Returning to Yourself When You Thought You Already Had

In this episode, I’m sharing what it really feels like to return to myself after a season of change, divorce finalizing, traveling through Europe, coming home to unexpected fear, unexpected grief, and the quiet rebuilding that happens in the messy middle.

This isn’t a story about being “finished” or having it all figured out.
 It’s a story about remembering who you are, even after life shakes you in ways you didn’t expect.

Inside the episode, I talk about:

• Why self-discovery is a cycle, not a destination
• The version of me I met while traveling, and why I miss her
• What knocked me off-center when I came home
• Letting joy back in when fear takes over
• Anchor points, shadows, and nervous system healing
• What solitude taught me during a literal power outage
• How I’m learning to be a better friend to myself

If you’ve been feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, or unsure of who you are lately, this episode is for you. You haven’t lost yourself. You’re becoming.

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Transcript

Naming The Messy Middle

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We are all in some sort of a messy middle together. We are all becoming, we are all experiencing things. And if I don't share my messy middle, how can I expect you to feel okay going through yours? I found myself in a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, in grief that I had left behind before I had gone onto my trip that had seemed to follow me. And I felt like I lost some of myself. Self-discovery is not a destination. Spending time with yourself can feel scary and it can feel overwhelming. And it's interesting because I consider myself a good time. Returning to yourself, it's a rhythm, it's a continuous remembering. Welcome to the I Will Know You podcast with your host, Arlene Solis, here to talk about and dive into the heart of self-discovery, one connection and one story at a time. Woo! Feels good. Feels good to get that out. It feels good to say that. It feels good to be back in front of the microphone after a bit of time off. And I know it's been a minute. And no, I didn't disappear. I've just been living. I have been living so much life. And in the middle of what has felt like so much of my own becoming, it's been really hard to hit the record button, a lot harder than I expected it to be, especially as somebody who enjoys storytelling and wants to help all of you and wants to be there for everybody and wants to share all of the things that I've learned and having that strong sense of knowing my voice and wanting to share my voice. But I kept thinking to myself, well, I want it to feel perfect. Like I want to feel ready to get back in front of the camera, get back in front of my microphone. And I was giving myself all of the excuses in the world. So I would live something really big, something would happen. I would have this huge epiphany. I would journal about it and say, I'm gonna record. And then I would give myself some sort of an excuse like, oh, well, my makeup's not done, or oh, I just have too many meetings today, or you know, my brain's really tired. I had a really hard week, or you know, I'm going out this weekend, I'm going on a date, I have stuff going on, I've been seeing someone, just all of this stuff that's been going on. And I've been really distracted, not just from the podcast, but from myself. And so this episode is all about returning to yourself and what does that feel like? And I feel like it's very fitting based on, again, the time, everything that's gone on over the past few months. And I didn't even need to have lived all the things I lived over the summer and in the fall to have to wait to record. I have so much content and so much, so many things that have gone on. But instead, I just kept putting myself in analysis paralysis and saying to myself, okay, Arlene, you want it to be perfect. Well, you have to live the thing first and then go through it and go through the whole cycle and know what the ending of this is going to be like or the next part of that experience. And instead, I realized that that's not true. That we are all in some sort of a messy middle together. We are all becoming, we are all experiencing things. And if I don't share my messy middle, how can I expect you to feel okay going through yours? Like, how can I motivate and inspire you from this place of perfection rather than this place of realness and rawness, which is to me one of the biggest parts of becoming and knowing yourself and growing in that. And that analysis paralysis and that uh continued, all of those continued excuses really made me into somebody who I felt like my words and my actions were not matching. And that's important to me. It is important to me that what I say I do and what I say I mean and who I say I'm gonna be or become, like I do those things. And when other people around me, when their words and their actions don't match, it definitely doesn't make me happy. So why am I doing that to myself? Why, why am I putting myself in that position? And I have a really great mentor who hooked me up with a really great business coach. And I've been working with her, and she has really been helping me see that this messy middle of life, of what life is, of what it can become, of who I am and the way that I'm gonna help others happens a lot in this middle part, not necessarily through the triumph or through that initial huge part of pain. It's the middle, it's the processing, it's the feeling, it's the being present. And so it's not because I didn't want to be here. I just didn't feel the readiness inside of me. And even in some ways, I still don't feel some of that readiness, but I am here and I am here sharing my messy middle and sharing how I've been returning to myself after a period of maybe not quite feeling like myself and trying to get back there, which I know many people have shared with me over the past few months. They're having their own versions of this. And so it felt important for me to talk about it and share about it in a way that was going to really help move you forward, help move me forward, and again, just keep us going on this journey of self-discovery. So let's talk about where I've been, what I've been up to, um, a little bit about what life has been navigating for me a bit. So over the past bit of time, there have been a few big things that have happened. The first one is my divorce finalized, and we are not gonna get into all the details of that because I have a whole episode about it. Same thing with going to Europe. I went to Europe for three weeks and I met a version of myself I had never met before. I saw parts of myself and experienced things that I hadn't dreamed of, and that was so incredible. And then I got home and I found myself in a lot of fear of what was happening around me, in a lot of anxiety, in grief that I had left behind before I had gone onto my trip that had seemed to follow me when I got back to my day-to-day life. And I felt like I lost some of myself. And that has been hard. It's been hard to accept that, especially when you feel like, oh, I have this really strong sense of self. And when hard things happen, I'm gonna be able to show up as the new me, not as the versions of me in the past that I had seen before. But I actually realize that self-discovery is not an arrival, it's not a destination. It's this continuous journey and this continuous process, and it's cyclical. You return to yourself over and over and over again. You experience the thing, you process it, you heal, you cry, you grow, you move on, and then the next thing happens. And I had assumed that, and I think everyone's like, oh, you know, this is a really hard week, and then next week things will be lighter. Next week I'll do this, or next month will be easier because this is going on. And that's when I'll invest in myself. That's when I'll spend some time with myself and really process what's been going on or process what I've what I've been dealing with. And not the case. Not the case as I have learned. I think that you return to yourself through joy, through fear, through endings, through beginnings, through new experiences, through meeting your shadows, meeting the parts of yourself that you maybe thought were had gone away, but they've come back, and finding new anchor points for yourself, of parts of yourself that you meet and you want to keep. And hey, like I've really like for me, when I was in Italy, there was an aliveness and a presence to me that I had never seen before and I had never experienced before. And I've been holding on to that and trying to find it as I've come home and noticed that it's been harder, that it was a lot easier for me to fall back into my shadows than it was for me to step into my light in the way that I felt like I had been stepping into it over the past couple of years. And so while this episode is not about my divorce specifically, and it's not about my trip specifically, it's about what comes after. It's about the versions of me that have emerged, the versions of me that are meeting each other for the first time and how I'm carrying that sense of self moving forward. Now, when I talk about losing yourself, I don't want it to seem like, oh, it's this one big event that happens, and you're like, wait, who am I? What do I believe in? Like, what did I do here? A friend of mine uses this analogy when he talks about trust. But for me, I feel like it really rings true for self-discovery and a sense of self and self-worth. And that's that you build it in drips and drops and you lose it in buckets. And that has been the case for me, where again, I thought that if I came up against a situation, I would look at it differently and that my brain would maybe approach it differently. And in some ways, that just hasn't happened. And as I've been able to look back and think to myself, like, why is my nervous system so jacked up right now? Why do I feel this way? A lot of that has been external circumstances, but it's also been my own brain and the way that I've related to these situations, or the way that I've seen things, or the way that I've catastrophized uh different things that are happening around me and let fear become more of an anchor than any of the other things that I had learned over the past couple years or so. Fear of grief, fear of loss, fear of what's happening in the world, of you know, who I am, my own identity. A lot, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of ambiguity. And when you're somebody who is anxious, has an anxious attachment style, can catastrophize, ambiguity, uncertainty, and a feeling like a loss of control is something that will absolutely light your nervous system on fire. And mine, honey, has been on fire for a minute. But I've worked really hard to look back and say, okay, how much am I participating in my own suffering? How much of this is me? How much of this are my mental patterns and the things that maybe protected me in the past but are no longer protecting me moving forward when it comes to my thinking patterns and the way that I process things. What am I not feeling? If I'm not feeling it, I'm not healing it. And why am I surprised? I don't love being, and I've said this in other episodes before, I don't love being surprised by my reactions to things or what I see from myself. Because to me, that is part of knowing yourself. And that surprise becomes an invitation to ask yourself, like, why did I react that way? Why am I nervous about this? This doesn't seem like something I should be so nervous about or something that I should be so worried about, but I am, and I feel like my body is not letting me let that go. And so I also have noticed in that loss of some of that confidence or that loss of some of that strong sense of self, part of that had to do with the way that I was and wasn't processing emotions and things that were happening to me. Like I would feel an emotion, and I am somebody who tends to categorize emotions as being productive or not. So I would feel an emotion and then feel like I sat with that enough and it's time to move on. And if that emotion came back up, I was really hard on myself about it and be like, I've cried about this enough. Like I should be over this. Like I was separated for a couple of years, or you know, this thing happened a long time ago, or hey, this is just the outcome of this. What does it look like to have radical acceptance and just move forward? But instead, I because I wasn't letting these emotions move through me, they kind of ran my life from underneath me. And I continued to let that happen. And so returning to myself and acknowledging that I wasn't feeling like myself, but trying to resist that and trying to tell myself, well, no, like I've done all this work. I'm going to therapy, I'm going to healing, I went to Europe. Like I've done all of these things. So this sadness that's emerging from my divorce or from loss or from whatever I'm going through in life, like, where is this coming from? And why am I still feeling this way? Like, I'm tired of feeling this way. I don't want to feel this anymore. And so I just kept kind of pushing things and pushing things away until all of a sudden I'm waking up with, you know, my heart racing a bit. And I'm thinking about the worst case scenario all the time about any type of something that might happen. And that's what I call my shadows. So I think that each of us have our shadows. And if you've never done a shadow work journal, I absolutely recommend it. There's one on Amazon that's amazing. But your shadows are really the places where you can kind of come back to and say, okay, that's a pattern that no longer serves me. Or I've reacted in this way before, but that doesn't feel like me now, but it's still me. Like I'm watching myself react this way. I'm watching myself catastrophize. I'm sitting in this uncomfortable feeling and not letting it move through me. And those are all shadows for me, right? Navigating my emotions as being productive or not productive and trying to push things away so that I can, in theory, in real life, be more productive, but instead it's just kind of sitting with me. And you can't outrun your emotions. Like as much as you want to and as much as you might crave to be able to, your emotions live in your body and they will continue to live in your body until you release them and you let your body actually release what is happening and what you're going through. And the other way that I feel like I've done this. So the first part is again through my emotions, just not letting myself feel them. And because I wasn't feeling them, they just got louder and louder. And fear for me has been probably the loudest. Fear in life, fear in connection, fear in my day-to-day work, fear about the health of my dog, fear about so many different things that it became my primary default in the last few months of, you know, well, let me think about what the worst case scenario is here. And then if I can just backtrack from that, I can stop myself from hurting. Not the case. Not true. Not gonna happen. Instead, it's accepting what's in front of you, whether whatever the situation is, whatever the emotion is, whatever it is that is happening, it's accepting that, letting it move through you and then letting it move forward. That's how you heal things, it's how you move them forward. But instead, as my therapist always tells me, she tells me not to shut on myself. And I should on myself a lot, a lot more than I wish I did. My inner critic, she can be very loud, she can be mean. And I've been asking myself, like, Arlene, like, why are you so mean to yourself? Like, I have so much kindness and warmth and empathy and compassion for everybody around me. But when it comes to me, I seem to have the hardest, the hardest time with giving myself grace and saying, Arlene, like you were in a partnership for 15 years. You're not gonna be over it in a few months or even a few years. Like, there are parts of that partnership that are going to continue to come out as I engage in new things on my own, as I engage in new partnership, as I continue to learn about myself and grow with myself. These are things that are going to keep coming up and keep happening. And instead of accepting them, I've just been shooting all over myself and realizing that I've just not been a great friend to myself. But I want great friends and I want people to be there for me and to show up for me and do all of that. And if I'm not doing it, how can I expect to get it externally? How can I expect the people around me to treat me that way? And I you can't just assume because you're kind and you're showing empathy and you're doing all of that, that everybody around you is gonna do the same thing. People treat you a lot how you treat yourself. And so I noticed myself making myself a bit smaller, being more agreeable, feeling like, well, I just, you know, everything's really hard right now. So let me just, I it's fine. Like I don't really love what's happening, but I'm just gonna go with the flow here in a way that doesn't feel comfortable to me. But I was doing it anyways. And it was because of fear, fear of whatever the next kind of outcome was gonna be. Again, whether that was at work, with my dog, in connection, like whatever it was. I just kind of let the fear take over. And it was surprising to me because while all the fear is happening, there's still a lot of life and joy and things that are happening as well. So there's still a lot of beauty and there's still a lot of amazing experiences and continued travel and moments with friends and work wins and things that have been great. But because this fear and negativity and catastrophizing has been at the forefront of my brain for a bit, it seemed to be like it was just hard for me to let joy in. And the fear just felt so loud. But then I remembered what I call anchor points. So for me, anchor points are just like an anchor, right? Like it's a place to drop and say, like, I can put my foot down here and know about myself and know that this is a version of me that I really love, or this is a version of me that I've seen before and I want to bring with me from vacation, or I want to bring with me from that time I went and did that big thing, or that one experience that I had that really moved me and I saw a new layer of myself. And those anchor points are so strong and so beautiful, and these moments that kind of bring you back to who you are. And I didn't really know what my anchor points were, um, to be honest, until I had done some reflection recently. And I had a photo shoot a few weeks ago with this amazing boudoir photographer, Nicole. And my pictures are all over my Instagram and TikTok and her Instagram and TikTok. And I've done a few shoots with her, and she herself has her own episode. So we'll talk more about that. But when I had this shoot a few weeks ago, it was one of the first times in what felt like a while since I had been back from my trip where I was just so present. I was so present in me, in myself, in my body, in that moment, being in front of the camera, being able to really look at myself and say, like, there she is. There she is. Like, there is the fearless, bold baddie that took herself around the world and does these boudoir photographer uh photo shoots and has a podcast and has this message. Like, I have not been feeling like her, but I got to see her for a moment. And I was like, that's an anchor point. I know her. Like, I know that that's me. I'm talking about the same person. This is me. And so seeing that free version of myself kind of meet up with this other version of myself that was an older version of myself, filled with fear and anxiety and nervousness about the future and about everything that was coming up for me and everything that was happening around me. I realized, oh my gosh, there she is. Like, there she is. And I know that we have all had those moments, that feeling of maybe I lost myself or I don't recognize myself, or I don't feel like the person I know I am. And I had been saying that for a few weeks and like a month, and like, what where is this happening? And then I had this experience and I was like, there she is. There she is. She exists. Like, so I realized at that moment, like old me and new me, or an old version of me and a new version of me, they were meeting and they were integrating. And that integration can be really, really hard because even your old patterns that you think about yourself when you think about those shadows and you think about who you are, that can be something that you continue to pull in moving forward because you're like, well, this is a part of my identity. Like I'm like I had said all the time, like, I'm somebody who's anxious. I am somebody who has been anxious and anxiety is something that moves through me. But I try not to categorize myself as an anxious person in the way that I used to when I was having panic attacks all the time, I was avoiding going places or seeing people or doing things because of how bad my anxiety has been. That hasn't happened uh for a long time. And so while I might say, like, well, yeah, I'm anxious, like I also am strong and bold and can be fearless. And all of these parts of me live together. What has felt like though lately is that they've kind of been fighting with one another. And so what is like, how do you sit with that? How do you sit with the integration of the new, the accepting of the old, and the letting go of what no longer serves you? And to me, that is the continuous mission of getting to know yourself and returning to yourself over and over again. It's like situation, you know, being able to process it, taking with it what you're going to move forward in and how you grew and leaving behind the parts that are no longer serving you. I just didn't realize some of those parts that were no longer serving me were still very present in my body and in my mind, as I mentioned again from the catastrophizing, from the feelings of being so anxious about things or being so nervous about things and having trouble really letting joy in. And I had to again, and this was in my own therapy, in my own journaling, in my own kind of reflections, ask myself how much of this is external and is just situational based on this part of my life and this new phase of life I'm in and the identities that I'm holding, being on my own and moving through and navigating holidays and parties and experiences solo and continuing to meet myself and love myself. How do I do it? Like, how do I do this without losing myself or going back into it, or going back into something that is tough for me or situations that are not serving me, or playing it small for myself, not investing in myself and letting myself be distracted by all of this? And I think one of the reasons it's felt a little bit louder than I feel like it maybe would during any other time of year is because the holidays and winter sometimes just feel loud in your brain when you're in that season. And I'm talking about the literal season and the emotional season. We as humans, we're part of nature, right? And nature has its seasons. And I think that many people, myself included, have been in a bit of a winter over the past few months and are in their winters. I've had a lot of conversations with friends and family and connections and things about just the heaviness of what everybody's navigating and what everybody's going through. And I think that that makes it hard to sit and self-actualize and think about who you are and what you want and how you're gonna bring positivity to the day and how you're gonna be creative and how you're gonna move forward. The thing is, is that that time is gonna keep passing, right? The seasons will change. And what you have the power over is the season that you're in and how you navigate it. I might not have any power over a lot of the things that I worry about and the things that are happening around me. But what I do have the power for and I do have the control for is how I react to them, how I react to them, how I take care of myself, how I dive deeper into myself, what I make space for. And sometimes that's not always doing the hard, hard work and going hard in journals and crying and therapy and all of that. Sometimes it is just having a night to myself where I sit in and I watch a movie and I enjoy time and I just kind of let my brain turn off. And sometimes it is facing a moment when it's like, um, that didn't feel like me. And I want to dive into it and I want to know more about it and I want to learn more about it. And the holidays, winter time, I feel like exacerbates all of this. It exacerbates all the parts of your life that feel like maybe there's not enough of, or the parts of your life that you're working on because you feel this need to be in joy. Like, well, you should feel merry and bright. It's the holidays. It's time to feel merry and bright. And I've noticed myself and a lot of people around me just haven't been feeling that, but that doesn't mean that that doesn't exist inside of us. And that's that cycle, right? Like we may be in a cycle of winter right now. We may be in a season of winter right now, but that doesn't also mean there can't be expansion. Like there's expansion and there's contraction, there's presence, and then there's memory. Like there, the duality of all of this is something that continues to come up as you think about returning to yourself and what it is to return to yourself and what it is to get to know yourself. But to do that, you have to create space for some of that joy. Every day might feel like it has its hard moments, but every day does have some joy to it and some light to it. And what do you do to let the light in and to make space for the light and to make space for that joy? One of the moments that I've had recently where I noticed those two parts of myself coming up against each other and having a bit of a harder time was actually I did another photo shoot, but with my dog, Homer, and shout out to my girl Tina Snow, my cat, but she couldn't make it. Come on, and like, unless I have a photo shoot here at my house, I'm not gonna be able to have Tina in a photo in that way. But we did this for Christmas cards and also shout out to my realtor because she does this through um, she hires a photographer and then has people that have worked with her come and take pictures with your family. And so my family is Homer. And I went and got all dolled up, went to take my pictures, came back, got the proofs, and they were so beautiful. And I remember feeling this immense amount of joy and pride and thinking, oh my gosh, like I'm building life on my own terms. And this is me doing that. And I'm so excited. I used to love to send out holiday cards, and I haven't done it for years because of everything that's been going on. And so I was really excited to do that again. But then I also felt this wave of sadness come over me because of the way that my life used to look. And this was the first time that I was taking family pictures, and it's just Homer and I. And there's nothing wrong with that, but there was a sadness to it because I remember what it felt like to say, okay, we're gonna do our Christmas card pictures and having a partner there to do that with me. And now that I am on my own and with myself and I have Homer, I am trying my best to own that space and to love that space and to be appreciative of the space to self-actualize with myself and know myself in a way I haven't. But that doesn't mean that the grief of it isn't going to come in. And that's one of those moments where I felt like I had like a should on myself moment where I was like, why am I sad? Like I should not be sad. I should be happy, I should be more proud of myself. Like that should be my primary emotion. Instead of just accepting that the sadness was real and that I am going to have more moments of mourning over the years when it becomes the first time that I do blank again on my own or maybe with someone else and having that experience of wow, like I've done this before, but now I'm doing this with someone else. And that feels different. And that feels somewhat uncomfortable, but also exciting, but kind of sad, like leaving space for all of that at the same time. And so with Homer and those pictures, I just was reminded with myself about how much this winter season, this holiday season, can make us feel like we're not ourselves. And the fact that we're maybe forcing ourselves to feel like some joy or forcing ourselves after maybe loss, after your own internal breaks and things that you've had going on. And so I just want to remind you that especially during this time of year, if you are in your own winter, you're not alone. You are not alone. I have been in my own winter. I know a lot of people that are in their winter right now and experiencing that very deeply. And I want you to accept that part of yourself and know that there's going to be joy that comes out on the other side. But I felt like it was worth mentioning because I do think that even though I've had a lot of experiences from the last time I recorded until now, it does feel like things have been heavier in this winter season. And in this season in my life in general. And I just wanted to share that because I believe a lot of us are holding that in and not sharing it with each other. And that's one big thing that matters. Another way that I have returned to myself is by getting comfortable with more solitude. Prior to leaving on my big trip, and even when I got back, I was distracting myself a lot. And in some ways, you need that. Like you need to distract yourself with joy, with people. For me, it was like people, dating, um, going out, having a good time, not focusing on my podcast. Um, and so some of the I felt like some of the things that I had been through, or some of the things that I had been working on, I had also kind of been distracting myself to make some of that pain in solitude a little bit softer. When you've lived with somebody for most of your adult life and you've been in partnership for most of your adult life, spending time with yourself can feel scary and it can feel overwhelming. And it's interesting because I consider myself a good time. Like I know my friends have fun with me and the people I hang out with have fun with me. But for some reason, spending time with myself for myself felt so foreign and so scary. And that was an anchor point moment where I said to myself, I didn't always feel this way though. There have been moments and a lot over the past couple of years where I've really loved spending time with myself. Like, oh, I'm gonna buy myself flowers, I'm gonna cook myself breakfast, I'm gonna just enjoy the day and take a nap. And for some reason, and I think again the holidays and just life in general, there have been moments where those feelings of solitude have felt really loud. And it's almost like, well, if I don't do this with someone, like is it as special or is it as big or is it as important? And my brain, I felt like was in some ways kind of playing tricks on me about that and noticing that uh I know everybody calls this cuffing season, right? So noticing like a lot of partnership around me where I'm still more in that like casual phase and still learning. I almost felt this urgency of like, well, do I want to be alone? Oh shit, I'm alone. Like I'm oh no, like maybe I should reach out more, or maybe I should spend more time, you know, like with someone or but I also could feel myself not quite being ready to do that and feeling like, you know, I've spent so much time being Arlene and blank. Like I still want to be Arlene, but I still miss partnership. And so that's a whole other episode. But the reason I'm talking about this is because it's helped me get back into the mindset of solitude and gratitude for space for myself. And interestingly enough, last weekend I was having one of those days where I kind of woke up and was like, what am I gonna do today? You know, a lot of my friends were sick or out of town or had plans, and it was an invitation for me to spend some time with myself. And I had had a big week. I bought my car, I had leased my car and I bought it on my own, which was such a big deal. I had had my photo shoot, like I had done a lot of really big stuff, but I wasn't really taking time to celebrate it. And I wasn't really taking time to look inwards about the joy of those things. They were kind of just things that happened, and then I moved on with my day or moved on with my life. And so I had planned this day for myself where I was like, okay, I mean, you're gonna spend some time with yourself today. And I was like, I'm gonna cook for myself and watch a movie I've been wanting to watch and just chill. And I get home and the power goes out. And because the sun is going down at like four o'clock most days now, four, four thirty, five-ish, I knew I was gonna be in the dark for a while if my power didn't come on soon. And I started to feel myself panic a little bit. My TV didn't work, clearly my internet's not working. I can't listen to music. I can't distract myself. My phone wasn't working because everybody else is was trying to be on their phones in my area and in my neighborhood. And that was scaring the shit out of me for a little bit. And I could feel my mind kind of go being on fire of like, oh my gosh. But it was actually the fear of being with myself and being alone was so much louder than the actual solitude. Once I accepted the situation of what it was, and I decided, okay, I'm gonna journal. And then I'm just gonna sit here for a bit. Like I'm just gonna sit here with my thoughts and with my animals because I wasn't gonna leave my animals in the dark. And obviously, I'm not gonna leave candles lit here for them either. So I knew I was gonna have to stay home. It was raining really hard. And so I journaled, I let myself daydream, I let myself just get a bunch of emotions out. I had a big cry. Like I did a lot, and then I went to bed at 8:30 because at that point, like, what am I gonna do now? It's the power's been out for a while, and you know, I feel like I had done enough at that point. But the next day, when I sat with it and I sat with myself, I really realized, like, oh wow, it really was that fear, that fear that I felt like had been getting into so many parts of my life and so many parts of my brain and so many parts of my nervous system. It was the fear that was keeping me from actually being present in that moment. And it was keeping me from actually enjoying time with myself. And I felt an internal shift after that, really, of like, no, Arlene, like time with yourself is beautiful. Like time with yourself is it's great. It's for you. The more I learn about myself and grow, the more that I can be able to stand in who I am and recognizing the time with people around me where it's like, no, I don't really want to spend time with that person. Like, I want to spend time with me, or I don't want to spend time at this event. I want to spend time with me. And I can feel myself getting back to it. But I had to face some of the hardness of it. And I think that's a continuous theme in returning to yourself is facing like, what is your own suffering? What is your own brain telling you? You know, I think a lot of us don't realize that our brains don't necessarily want us to be happy. Our brains want us to be safe. And so for me, catastrophizing and being nervous and trying to predict the worst outcome is one of the ways that I have kept myself safe over the years. But those are not patterns that are continuing to serve me in this season of my life and in this place in my life right now. And so I really had to sit with that and acknowledge that. And I think that that's one of the biggest parts of returning to yourself is acknowledging like, what part am I playing in my suffering? Like, what do I need to do to experience joy rather than waiting for joy to come to me or waiting for some external force to bring joy to me? Like, what can I do to cultivate joy for myself? And I think that facing the hard stuff, creating space for joy and knowing that you can do that over and over again is such a big part of getting to know yourself and returning to yourself over and over and over again. So as we close, and as I again return to the mic, return to myself, help you return to yourself, there are just a few things I want to anchor us on. The first one being that returning to yourself again is not a destination. It's a rhythm, it's a cycle, it's a continuous remembering. And it's about being knowing those anchor points, like really knowing those anchor points in your body. I think that without any of those anchor points, it's harder to see your shadows and your shadows become really loud and your shadows become your default. And I think our shadows, as I mentioned, like your brain is always going to continue to protect you. And if your shadows have protected you at some point in your life, your brain is going to think that this is how you're going to protect yourself moving forward. So understanding that this is a cycle, understanding that this is a rhythm, that this is a season, that right now I'm in a season of winter and integrating old parts of myself and new parts of myself. And this next season can be all about more discovery and more growth. But that means meeting all of these different versions and being aware and acknowledging them and choosing myself, choosing to be a friend to me, choosing to be kind to myself, choosing to give myself some compassion for everything that I've been through, rather than being there for everybody else around me. And not that I don't want to be there for my friends and my family and the people that love me. But if I can't do that for myself, it just makes it so much harder for me to reach out and say, hey, I need some help. Hey, I'm going through some stuff right now. I'd love to spend some time with you. Hey, I'm feeling kind of lonely. Like, and I don't want to dive into something that's going to be a distraction. I want to be able to hold that loneliness. Do you mind chatting on the phone with me for a little bit? But I have to be able to reach out and do those things for myself if I'm expecting other people to do it. And I appreciate the love of my friends and family and the people that care about me, but my love has to be louder for me. And it has to continue to be. Otherwise, those drips that I'm building are going to continue to be lost in buckets. And that's not what I want. I want to continue to hold on to the sense of self that I've built, integrate, let go of what doesn't serve me anymore. And I want you to be able to do the same, to be able to talk to yourself differently, to be able to look at yourself differently, to be able to say, that's a shadow, that's an anchor point. And here's how I'm going to move myself forward between the two things. And so as we close again, I just want to remind you to continue to learn, continue to learn, continue to grow, continue to experience things. Don't be so hard on yourself. Don't shit on yourself if you can accept what's around you and understand that this returning, this messy middle, all of these cycles of things that happen and go on with all of us are going to continue. But just know that it's a moment, it's a season. It'll pass. The good and the bad are going to come in cycles. But what do you keep for yourself? What continues to be true about you when everything else around you is very loud? And so I hope that this conversation and the way that I'm talking about how I'm returning to myself will help you feel a little bit closer to returning to yourself, to getting through your winter, to moving forward in that next power move, to finding out something about yourself that you don't know yet, or letting go of a pattern that you've seen is not helping you. So thank you so much for listening, for coming back, for being here with me. If you've loved this podcast, please like and subscribe on whatever platform that you listen to it on. Leave a comment if you feel so compelled, and follow me on social media and Instagram and TikTok at Queen Arlene. That's Queen and then A-R-L-Y-N-E. Or you can follow I Will Know You Pod on Instagram for clips and information about upcoming episodes. Thank you again for being here with me, helping me return to myself, return to my voice, and I hope it's helping you do the same.