Breaking Free: From Chaos to Empowerment with Brenda Winkle

In this episode of Healed and Cash Flowing, I had the honor of speaking with Brenda Winkle, a transformational coach and healer whose journey of self-discovery and empowerment is nothing short of inspiring. Brenda’s story is a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative power of healing. Here, we delve into the highlights of our conversation and the lessons we can all take away.

From People-Pleasing to Personal Freedom

Brenda began by sharing a vulnerable look into her childhood, where her deep sensitivity and empathy often made her a "people pleaser." Growing up in a chaotic environment, she learned to prioritize others’ needs to feel safe, a habit that followed her into adulthood. This coping mechanism eventually led to feelings of disconnection and an inability to recognize her own desires and worth.

Her turning point came during a moment of clarity while juggling her teaching career and work as a Mary Kay director. Brenda realized she had been living in a self-imposed box, prioritizing others’ happiness at the expense of her own. This realization set her on a healing journey to rediscover herself and embrace her gifts.

Embracing Healing and Discovering Purpose

Brenda’s path to healing began with practices like yoga and Reiki. She recounted her first Reiki session as a profound experience where she felt truly seen and heard for the first time. This moment marked the beginning of her transformation. Within a year, she became a Reiki master and later expanded her skillset with Theta Healing, a powerful meditation technique that reprograms the subconscious mind.

Through these modalities, Brenda found not only her own healing but also a calling to help others. Today, she empowers high-achieving professionals, entrepreneurs, and lightworkers to reduce stress, improve their well-being, and live more aligned lives.

The Courage to Break Free

One of the most moving parts of Brenda’s story is her decision to leave an abusive marriage. Despite the fear and uncertainty, she chose to prioritize her safety and model a better future for her daughter. With the help of a courageous friend and a domestic violence support network, Brenda found the strength to create an exit plan and rebuild her life.

This chapter of her journey underscores the importance of community and the bravery it takes to step away from what no longer serves you. “Owning a business,” Brenda shared, “was the best personal development course I ever took,” as it forced her to confront and heal old wounds to fully show up for herself and her clients.

Key Takeaways from the Episode

1. Healing Starts Within: Brenda emphasizes the importance of reclaiming your inner authority and listening to your inner voice, even if you’ve spent years outsourcing your worth to others.
   

2. Empathy as a Superpower: Sensitivity and emotional awareness, once seen as a burden, can be your greatest gifts when embraced and managed correctly.
   

3. The Power of Community: Surrounding yourself with supportive people who see your potential can spark profound changes in your self-perception and confidence.
   

4. Healing is a Journey: It’s not about flipping a switch but taking consistent steps toward self-awareness and growth.
   

5. Purpose Through Pain: Often, our greatest struggles pave the way for our purpose. Brenda’s experiences have allowed her to serve others in a deeply meaningful way

Ready to Heal and Empower Yourself?

Brenda’s story is a reminder that healing and transformation are possible for everyone. Whether you’re navigating personal challenges or seeking to unlock your full potential, there is always a path forward.

Listen to the full episode now and discover how to break free from the chains of your past, step into your authenticity, and create a life filled with peace, purpose, and abundance.

Have you ever experienced a breakthrough moment that changed your life? Share your story in the comments below!

Transcription

Hello, hello. Welcome, Brenda, to the Healed in Cash Flowing podcast show. How are you

I'm great, Kat. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Oh my God, me too. I'm so glad that you're here. I can tell we're going to have an awesome conversation. I can tell already. For those that don't know you yet, but I'm sure they're going to love you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Absolutely. I'm Brenda Winkle. I'm a coach and healer, and I support high-achieving professionals, entrepreneurs, and lightworkers. And I support people by helping them to improve their well-being, optimize their lives and their work, and take on less stress. And I do this through breathwork, energy healing, and somatic coaching.

Oh, my God. I think everybody needs that. I love the way you describe that. That is like, Yes, please give me that. Yeah.

Well, it was a labor of love because I was a teacher for 26 years, and so I knew how to do the education piece really well. I did not know how to describe what it was that I did. And so a lot of times I would say things that people were like, Wait, what is that? So thank you for recognizing the work that I've done and being able to describe what I do.

Yeah, it is so good. So let me ask you this. Most of the time people that do this work is because they needed it themselves in their own lives. Is that the case? And talk us through that.

Absolutely. So the thing that I really identify I with is a people pleaser. And when I was a little girl, I was so sensitive to my surroundings. I could read a room, I could read emotions. And if somebody in the room was dysregulated, if they were angry, sad, scared, it dysregulated me. It felt physically threatening to have somebody near me that wasn't okay. And so I made it my job to make them feel better. And probably about the time I was in late elementary school, I started to scare the adults in the room by what I could perceive. I could know if somebody was hurting physically. I could say, Hey, what's going on with your hip? I could know things that had happened the night before in their house, and it freaked people out. So as a young child, not having anyone to mirror my abilities, I decided there must be something wrong with the way that I was saying it. And so I stopped talking about my gifts, and I started people-pleasing. Because I thought, well, if I could just anticipate their needs without talking about it, then they'll feel better, so I feel better, and then we don't have to have this conversation about how weird I am.

I took that people-pleasing into adulthood and into a marriage. By the time I was 35, I got off of a plane, and I was coming back from a Mary Kay Leadership Conference. I was a teacher, but I was also Mary Kay Beauty Consultant and Sales Director, and I was trying to do something being big in my life. And I got off this plane and I was feeling beautiful and inspired and lit up and magnetic. And as soon as I saw my family, I felt a lump in my throat. And it wasn't because I wasn't happy to see them. It was because I realized I had put myself in a people-pleasing box. I didn't know myself. I didn't know what I wanted. No one knew me, and I felt unknown, and it was a really devastating feeling. So I went on a healing journey to stop people pleasing, and in the process, discovered energy healing and discovered that my gifts are actually gifts. They're not liabilities, and that's what brings me here today.

Wow, that is so powerful. Thank you so much for sharing that. You said something that I never realized. You said that you were people pleasing because if they felt better, then you would feel better. I never realized that at the end the day is about you. You're doing this people pleasing, not to make them feel better because it says people pleasing, but it should really be called I'm pleasing me. I didn't even realize that. That's so powerful.

Yeah. This is several several years into my process, but I realized that was the root. And I don't know if that's the root for everyone, but it is the root for many people, especially if they have deep empathy and compassion or if they were raised in chaotic environments where reading the room was essential for safety.

Yeah, I always knew about being in a chaotic environment, and then that really pushed kids to learn, to anticipate so they can talk, so they can hide, so they can be safe. I did not realize. I've always been very sensitive. I used to cry. I never asked for milk. I'm like, Can I have some milk? I never knew that I did that, but she told me that. And that checked out. That's how sensitive I was. I was hungry. Feed me. I couldn't say, just feed me? But I was both. I was both very sensitive, very aware, and in a chaotic environment. So the combination is lethal. It's terrible. So were you only very sensitive or were you also in a chaotic environment?

Well, that is such a great question. So on the outside, it looked like I was in a very loving, supportive, nurturing environment with my family of origin. But what I didn't tell anybody buddy was that I was enduring really serious abuse at the hands of a trusted family member. And I didn't tell anybody until I was 16. And that was a whole another journey. So on the surface, my day-to-day life was pretty great. But sometimes there were certain times of year we would go visit this family member that life was not great. And so the answer is both. I mean, it was chaotic. And then just like with all trauma, It's not like you can shut it off just because you leave.

It stays there. And especially if you started business, I don't know if you noticed that you started business and all your ish comes out. And it's not just taking business courses and stuff. Now you got to deal with stuff that happened when you were three and you're like, I thought I have pushed that to the bottom door and locked it and never looked at it again. Why is this stuff coming up? All I want to do is show up, but you cannot fully show up because you will have shame, you're afraid. If I'm seen, I'm going to get hurt. All these things come up that you don't even know we're there or have anything to do with business.

That's right. I have found owning a business to be the best personal development course in the world.

And most expensive.

And the most expensive, that is for sure

Oh, my God. And that's something that you said that broke my heart a little bit, that you were so gifted and so amazing being able to sense how others were feeling and so gifted, but that others were freaking out by that gift. And you interpreted that as, whoa, this is other. It's creating otherness. Correct me if I'm wrong, And also, I don't want them to be upset or think that there's something wrong with me. I'm going to hide who I am to make them feel better. That's incredible. You could have said, I'm amazing. You don't know what you're missing. I'm going to shine because it's my gift. That part of you didn't even exist yet. It's so amazing.

That's right. It didn't exist. I think it goes back to that childhood chaos and that childhood trauma. I think with that interwoven, that there was always this question of, why can't they see what's happening? Why doesn't someone save me? Why am I continually being put in this situation? At the time, I would not have been able to articulate all of that. But after decades healing and trauma work, I can say that that's absolutely what was happening in my child body. Is like, if I'm not safe in this extended family relationship and it's right under everybody's nose, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the bad one.

Wow. I want people to just let that land for a second. That somebody else missing all the clues, people that weren't supposed to be in charge in no fault of their own, probably, or they didn't want to see it, couldn't it, maybe it happened to them, too. There's so many layers, right? That's right. Then you make it, this is happening to me, maybe I deserve it, or maybe there's something wrong with me.

Wow.

So powerful. Amazing.

I think that's what drew me to education, what I wanted to protect other kids. I wanted to be an ally and an advocate for kids. In my training as a teacher, I learned that this is part of development, we internalize all of the outward messages. It took me a long time to make peace with that because I was like, No, that's not what happened to me. I'm fine. And on the inside, it manifested as an adult in not being able to claim what I really wanted to do for my work. It manifested in tolerating relationships that were not aligned kind and not loving. And it manifested in me continuing to people please and really self-abandoning until I didn't even really know what I liked.

Wow. So what happened? How did you wake up? How did you stop that, all those patterns?

Oh, my gosh. Well, it was a long journey, and so I just want to say it wasn't like a switch flipped. But when I was in Mary Kay, people believed in me. And those women surrounded me with so much encouragement and love that I started to think, Wait, they see something in me I don't see in me. And they all do, whether or not they know each other. I wonder if maybe they're right. So it was that outward encouragement that first made me curious, What if there's more here? And then I noticed that people responded to me differently when I held myself differently at those Mary Kay meetings. It was just like a little catalyst. It made me curious, what would it be like if I could embody this confident woman like all the confident women around me? That was the first big thing. Then the second big thing happened, and this is going to make me sound a little bit silly, but I think certain listeners will resonate. I didn't realize that I was in an abusive marriage. When I say I didn't realize it, it wasn't that I thought we were super happy.

I felt like we were in love, but I wouldn't have said we were happy. But I just thought this is what marriage was. It took someone saying to me, What's happening to you is not okay. Again, it comes back to because I had outsourced all of my inner knowing as a child, I needed somebody, an other, and I'll talk about that a second, I needed an other to come in and reflect back to me that which I was. When I was talking about other, I now know that we each have three doors. We have a self-to-self door, a self-to-other door, and a self-to-source door. And at that time in my life, the only door that was open was the self to other.

Wow. That's powerful. We have three doors, self to self, self to others, and self to source.

That's right. And source can be God, universe, creator, whatever term makes you feel most comfortable.

Yes. And thank you for being sensitive. My other guests that I just had make the same distinction coming from the background that I come from and knowing what I know now I am very sensitive because people have had different experiences, different trauma with religion in and believing. So here people call it different things. I call it God, but I'm very sensitive. Somebody calls it a universe. I'm happy to call it the universe. Somebody feels comfortable calling it, higher power, nature. I'm happy to because it's the same thing. So thank you. I wanted to acknowledge that. I appreciate that. Somebody else had to tell you that... Let me just go back to this. You thought this is what marriage was. So even though you were not happy, you thought, This is what I sign up for. What was the thinking behind that?

I was raised in a small town in Northwestern, Nebraska, and In my family, there was no divorce. And one of my cousins ended up getting divorced several years before I did. And it was like the standout divorce. So in my family, there was just like It wasn't a thing. Even though it was all around me in the rest of the world, it wasn't a thing. And I had this belief that till death, do you part. You just make it work. You just keep making it work. Were there problems? Yes, there were obvious problems. Even to me, I knew there were problems, but I just kept working on them thinking that one day they would change, or if I was just this, it would be better. If I was just that, if I could just earn more money, if we could just live in a different house, if we could just move to this state, it would- All things are you saying are external.

That's right. Nothing working on the two people.

That's right. Nothing working on the two people. And it wasn't until that feeling in me that I am actually worth something started to bloom that I even had the curiosity to think, Maybe this isn't okay. One time, I was setting up for an event at a holiday in or something with another sales director. I thought it went great. I was really happy with the day. It felt like we had a beautiful connection. I brought along my daughter, who was early elementary school at that time. I thought it was a great day. I had so much fun. It was one of the best days I'd had in a long time. When that woman called me that evening, I was really excited to answer the phone. I answered the phone and I was like, Hello. She said, We have to talk. I went, Okay, why? And she said, I know what's happening in your house. The first place I went was, Wait, you know that there's dishes in the sink that I haven't done yet? Because that was the house I was operating in. There was always walking on eggshells. Did you do the thing? Did you do the thing?

And I was like, I don't know what you mean. And she said, Yeah, you do. And she just let it drop. And I didn't say anything because I was searching for, I don't know what you mean. And she said, The reason I know what's going on in your house is because I had a house that was just like it. And it's not about what you say, it's about what you don't say. And my heart almost stopped.

And I started to cry, and I was like, Okay, but I don't know what to do next.

And she said, Well, you need help. You need professional help. This is not something I can help you with, but I can give you some referrals. And that was one of the kindest things anybody has ever done for me. And she did refer me out to someone who I played it down. I went in intentionally like, Let's not get this all worked up. Let's play it down a little bit. I was just talking about daily life. And yeah, we fight, but it's fine. She closes her book at the end of our session, and she scoots back, which is always a sign that I'm not going to like what's coming. She said, I never counsel divorce, but you need an exit plan.

You down I downplayed things.

I downplayed things. I didn't even tell her the worst thing that had happened even the last two days. And I was just glossing over things. And so when she said that, I had full body chills, and that was the first time I was scared.

Wow. And I even got so emotional when you said, I was so thankful for that lady. And I even said to myself, I'm glad she went through what she went through because she was able to help you. I fully believe that everything we go through, if we do the work, we are going to be the catalyst. We are going to be the people that are going to reach back and pull people out. And I'm so thankful for that lady, even though I know it was very painful that she could see her health in you. Wow.

Yeah. She helped us in amazing ways, but that had to have taken a lot of courage for her to have done that.

Yeah. But you know what it is? Maybe you did her such a believer because maybe she needed someone to do that for her and for her to be able to reach out to you and be like, I know what you're going through. I know what that is. Just think of the full circle moment All the people were missing that about her in her life. She saw it, and he or she is stepping up and saying, Hey, we had a great day, business, blah, blah, blah. Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Amazing.

I love that perspective. Thank you.

You're very welcome. It gave me chose just thinking about it. So wherever she's at, we send her the most amazing love and kindness and abundance. A lot of abundance.

Yes, absolutely. All the abundance.

Oh, my God. So back to the story. So the lady comes with the book. She says, you need an exit plan. And then you said something interesting. You said that that's the first time you were afraid. So why do It was the first time?

It was the first time I was afraid because it was the first time I actually knew I was going to need to leave that relationship. I knew that it was going to be not only dangerous for me to leave, but really scary. I didn't know what to do or how to do it. Thankfully, that same woman made a connection and got me into a locked-door domestic violence facility about two weeks later. It Two weeks.

 Wow, that was fast.

Two weeks. Oh, it was fast.

You were married for how long?

Fourteen years. It was super interesting because even after that, and I was scared, and I knew I was going to have to leave, I would still go back and forth between this really happened and I'm making this up. This isn't real. I felt like I was going crazy. I wore a voice recorder in my bra for those two weeks, and I recorded the conversations. And so it worked out that I would have evenings by myself and I could listen to the recordings. And they left no question in my mind about what I had to do. It's one of those cases where I wish I could have said that I was worth it alone, but that's not what actually got me out. What got me out was I knew I needed to model something different for daughter.

Yeah. But I just love how you did what you needed to do. You're like, Am I making this up? Am I making it bigger than it is? And you look for the evidence. I love that you went there and you're like, Okay, maybe let me just see. And then the recordings were like, Girl, you got to get out. You're not making this up. You got to go. Yeah. So how old is your daughter at this point?

She's 23.

No, but then at that time- At that time, she was five. She was five. Okay. Now, did she know something was up? Did she tell you anything when you guys left?

She's also very sensitive. And so she knew that there was tension and chaos and fighting. And I didn't tell her what was happening the day that we left. A friend drove us, but she knew. She's like, We're not going home, are we? So I tried always, and I still do, to never say anything disparaging about her dad because I felt like there was enough already.

There was enough.

There was enough already. I didn't need to say anything. And that wasn't always easy. There were some times in the years- I know. Yeah.

I know. Very familiar with biting your tongue, not saying anything. The beautiful thing is that they do the work for you, so you don't even have to do anything.

You don't have to do anything. You just have to wait.

Yeah. And that is the key. And I'm a very patient woman. I always tell people, You're going to do what you're going to do. I don't have to do anything. My daddy is very jealous. And whenever he pays people back, it is not for me. And I have waited and I have sat back and seen things that I would never do. And I'm like, I have gotten vindicated in such ways. And I'm like, wow, even for you, that was a lot.

Were you born patient?

Was I born patient? I think no. I think my environment made me patient because I needed to. As a child, I always wanted to leave, and I couldn't leave, and I have to leave much later, which is now I call myself a leaver. Very proudly, I'm a leaver. I don't even advertise this, but I will leave. People think they got me, I'm trapped or something. It's Baby, girl, you don't know anything. I'm going to leave. I have no issues leaving. I promised myself a long time ago that I will protect myself, always and forever. That is my relationship to me. I'm forever dating me and loving myself. And my daughter makes fun. It's like, it's a little much. I'm like, I don't think it's too much. It's a little much. I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think you can love yourself too much. I think it's the most selfless thing you can do because then it makes me a better person for the other people in my life.

That's right.

So I'm leaving. If you don't treat me right, and I love what you said about that you outsource your inner knowing and that you also deny not have the ability to claim what you needed. And that happens a lot when you come from these environments where you feel different, chides, and you don't even know how to distinguish when something is not good or something is not at the level. The beautiful thing is that people, through their actions, are the best teachers, and they show us that it's better, that better is available.

That's right. I love that. And so going back to your first question of, or maybe not your first question about, Am I doing what I most needed to know? The answer is yes, absolutely. Because now my main focus is helping people step into their inner authority.

So good. So you leave. Life is, I'm sure, what it is. When did you discover or when did you give yourself permission to do the work that you're doing now?

So I left in 2007, and it was 2015 or 2014, I guess, when I discovered what I now do. And it happened accidentally. I had gone to yoga classes from 2008. Well, I mean, I still go. But I started in 2008. And I found that there was so much healing happening as I moved my body. And so I was really committed to yoga. And in 2014, I went to a particular school placement where the schedule made it difficult for me to get to my favorite studio. So I reached out to the owner and I said, Is there any way that you or someone that you know could come teach yoga at my school and the other teachers could have yoga in my room? And so she said yes. And so I I started hosting yoga classes in my classroom. And one of the teachers that came to that class heard me talking once about needing a massage or something like that. And she brings me this card, it's not even hers, and it said Reiki on it. And I was like, Oh, I've heard of Reiki, but I don't actually know what it is. And she said, Well, why don't you come try a session?

It's my treat. And that was history. It was in that first Reiki session, I was like, Oh, my My gosh, I feel like I've just been seen and heard in my fullness for the first time in my life. And within a year, I was a Reiki master, and it's still foundational to what I do. And I'm still connected with that first mentor. She's one of my very best friends. And so it's been, I guess it would be about 10 years.

Was that first Reiki session a Reiki massage or just a Reiki session?

Just a Reiki session.

Because Reiki massages are another level. I I didn't know that that existed. I knew about Reiki, but I did not know about Reiki massages. And I was going through... I was microdosing the first time with ayahuasca last year, and the coach said, I'll do something nice for you every day because you're doing something big. I'm like, okay, so I'll do a massage. And I found a place and did a massage. And then I saw... And then I'm like, oh, and something happened. And then the person said, I don't know how, but Reiki came up. Oh, I was googling. I was looking for massage places, and then Reiki kept coming up. And I'm like, now at this point, I'm no longer afraid of everything, that everything is evil, that everything is the devil. No, I'm now free as a bird, and I can do whatever I want. So I'm like, let me check this Reiki thing. And Reiki is so the opposite of evil. I love even when you're learning that they tell you you cannot do harm even if you wanted to. The whole point of Reiki is to do well for other people, which is so beautiful.

So one of the massages was a Reiki massage, and that was life-changing. I also became a Reiki master because it was so good. I added, when I'm doing somatics and I'm doing somatic sessions, I'm able to send people this Reiki as support as they're dealing with difficult emotions.

I do that, too. It's foundational to everything I do. It's in breathwork, it's in somatics.

If your mentor taught you this, the bubble of protection, you guys can that. As an empath, as someone that is very sensitive to energies and people's modes and stuff, I would have benefited from that so much, especially when you go to events and stuff, and there's so many people, and you just go, bubble on, and you're like, Fine. Because I like to be empathetic and be there for people, but now I can be, and I'm good. I always tell people, I'm going to help you, and I'm going to be okay. You can tell me anything. I'm going to be okay.

I absolutely love it. I call it the Zip-up method because I needed something physical to do. And so I just teach people like they're zipping up a parka, but they go up over the back of their head. And it was game-changing. And so I feel like teaching this in schools, teaching this to parents, teaching this to professionals is essential because as empaths, we absorb everything unless we're preserving conserving our own energy.

Yes. In the past. I love saying this. In the past. In the past. Even in the past was five minutes ago. In the past, I had that problem. Not anymore. That is so good. Let me see if track and take us back. That lady tells you about Reiki, you feel seen. What happens after that?

So she and I, about a year after I became a Reiki master, she and I both got trained as theta healers. And so then I added theta healing to my... What is that? Theta healing is a meditation technique, and it's a collaborative meditation technique where you and the person that is coming in for a session are working together in the theta brainwave state. And we access the seventh plane, which is where God lives, and we can reprogram the subconscious mind by using the theta brainwave state in this specific style of meditation. And so it's beautiful for creating lasting healing, where we can reprogram beliefs that are no longer serving us or even have physical healings. And again, I always like to say this is never a replacement for your traditional medical care, but it's a great addition to medical care.

That is so good. So you dove right in.

Oh, I dove in head first. I was like, I need more of this. And then I went down the rabbit hole and I was like, teach me pendulums, teach me to read Oracle cards, teach me to do all the things, because all of a sudden somebody was already ahead of me, and it was a mirror for me and my abilities. And so It was literally life-changing to be a part of a community of other people who were like me. And so as I got to see more people who had my gifts, I could ask them questions about, how do you access your gifts? How do How do you open up? How do you do these things? And those other people were so instrumental in my journey because I could learn from them. They were the first people in my life that were like me.

Yeah, that is so good. It's funny how nobody ever tells you the biggest racket because it's like, you're going to learn one thing and you're like, you're going to be done. No, it's going to open a door to all these other modalities. And that's what I love. We are building this amazing tool belt, and then we can reach in and we have all these little things that go together. I just love how we just become this, have this morgasbourg of awesomeness. Like, okay, this person has that problem. I learned this modality, I don't know, three, five years ago. I can incorporate it. And that's the beauty of our gifts. I don't know if you experience that where your gifts are molding into whoever you're helping and you know exactly where to go. That ever happened to you?

Yeah. In fact, that's the only way that I operate now. I used to have everything separate. So a breath Work session would be separate from a somatic coaching separate, would be separate from a theta healing session. And now I'm just like, It's a healing session, and we're just going to do whatever comes through. And I have found that there's so much more substantial healing when I stop trying to control by using a specific modality.

Do you find that, too? The same. I used to be like, Oh, I am a somatic facilitator, and then I had a hypnosis. And by then I realized I I was already doing hypnosis. I did not know that I was... But I was regressing people. I was able to go back into a time of their childhood or something that happened before, and we were able to heal that. I didn't know. Then hypnosis, again, just like Reiki, and then somatics kept popping up, and then I looked into it. As I'm going through the training, I'm like, I'm already doing this. I might not be using these words or stuff, but doing the meditation, because that's what somatics really is, the guided meditation. During the somatics meditation, we are doing this. Now I just have even more tools, which is incredible. But yeah, I'm finding the same. I'm finding that I just know. And I didn't know that was a gift. I did not know that I know what they need. We're talking and I'm listening and I'm like, I got it. And now I always ask this question, did you trust me to go where we need to go?

And most of the time they say, And that is that asking that, and I don't know if you're into human design, but that asking is so beautiful because sometimes we can just go before people are ready. So I always ask, even sometimes a little more, but most of the time they're like, I trust you. And then we go in and it's amazing.

I love that. I'm trauma-informed. I got trauma-informed certifications in my breathwork and in my somatic coaching. And that question is so important where we give people an opportunity to give us consent. I love Yes.

Love, love, love. Because even if they're going to say yes, it's so nice to know you have a choice. It's so nice to know I respect you enough that just because I think that will be great or that you're ready, I'm asking if you're ready. Even that, like when you said, going back to that, that's what you thought marriage was. In many relationships, I did not know that I could say, I'm not ready for that. Not that I did not want to, but at that moment, I was still not ready. I don't know that people talk about that. I love that you were teaching people that we get to... I'm trying to slow down as much as possible so I can check in with myself.

 That's right.

Sometimes I'm slowing people like, Oh, hold on, I need a moment. I need to know how I feel about that. I'm still growing into that, but I wish that I had those skills before where I could be like, Oh, I don't know how I feel. But now I give myself permission to change my mind. If I said a yes to something I did not want to, I give myself full permission to change my mind.

I love that. In my learning, I've learned that there are three intuitive bodies. We have the mental field, which is up in the head. We have the emotional body, which is just outside of the heart for most people, and that's where we have access to our emotional intelligence. And then we have the intuitive body, which is equal to where our sacral chakra is around the belly button. The The thing is, each intuitive center moves at a different speed. So the mental field is very, very fast. As we move into the emotional body, it slows down. So if we need to access that emotional body, we have to slow down or we can't hear it. And the intuitive body, which is the belly button, moves even more slowly. And so what you are automatically doing is slowing down so you can access that intuitive knowing.

That is so good. I did not know that because what you don't know, if you notice that abusers, narcissists, or people that like money to late and like to get their way, they're always rushing you.

That's right. That's why.

Because they know. I don't know if they know intuitively, they probably do know, but they know what they're doing. Let me rush there. Let me rush her them. That way I can get my way. But the time they figure out what's happening, you are weaved into their whatever thing wanted you to do. And you're like, How do we even get here?

That's right. And I don't think anyone's out there teaching courses on how to be abusers, but I do think you're on to something that they intuitively know if they don't give anyone time that they can do their thing.

Yeah, absolutely. So you find your sweets, you're learning all of these amazing modalities. When did you start helping people?

I opened up... Well, I I had a business since 2005. It was a Mary Kay business until 2012. Then I did a little photography studio in my home for a few years. Then when I started Reiki, I opened up a business right away. I started in 2015 or 2014, I guess, helping people part-time while I taught school. Then in 2022, I found myself leading a group challenge, and I was telling everybody in the challenge, You just have to do what feels right for you, all about empowerment and following the nudge of joy and doing less of what weighs us down. Then I got off the call and I was like, I have to go to school on Monday. This is terrible. I brought my witness online, and I was observing that in myself, and I was like, Wait a minute. There's a massive incongruence here. If you're telling people to follow their joy, and then you're getting ready to go say, I have to go to school. What is that about? So I thought, Okay, I'm just going to lean into curiosity today. I'm not ready to do anything more. So it was a four-day or five-day challenge.

So day two rolls around. I'm excited about leading them through. The challenge was called yes to me. At the end of the challenge, we're signing off, and I'm like, I don't want to go to school on Monday. Then I thought, Oh, my gosh, not only is there an congruence, but I'm out of integrity. That hit me in the gut. I was physically ill when I realized that I was out of integrity. This was August of 2022, and school was supposed I was supposed to start on Monday. This was the week before. By Wednesday of the call, the next time I logged in with that group, I knew I was resigning. And I resigned from my teaching job and started working full-time in what I do now. And it was the biggest, best, scariest, most terrifying, most liberating decision I've ever made.

Wow. I knew that when you said that in your head, when you were telling them you have to do what you want to do, I knew that moment. I'm like, I hate when that happens. I hate it, and I love it because they call you out, right? It's like, Oh, you're telling them to do that, but you're not doing that for yourself? Okay.

That's right. It's a big check.

That is so good. How does it feel now, all these years after everything that happened when you were growing up, you left that abusive relationship, you left Mary Kay, you left the school, and now you're doing this? How does everything integrate into you, this version of you?

Well, I'm more relaxed. I'm more fun. I'm more fun for me. I enjoy my company quite a lot. And I also have more fun. I took up ballroom dancing. I loved a paddle board. I have an almost two-year-old Italian greyhound. And I just got off of five months of full-time travel. I follow the energy, and it feels so good. And so when I follow the energy, it leads me to places and people and experiences. And as long as I'm feeling good, I keep doing that. And then when I get the little nudge that it's time to do something different, I do something different. And it's never led me wrong, and it feels free.

So good. I'm sure it does. It's funny that we all have that inner knowing. When you said you had to outsource your inner knowing, once you plug it back in.

It's watch out world.

It's watch out world. Also, has it ever happened to you that you know? If you go to an event or if you meet someone, you know who to gravitate towards that you just know. They don't have to say anything. They don't have to do anything. I know what they're able to say that. I know who I'm going to connect with. I know if somebody's evil I even know if somebody wants to do something bad, it's incredible.

Yeah, absolutely. That's that discernment that comes online once we tap into our inner knowing where we know who we're drawn to, who we're vibrating with. I was a music teacher, and I used to have to tune ukulele. I had a wall of ukulele in one classroom with 25 uks. I'd be in there tuning them. The first one I tuned was always the hardest because it was like, they can get out of tune if they're played all day by kids. The first one took a lot of work. But then when I started the second one, I could see in the strings of the first one when I got the second one in tune, because when something is tuned to the same frequency, it vibrates. So if you got all those ukulele in tune and you plucked one of them, all of the same strings would vibrate on the ukulele. Which is the same thing that you're talking about when you know who you want to sit by at the table and you know who you want to have a conversation with, you can feel their energy. You can feel that vibration.

It's so good. I know someone is listening and they're Like, hey, girls at the beginning talk about three doors, the door to self to self, self to others, and self to source. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I know it's bugging them. It's been bugging me, too. I'm like, Let's close the loop.

Yeah, let's close the loop. Okay. So let's, first of all, take away any hierarchy. There's no such thing as a good door, a bad door, a better door. They're just equal doors. And we might have access to one that's really easy for us to access. And maybe there's The other one that we can access, and maybe there's one that's completely inaccessible to us. And that can shift in our lives. It can shift depending on our circumstances. But essentially, it's the doorway into your deepest knowing. And so If you are self to self, that means that you're going to really love turning within to find your deepest knowing. That's going to mean alone time for you. That's probably going to mean time and meditation. That's probably going to mean journaling healing and self-reflection, maybe even recording voice notes on your phone to hear your own voice come back. So that's that self to self door. The self to other door is where we can find our inner knowing by being mirrored by another. And so that might mean that we have a trusted confidante. It might mean that we have a therapist or a coach, or it might mean that you need a religious mentor, depending on what that faith tradition is.

If If you are self to other door, it can be really supportive if you ask for something like... I led a big event two weeks ago or three weeks ago, and I called a friend, and I could just feel anxiety building because this was a really prestigious event for a major Fortune 500 company, and I was leading a meditation on the beach of the Oregon Coast, and I had those butterflies. I called her and I said, Can you reflect back to me the fullness of me right now? That was an example of using that self to other door when we ask someone to mirror us. And then self to source is where we rely on our source, whatever that is, God, the universe, creator, whatever word or entity or beingness feels good to you. That might mean that you spend time in nature or time in prayer or time in meditation or time in a religious ritual or a tradition. Again, there's no such thing as a good door or a bad door. They're just doors. We want you to take whatever door you can take and then be willing to shift if you need to.

My dad died in August. For his whole life, or at least my memory, he had been a self to source. So he relied heavily on his ability to get information from who he called God. At the end of his life, for some reason, that door felt cloudy for him, and his self to other door opened up, and he needed other people to mirror to him what was true. It was really interesting to observe that in him and then to observe how other people met him in that. And it was really special to be a witness to.

That is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm sorry about the loss of your dad. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. It's amazing how you were talking and I'm like, Yeah. I love how in different seasons, you might gravitate to certain doors more than others, and that's totally okay.

That's right. In certain seasons, in certain circumstances, and sometimes even in certain topics.

Yeah. So I believe energy is everything, which means that if we are taking care of our energy, everything else will take care of us. And the way that we can take care of our energy is by honoring our truest emotions Because our emotions are an indicator of how we're feeling. It's like they're our compass. So if we feel drawn to somebody, we should trust that. If we feel like this isn't for me, we should trust that. But then the other thing about emotions is we want to let them flow completely through us so we don't get stuck in them, because sometimes emotions just need to flow in our body Then when they release, we can think more clearly. Because usually, first comes a thought, then comes an emotion, then comes an action, then comes a result. If we're not aware of what we're thinking, and most of us are not, but we can feel an emotion, it can give us a clue into what we're feeling and what we're thinking. And so then we can readjust our thoughts. One of the things that I think is so important is practice this like you offer with the hypnosis and the somatics, because if we're not getting into the body to release stuck emotion, we're not releasing all the energy we need to to be able to flow freely.

Yeah, that is so powerful. And as you I was saying that I realized that for some people, some emotions are not safe to feel.

 That's right.

Then imagine years and years of that emotion being stuck. That's why many things don't manifest. Many things won't come to pass because you're stuck, and you don't even know you're stuck. I can see definitely an opportunity to do some teaching on releasing some emotions or even When you say so beautiful, there's no hierarchy with the doors. That's not a good one or a better one. So with emotions, if we took the charge of the emotion, right? That's right.

If you think about anger, can be one that for me for me was, and continue to do the work on it, because it was never expressed in a safe way.

I always shied away from that until I learned that anger, it's okay. I'm not a little child anymore. I'm okay. I can I can be in a state where people are angry and I know I'm okay. And if I don't feel okay, I can say, Turn it down or whatever. But taking the charge of that emotion and teaching that, let the emotion rise. I love that. Let it flow up. Let it do what it's going to do, because when it passes, you're going to be better off. It needs to be felt. It's like sometimes we suppress our feelings. I don't know if that's what depression is, but it definitely has something to do with it where you're not fully feeling or you're not allowing yourself to feel, and then you get stuck in that state because it's still in there.

That's right. So I have a little mini-course with 14 tools for emotional regulation, and I will gift that to your audience. I will give you the link, and I'll give you a coupon code that's special just for your audience that has ways that we can use specific tools, breath somatic practices to help us deal with specific emotions. I will say that the lens of this particular course is to deal with emotional eating, drinking, and scrolling, but you can apply these emotional tools to anything. It doesn't have to be emotional eating, drinking, and scrolling. It's just from that lens. I'll give that as a gift to your audience.

 Oh, my God. That is so generous. Thank you so much. That's going to help so many people, especially people that I know that are with the scrolling, and they don't know how to stop. They're doing it, but they don't know how to stop. And hopefully, the course will help them realize why they're doing it, and then they can stop. But emotional eating, as we're in this season, and that's the way that people cope I think that's going to be amazing. We'll make sure to include that in the show notes. Oh, my God, you're so generous. And I'm so grateful that you're doing this work and people get to work with you and that you are doing this work. Thank you so much.

Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. And thank you for doing this work and leading these conversations, because the more we can normalize conversations like this, I think there's a lot of people who will feel less alone. So thank you.

You are very welcome. I feel very seen Thank you for that. Where do you hang out the most so people can go follow you there?

The place I hang out the most is Instagram, and it's just my name, Brenda Winkle, W-I-N-K-L-E. I am also active on TikTok, but honestly, I'm not as skilled there as I would like to be.

And we don't even know what's going to happen.

We don't know. We don't know. But Instagram, I love there. And then the hub of everything is my website, which is brendonwinkle. Com. And that has whatever challenge I'm working on at the moment. It's got access to my podcast, which is called Your Guest-Filled Life, and you're going to be a guest on it in 2022-2025, which will be really fun. So yeah, come say hi and let me know you heard this podcast.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you have anything coming up that you want to share with anybody else, other than the pretty beautiful course that you're giving us?

Yeah. I host in-person retreats, and I have one that is upcoming in the late spring of 2025. You can learn more at brendawinkle. Com/retreat. I love to host retreats that give people a chance to actually rest and recharge. We do lots of breathwork, inner child healing. And I always host, well, I have always hosted in Oregon. Oregon is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place to be. You can get into the mountains, to the ocean, to the rivers, to the plains. In an hour, any direction. So, yeah, come learn more about that.

It's exciting. I love a retreat.

If we can meet in person. Yes.

I was already doing the math of the traveling that I'm doing. I'm like, Can I squeeze that in? That would be amazing. Because I'm going to squeeze that in. That will be amazing because I'm a sucker for a retreat. I think retreats are life-changing. I love what you said, and I know why you said it. You said, I love retreats where people can actually rest. Because I don't know if you ever gone to a retreat and you need a vacation from that retreat because they pack it up and they give you and it's like, Give me a moment. I need to integrate. My life is crazy and I just rest.

Thank you for doing that. Yeah, thank you.

That's amazing. I cannot wait for a talk on your podcast. I know it's going to be amazing. You share so many tools and things that people can dive into. I know that I can go to your website or follow you on Instagram to learn more. Amazing conversation. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

My pleasure. There you have it, guys. You need to go follow Brenda because she is a beautiful soul doing amazing, amazing work. As you can see, our conversation just flow. We just met today. We hadn't met before. We didn't plan any other questions, but you could tell that the flow was just going. You have an amazing opportunity to live a beautiful life. If life happened to you, trust me, life happened to me many, many times, and I'm here. So it is possible to heal. It is possible to be happy, and it is possible to do the work that you have been called to do. All you have to do is decide. Please know that I love you, that I'm waiting for you, and I'm going to see you super, super soon.