you're in, it's at work. Yes. It's your own self image. Yes. It's with other friends. It's with your family. So it's all over. So what is it like once we, we commit and start working these things out, what, is there an opening that happens? Describe what happens as the positive outcome and how does that, if we wanna say, opening your heart, like how does that translate into that? Okay. So let me first start with what's, what's gonna happen if you don't. Because like you said, it's everywhere. It's work. It's friendships, it's family members, it's neighbors. So if you choose not to heal and just to reject the person and to blame them, it's all them. And it had nothing to do with me. I'm the victim here. What happens is that situation's gonna come back. In some other shape or form. So even if you decide not to get into another relationship, it's going to come up from somewhere. So somewhere at some point you are gonna have to look within and do the healing. And what comes out on the other side is so much strength, and I know we keep harping on self-respect, but that it's not a small thing. Self-respect is huge, and I feel like if I had one gift to give the world, it would be self-respect because so much goodness and so much positivity comes out of being able to stand in your own self-respect, being able to look in the mirror and like who you see. I wanna add something to that. I was talking to somebody yesterday about self-respect and you know, we're both Raja Yogis, we're both in spirituality and uh, we teach spiritual knowledge and so forth. So some we get into these conversations. Mm-hmm. And I was talking to somebody and we were talking about self-respect, and I asked the person, well, what do you think self-respect is? Or what is the 'cause? I was talking about service, but we're not talking about service in this. Episode specifically, but I was talking about what's the connection between service and self-respect? And actually we can put it into service. We can just say actions. Mm-hmm. Like what's the connection between actions and self-respect? And I said to the person, you begin to feel proud of yourself. Mm-hmm. So can anybody who's listening right now, can you say that you're proud of yourself? Being proud of something usually has to do with action or how you're showing up. Mm-hmm. You know, I'm proud of you that you were able to do that. I'm proud of you for working so hard. I'm proud of you. There's action involved and it's provable to you. So is that kind of fit into what you're talking about? Like as the person goes through this process, their actions are changing and they start to feel a little bit. Like we're calling it self-respect, but do you feel, do you begin to feel proud of yourself, like on the other side of this? I think so. Ooh, yes. But I feel like there's a difference between being proud of yourself by what's on the outside. I am proud of myself because of my accomplishments. I'm a proud of myself because of the car I drive, or you know, these outside things. But this is really coming within and I'm proud of myself. Because of the person that I am, because I have realized my own value and what I have to share with the world, my virtues, my qualities, my own inner beauty. And that is true self-respect. When I realize what I've come to this world to share and how special that is, and I feel like when you are full of that, then you are less needy on the outside. You don't need people to praise you. You don't need people to agree with you, you don't need to please people and to be a doormat because you are so full of who you are and feel so good about yourself within. Beautiful. So hopefully this has been an interesting talk for everyone listening today. I wanna thank Karen so much for joining us today. Her information is in the description below and her website and on Facebook and on website is called Spiritual Breakup Solutions. And you can get a coaching session with her. Yes. Can you say, can you say what it is, Karen? What's the, what is the first, uh, contact with you like. So, uh, on my website you could sign up for a free heart clarity call. That's what I was trying to remember, the words. Okay. Yes, a free Heart clarity call where we can just talk to each other and you can tell me a little bit about what's going on and I can tell you a little bit about what my methods are and we can just see if we're a good match for each other. So that way, you know, there's nothing to lose. Mm-hmm. Great. So everyone, if you're interested in this, and this feels like something that maybe you could benefit from, Karen's information is in the description below. And again, I wanna thank you, Karen, very much for being here. It's always nice to have you. And this was a great topic and very, very important. And both of us have been through this. Yes, yes. And I'm sure we're not alone. No, we're definitely not. And so we're, we're broadcasting those vibrations now. Right? We're on the other side. Side. It's, you know, not just women. It's not just women. A lot of men have been through this too. Right. I'm glad you said that because everyone can get into a situation like this, and this inner reflection and transformation is available for everyone. Yeah. Okay, so we'll end it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower and Serve. And until next time, take care everyone. Thanks, Karen. Thank you, Anne. All righty. Bye-bye. Bye.
