Strengthen Self-love and Confidence After Trauma

0:00 
I'mI’m your host,The Gentle Yoga Warrior.  Please welcome today,life coach, podcaster, and life enthusiast Kaelin Vu!

Her journey to helping others, began with her own challenges. Because of her life experiences, she experienced very low self-worth and confidence.

Her mission with her podcast and life coaching is to help as many women as possible to feel empowered to be their authentic selves by connecting with their own self-love. 

What a fantastic life mission and  I am deeply honoured to have Kaelin on the show today.  Joining us today from California, USA! 

Hello, kailyn Welcome to the show.
 Hi, Jane,

0:52  
thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's

0:55  
a real honour a real pleasure. Today we're going to talk about how to strengthen self love and confidence after trauma. Like many having experienced trauma as a child, I know only too well how self love and confidence can be lacking as well as trust in oneself on an overs. Yes, it is possible to feel empowered again. I am grateful to have kailyn on the shore today to help offer our listeners advice on how to strengthen their confidence. In the words of Christopher Reeve, a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure, in spite of overwhelming obstacles. On that note, I thought who better to speak to us today on strengthening self love and confidence after trauma than you kailyn. So Carolyn, what does strengthen your self love and confidence after trauma mean to you? And what inspired you to talk about it today?

1:58  
Yeah, well, thank you so much, I'm really grateful for this opportunity. And I hope that it gets a lot of value to your listeners, screaming your self love after trauma. I feel like it's something that is really important. But it's also a choice, we have a choice after something happens in our lives to be either, you know, one example is a victim or a survivor, we can either always become a victim, certain circumstances where we can choose to rise above them. And I really, truly do feel that it is a choice, because it is something that is intentional. And we have to make the decision to do when I was 17. And I reached a rock bottom in my life. And this was like, you know, years of built up of challenges, I'll just say that. And, and I was in a place of a lot of pain, I had to make the conscious decision to actually not look at the past, and rather only look ahead at the future. Well, not dismissing the pain of the past, but just making the conscious decision to only look in the future. So what this entails is making a decision to look forward. And so for me, that was I want to feel peace and happiness, or in other words, I don't want to live in pain anymore. And then figuring out actions that would take me to that place. So for me that was going to the beach, often reading, working on my personal development, continuing to focus on school and work and focusing on my future, you know, rather than the past. And then eventually as I kept doing those actions, I was stepping into the person who I wanted to be, which in turn was strengthening my self love and confidence after trauma. So I hope that was a good explanation.

3:53  
Amazing, brilliant explanation and really amazing and really inspiring. How can you help someone take charge of their life rather than be a victim in it?

4:06  
I would say first of all, give yourself time to feel what you're feeling. Because the more that we push away what we're feeling the louder it gets. And then there are stages of the grief, grief stages. But the most important thing to know is that the fastest way to get over anything and heal from it from your life is accepting it. So whatever this person situation, or even upset on yourself, might be the first thing is to accept it. And then after accepting it, focus your attention on what you do have control over. And I think an important aspect to also mention here is gratitude, feeling gratitude for what we do have rather than what we don't have because Honestly, in itself, us being alive, even if we're in pain, but being alive is a gift. Even if we're in pain, because we had a one, unfortunately, and chances of being born, and every single day is a blessing, it's a new chance to grow a new chance to live a new dream, or a new lease on life, like the best time to change our lives, if we want to is always now. So how do we how to overcome being a victim? starts with accepting it. And a lot of it is a mindset, like, do you believe that you're a victim like that, that's something that would be important to ask yourself, this could be a belief that you have that you might possibly want to consider having a coach to help you explore that. Or even doing some self reflection on your own. One thing that I would recommend as a tool, something that anyone can do is Well, two things, you know, journal it out, read it, and give your own self advice. Or you could just pull out the microphone, like voice memos on your phone, and talk it out, you know, go for a walk and talk it out, and then listen and listen to it back. And, you know, give your own self advice that way. Like, we often look out or towards outer sources for validation or advice. When really inside we know we have the infinite knowledge, we already know what to do. Like as a coach, what I do is I help be a thinking partner to my clients, to help them unravel the information that's already inside of them. Like, if I were to tell people what to do, it wouldn't be sustainable, and I wouldn't, what might work for me might not work for them, everyone already knows what they need to do inside of themselves, they just need to tip to access the information, whether that's, you know, for some people meditation, sitting in a quiet place for 30 minutes. There's a saying that, and you know, I'm not imposing religion, anybody or anything like that, I'm just saying that, whatever God means to you, then you can use it in this context. Prayer is talking to God, and intuition is God talking to you. So whether that's sitting in a quiet space, with no distractions for 30 minutes, ideally every day, to listen to your intuition and your gut feeling, and having that clarity, on what to do moving forward, that works for some people. For others, meditation could be something entirely different. That could be exercising, and whatever, whatever that looks like for you. Making sure to do that regularly and having the discipline to do that regularly. And it's helps to start out small, I know that we always say that. But the reason why we say that is because when we have expectations or goals that are too large, originally, it can feel overwhelming. And that freezes us we don't do anything. Or another one is that we get too discouraged. It looks too big. So when we have when we start small, and we have small goals, we're able to accomplish that in and then from there, we're like, oh, wow, we did this, well, maybe I could try this, and then we just get bigger and bigger, and our minds grow. I think it's another good point to bring up when we need to have a big mind or open mind. If we could say that, like

9:07  
I'll tie this back to you know, not feeling like a victim. But let's say we want to have a lot of money. And like currency wise, we need to feel that we are rich, the feeling is the secret. We need to feel that we are what we want to be. And so if you want to be you know, someone who see, being a survivor, or success means something different to everyone else. So figuring out also what success means to you. And then showing up as that as that person and feeling that way and really literally like growing into that person every day. It's growth that matters. Not anything else, like even if it's slow growth. It's still grow.

9:56  
Oh, absolutely fantastic here then. I love it. Everything that you said, and it's really good that you shared some tools that our listeners can implement into their life. And I totally agree on starting small. And if not one, it might be an all or nothing attitude, or I've tried or instead of trying to do a little bit each day, I will say that about meditation or whatever form of mindfulness my listeners are doing to do a bit each day, I find that really has a very lasting impact. I guess working with a coach like yourself, you want you have the ability to help people to see their blind spots of where and to, like you said you'd like to bring it out of them, rather than just say you should do this, or you should do that it's kind of more like of a process of like a partnership in a way of, of them drawing that out for for themselves with your guidance, and the importance of gratitude. I definitely agree with that as well. And I was really intrigued to know what the seven levels of energy are? And how does that how would that fit into strengthening self love?

11:12  
Yeah, so the seven levels of energy. This goes into a lot of depth, I have a podcast episode, specifically dedicated to this, if someone is more interested in learning more about it, but I can't give you you know, kind of the surface level of what it is and how this relates to self love. So the first level of energy would be victim, that's someone who, let's say, feels like they're victim to every situation in their lives, their victim at work their victim in relationships, it's really a mindset. And so they show up to life as a victim, they walk around with kind of their head down, they don't participate in anything in life, like they don't stand up for themselves. That's essentially what a level one energy is. And on level two is categorised as conflict. So this person doesn't really get along with other people too well, this person butts heads, they don't work well. And partnerships or projects. And this is level one and two energy are over 80% of the population. And this is why we're seeing so much dysfunction perhaps in people's lives, in the workplace, and with society in general. So before we move on to level three, I want to say that there is an anabolic and catabolic energy. So Kat folic energy is the energy that increases your stress hormones and literally breaks your body down. And that's why it's categorised as catabolic. So that's level one and two anabolic build your body up. It's the it causes your body to create the feel good hormones, and that would be levels four and up. Level Three is a mixed bag of both anabolic, anabolic and catabolic. So someone I love with three energy works well. or not, I wouldn't say works well. But it's able to work with other people. But it's still in it for them. So they want to win for their good only. And not really for the good of the whole team or for everybody else. It's it's a mixed bag because it has both anabolic and catabolic energy. And this kind of person generally does Okay, in their affairs, but it's not reaching their fullest potential. level four is someone who would be categorised as, let's say a caregiver, someone who's very selfless. They just want to help everybody. So this is this would be someone who would say something like, I win, if you win to the level three would be like I win lose. So level four really just wants to help as a caring heart as very selfless. You could picture someone like this who would be mean I know not every teacher is like this, but you know that kind of essence of a teacher or let's say gardener or a nanny. And then level five is categorised as leadership. That's somebody someone who takes initiative and brings ideas into creation. So this would be someone who theoretically could be a manager or an entrepreneur. So One who is able to take ideas and turn them into reality, and lead other people as well. And then level six is categorised as synergy. So this is when everything fits together really well, like synergy. Think of maybe the Yin Yang, how everything is balanced, this is a really good place to be. I don't know many people who are at a level six consistently. And level seven is

15:36  
think of it as in moments of extreme, either intelligence. Like let's say, someone who might be a songwriter is writing a song, and then all of us, they're having so much trouble, and then all of a sudden, they just get this like, hit of this external source somehow, or maybe internal, whatever, whatever feels best for you. The source of energy that is just brilliance, that's something that we can tap into the, the seventh level of energy, something that we can tap into, but it's not fully sustainable. And so how this relates back to self love, is if we love ourselves, we're going to want to reflect higher levels of energy. Because the higher level of energy we are, the better we feel, the better that we show up for other people in our lives, and obviously ourselves. And the more impact that we can make on, you know, everything. So

16:45  
if we love

16:47  
ourselves, that's going to be reflected in everything that we do, the way that we show up for our family, the way that we show up in our own lives, the decisions that we make, the commitments that we keep. And as we grow in self love, more and more, so does our level of energy. Because, you know, if we're a victim to our lives, we're not going to be at, let's say, a level five, and making action happen, because our energy is so low, the more self love that we accumulate, and the higher levels of energy that we feel, the more that we're going to go up and up and up in this spectrum.

17:36  
Wow, I can really relate to that the different levels and absolutely fascinating, what's the podcast called, so that our listeners can tune in to hear to learn a bit more about that?

17:48  
Okay, it's called perceptions, seven levels of energy, and filter questions explained.

17:54  
Perfect. I'll put a link on the narrative with this podcast. And guess we could go between the different levels as well, I guess if you're not always going to some people might always be a level five, but you could be a level five, and then something happens and you go to a level three, is that possible? Or are you just level,

18:12  
so we have an IRL average resonating level of energy. And then we also have our ASL average stress level, resonating level of energy. So basically, our energy level on a good day, or typical day, and then our energy level in response to stress. So it's really interesting, you know, I've done so I actually have a seven levels of energy and consultation with people where I give them my it's just like, a really short little assessment, it shouldn't take any more than, let's say, even five minutes, because you're supposed to answer the first, you know, answer that comes to your mind, and not think about it too hard and not try to lie to yourself about it, but just really the first answer that, you know, is true for you. And then I actually see exactly where they are. And it's amazingly accurate, where they are like, what is their energy level on the on the good day, and what's their energy level on a bad day, and we explore every single one of those levels. I've done quite a few by now. And it's so amazing to see how some people can have maybe an average resonating level of three or four and then their stress responses way down to one or even a one combined or two. And there's when you take the assessment as well, you're able to see like maybe you could be a primary level four, and a secondary level three, or primary five and secondary six, you know, it could be any of these and I Really, it goes really in depth. But there's actually CAD pedigree sticks, that are pretty unique to every single one of those. And, and also for each level of energy, and none of them are necessarily good or bad. Everyone's exactly where they're supposed to be. So let's say someone is really high in level four energy, and they're very giving. I mean, the obvious upside to this is that they probably feel a lot of happiness from helping other people. The downside to this is maybe they might need to enforce stronger boundaries, because they feel the need to always help people. So these are things that we could definitely explore,

20:47  
oh, nothing very helpful for a lot of people. And I guess that's why you work a lot of with women, is it? Because Do you feel that they can have more trauma? Or is it just a natural place for you to work?

21:04  
I feel like it's just really natural. For me, it's what I enjoy a lot. To be honest, you know, I've worked with both men and women. And I just realised that I needed to niche down more. So you know, being an online coach, there's a lot of a lot of coaches out there. And the more specific any stone that we get, the more that we speak to our ideal client. And so I was really hard for me to choose to work, or at least market myself primarily to women. There still are a lot of men who follow me because they like my content, even though it's not specifically directed towards them. But I mean, knowledge is in wisdom is for everybody?

21:49  
Yes, definitely. If any of our listeners, they try to work on their self love and free trauma, they could then book sessions with us, I guess you do it online these days. So it doesn't matter if they're in the in a different country, whereas our listeners are international. So that's why I'm where I'm going with this question is they can do online with yourself and buy a website?

22:12  
Yes, someone can send me an email on my website, or even find my calendar link on my website as well. I only do online sessions right now. I've actually in my whole entire time as a coach done one session in person that just goes to show how much everything is online? Yes. Yeah. And I, I love working with people internationally. I mean, at one point, it seems like all of my clients were International, it's kind of funny. It's I love working with people who are in other countries, because it really goes to show. And if there's one thing that I've learned as a coach, it's that we're all more alike than we realise. We all are having some kind of challenge in our lives. And I think that's a beautiful thing I learned in coaching school is that change is the only constant in our lives. I mean, I learned that but I didn't know like it put like a saying to the words or the thoughts in my head, you know, that change is only constant in our lives. And so that's kind of why when we can learn to accept things in our lives, things get a lot easier for us, because things are constantly changing.

23:35  
Yeah, I think this one will mean a resistance to that change, that's when it can, it can kind of, we can become overwhelmed and and, and and kind of step into that victim mentality where it's like, oh, why does this happen to me rather than I'm not just taking anything away from anyone, but it's just you know, that is life is constant change. And I think as humans being humans being that we are meant to have change and flux in our life. And sometimes it's the way we want it to be in some times it may be uncomfortable, but ultimately, I'm a great believer that there's something good that comes from most things. So what is your biggest takeaway from being a self love coach?

24:23  
Yeah, well, I think that one of my biggest takeaways would be that we could all have more self love, we could all practice it. And Toronto would be a better place for it. self love is for everybody.

24:42  
And

24:44  
I think it's annoying when people say this, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

24:50  
self love

24:52  
isn't only bubble baths and getting your hair and your nails done. In fact, that might not be self love, if you're getting it for the wrong reasons. self love is so much more than that. It's looking at every aspect of yourself, and loving you for who you are, like, getting naked with yourself, metaphorically or literally whatever you want. But it's doing the hard work. And I don't want to say hard. Because I don't feel like that's the best word. But let's be truthful, that looking into ourselves and finding our faults, I don't want to say faults, that's not the best word either. But the parts of ourselves that we might not like the most, and being honest, and truthful, and rot ourselves and working through those things. That isn't something that's really easy. And so a lot of times what people do actually is self sabotage, or they want to, or they begin their own way, somehow, they feel like, uncomfortable with their growth. And so this journey of self love, it's not linear. It's it's not it, I've never seen a self love journey be linear ever, there's going to be ups and there's going to be downs. The most important thing I feel like in this journey, though, is to have a constant state of knowing where you want to be, and where you want to go. And making effort every day to get to that place. So even if we have a really, you know, days that we feel down, still knowing where we're going to be and accepting our feelings for what they are. So and then we never know what people are going through. Even if they seem like they have it all together. I've had clients who are on the big screen, and you would think like, wow, they're famous, like, they should have it all, they should be happy. But we have no idea what they've been through in childhood. I have clients who are actually therapists, or coaches themselves, who also have been through a lot in their lives. So we never know what people are going through, ever. And the best thing that we could do, even if they're like coming to us for advice, per se, it's just to listen to them. That's the biggest gift to acknowledge and validate their feelings. And just be like an actual listening ear, that can just in itself, help heal so many people. So I would say those are some of my biggest takeaways from being a life coach,

28:04  
as you speak, I can feel your authentic wish to truly help people and you have this way of speech you have making people feel uplifted. And as if anything's kind of like possible, and a really relate to allowing our feelings, I think in society, we're taught that we've just got to kind of suck it up, kind of allow, rather restrict how we're feeling and that to feel things is to fail. And that we should know out how we're feeling via I don't know, look by TV, or addictions or anything like that. But I think, to be truly happy, is to feel those feelings even when we're not happy. And to go down the path of learning to love ourselves unconditionally. What's in all as the saying says, and because ultimately, it's actually harder I feel in the long run, to not go down that path. Having tried to do that myself in my past. So I really feel that our strength comes from our vulnerability and our ability to do that. And I feel that you've got a lot to offer people and they're going to get so much from your coaching sessions and if they want to reach out to you, and could you let our listeners know what your website is and how they can reach out to you.

29:40  
Yes, thank you so much. So my website is kailen boo.com. That's KE li n v u.com. You can find out more about me there, or even my Instagram on my website as well and more about coaching and how to reach out to me My email is Hello at Kaelyn booth calm, you can always reach out to me there as well. My Instagram handle is at dear lovely universe, and I'm more than happy to reach, you know, help you in this area, if you feel like this is something that you might need help with.

30:26  
Perfect, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for having you on the show. And for your wisdom. I like to throw out a kind of different kind of question. And so how do you think that we can be better guests on this planet?

30:40  
So I have a two part answer for this.

30:44  
I think first of all, truly, that

30:50  
every single person was born with a purpose. And this purpose usually includes in some way shape, or form, bettering the world, bettering the consciousness of the earth. So when we talk about the purpose of life, I would say it really comes down to Well, first of all, enjoying life, and then also utilising our gifts and talents to make the world a better place. So I think when we do that, it not only gives us purpose, and you know, in turn, helps us enjoy our lives more. But it also impacts a lot of people. And when we're not sharing, or doing our purpose, that the reason why we were born, that's doing a disfavour for not only ourselves, but for all the people that we could help. And it could feel scary. That's one of them, I think the main thing that holds people back is the fear. And the fear can be categorised as self doubt, or our biggest inner critic, whatever that is. And the best way to overcome fear is to literally is to literally walk towards it. And then my second part to this answer is to let go of the past, which I feel like also is kind of hand in hand with overcoming fear. But let go of the past. And the best way to do that is that I've learned, figure out what it is that you want to let go of, and see it with if it's a person or a situation, feeling that you have towards yourself, whatever it is, picture it in your mind, what it is that you want to let go of, then make the conscious decision to let go of it. There's really no other way to do it. But but then to make the conscious decision to let go of it. So for me when that was when I was 17 and hit rock bottom, and I wanted to be happy. That was making the conscious decision to let go of my past and look forward to the future. To be happy. Sometimes we have to let go of jobs, relationships, of certain identities that we create for ourselves, and that we feel happy with. But we are in our story. We're really not our story. And that's, that's our ego that is holding us in this place of suffering. And our ego will let us suffer for a long time if we don't do something about it. So shatter your ego learn the true essence of who you are and why you're on this planet. And I think that's how we could be the best guests on this earth.

34:04  
Completely. Wow, what an answer. What an answer thanking kailyn absolutely fantastic. Thank you to Carolyn Lou, for being on our show. Such a gifted and a wise woman. Really appreciate you being on the show today. Listeners do stay tuned. We've got a wonderful meditation coming up. So thank you, Carolyn, you've been an absolute legend. Thank you.

34:28  
Thank you so much, Jane, and thank you to everyone who tuned in. I have full faith in you that you will accomplish or reach your fullest potential. And best of luck to you and your self love journey.

34:40  
All Thank you kailyn Thank you very much. In theme of this week's podcast on self love and confidence of trauma. I came up with a meditation which is a free part meditation which will help hopefully You on your road to more self love and confidence. Like with all forms of meditation, please do not do this when driving or operating machinery, just press pause and just do it safely from your home or somewhere where you will not be disturbed. So the meditation is called release, relax and restore. So please sit up nice and tall. Like always you have the option of you're sitting on a chair, whatever you can sustain for three minutes where you'll be comfortable, and feel good. Do one, take some slow calm deep breaths in and out through the nostrils. And as you inhale, feel as if the abdomen expands. And as you exhale, you feel as if the abdomen goes in. So in and out through the nostrils, inhaling, and exhaling.

35:58  
So do one in his time of go, go go. Try to remember,

36:08  
you always have the option of saying no, no, no. And in this moment of presence, and to be

36:19  
can you think what is it I want to release to set myself free. Whatever elegant word comes into your mind.

36:31  
Just offer it to the light and leave your troubles behind. Let it go. Let it go, release, release, release. No longer be a prisoner to stuff that's holding you back, say cease, cease cease. And take some slow, deep breaths into that as you release what it is that you feel you want to release today.

37:07  
And then relish this silence. But stay with me there's more. Just let it go. Let it go with the flow.

37:28  
However you're sitting maybe on a chair or on the floor. start to feel the connection with the sick bonds and where you're sitting. And as you continue to let everything go find a space of relaxation.

37:49  
Relax, relax, relax.

38:03  
How much can you let go of any tension in any part of your body? Can you let it go? Let it go. As you relax, you relax, and you relax. Perhaps you can stop from the toes and make your way up the body. A great thing to do is to tense your shoulders up towards your ears and let them go. tense your face, stick out your tongue and then relax. So Rhonda, relax. Don't do just be allow yourself to be free. And if your mind wants to travel here, there and far, just come back to the breath slow, calm, deepen even. And that will take you far. So the best distraction for an overactive mind is to use your breath and come back to that space and time.

39:14  
So

39:14  
it's always good to linger in the presence in the here and now. So as you've released and you've relaxed a little we're now going to restore. Yes, do one before jumping up. We're going to come back into the here and now take some deep breaths but we're not going to run out the door. Instead, we're going to relish in our being and extend gratitude to who we are today. Knowing that were always perfect in each and every way. No need to put ourselves down or to be cruel. We are who we are and that is very true. Of course we can want to change and make things to make changes in our life. But don't forget to live in the moment, life doesn't always have to be such a big fight. Can you restore your being by connecting and feeling the memory of joy and true gratitude extending to yourself into the world as you allow yourself to restore in the gifts of your inner

40:29  
light. So slowly

40:45  
come back, come back completely into the now release and relax and restores is is how. Thank you for listening to the meditation today. I hope you to join me on another special day. And thank you again for all my guests past and present. Without you I don't have a show. So, dear ones, thanks for listening. And don't forget to tap always into your own inner

41:16  
flow.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai