How To Conquer Your Inner Headless Chicken

Céline Harleaux – Host of the award-winning It's A Funny Thing Podcast. Author of 40 Days To Self-Love. Advanced ThetaHealing Practitioner.

Céline has inspired thousands of women to improve their relationship with themselves, using simple and effective tools. Céline’s audience absolutely loves her playfulness, authenticity and honesty – she never hesitates to share her most awkward stories, as well as her best tips for powerful and long-lasting change.

Transcript

This program was produced by and first broadcast on Radio Hawke's Bay, Your community access media station. Thanks to New Zealand On Air for making this type of programming possible. It's a funny thing with Celine. I'm Celine and I'm so excited that you're here. So today I was going to talk about the lessons that you are learning, That the universe is teaching you and being present with the lessons. And then I realized that we've got a more important topic to talk about. And our topic for today is silence, Is finding the space to experience silence. Because in the silence comes understanding, Comes wisdom, Peace, Connection, Purpose and generally speaking answers. So this is our topic for today. I think this is a especially important topic as we have just been through a incredible weather event as the officials are saying. We have been through a cyclone here in Hawke's Bay and it has damaged our confidence and it has damaged the things that we have taken for granted. And I don't know about you, But I have found it really difficult to experience peace and silence inside of myself. I have felt the stress, I have felt anger, I have felt lonely and panicky generally for a few weeks. And it's just sort of calming down now, Three weeks after the event. So first of all, I'd like to say that I really hope that you're okay. Support is available to you. There are so many people that are rising and offering their help, Most often for free. And support is here for you and you just need to ask. Isn't that the hard part though? So it is a sign of our times that we often run around like headless chickens. I don't know about you, But this is something that I have to, I often catch myself running around like a headless chicken and feeling more and more stressed. And I was talking to somebody at work the other day and she said, You know, I do all of my things and then I rest. We know that doesn't work. And I said, Yeah, I do the same thing. And I have been working really hard to stop running around like a headless chicken, Stopping before I get exhausted. And, You know, Exhaustion and tiredness have been a big part of my patterns, I suppose. And I'm sure it is the same for you. So let's talk about exhaustion and tiredness. Why we run around like headless chickens, How to recognize when we are running around like headless chickens and how to do different. How to start changing this crazy habit of being a headless chicken. I should call this episode the headless chicken or something like that. So let's start with stress and anxiety. And well, I want you to think about what it is like for you and how often you feel stress and anxiety throughout the day, Throughout the week, Throughout the month. You know, If you're a woman, You're most likely to experience stress and anxiety at certain times of the month, Depending on where you're at in your cycle. But also, You know, How do you handle stress when it comes your way? And it's often coming your way, Right? There's rarely a moment now when we don't experience stress. And most of us feel like my colleague at work, You know, That we have to run around and work faster and harder. And generally just drive ourselves crazier so that we can earn ourselves a break. So there is a pattern here of worthiness, You know, Feeling that we're not worthy of resting until we have done enough. For me, When I dive deep into that pattern, And perhaps it'll be the same for you, But you have to look into it. You might find that, You know, You have to earn God's love, Whether you believe in God or not. You know, That's universal force, Whatever your soul, You have to earn something. You have to earn love, You have to earn the right to experience peace, You have to earn the right to experience abundance, Right? And so many of us feel that we have to earn love, Whatever form it takes, Whether it's abundance or peace or clarity, Contentment, Connection, Right? We have to work at our relationships, We have to work at our fitness levels, We have to work at meditating every day. We have to make all of these efforts so that we have a better life. It is in itself an empowering pattern because it forces you to move forward in your life and not to be stuck. And I know this because for a very long time I held this pattern and it took me over two years now to. . . Well, Much longer than that, Much more longer than that before. But I've been working on it consciously for two years and I'm slowly starting to break out of it now, Which is very exciting. What was I saying? So, You know, We have to earn our right to experience love. What was I saying after that? And it's a very. . . Oh, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. So I was talking about why that pattern was empowering because it forces you to move forward, But it's also disempowering. Can you see where the logic is flawed? I'm just going to give you a moment to think about it. Where is the logic flawed? So the pattern is I have to do all of these things before I can rest. I have to, You know, Force myself to eat more vegetables, Eat less sugar, To go to the gym so that I am happy with myself. Where is the flaw? Where is the. . . Why is it a flawed system? Well, For me, What I can see is that there will always be. . . You know, You're training to mind to be dissatisfied with yourself. Now, Until you reach a goal. What's going to happen when you do reach the goal, If you ever do? We do have unattainable goals. What's going to happen is that you're going to set another goal and you're going to be like, Oh, I'm going to be dissatisfied with myself until I reach that next goal. And so you're pushing that happiness and that contentment into the future. And you're creating a space of resistance inside of yourself. And I have felt that very deeply inside of myself. So I'm not. . . I guess I'm preaching to the converted already here. You're creating a space of resistance and the word is discontinuity, But also disconnect within yourself. You're saying, You know, You're not good enough now, But you will be once you reach that goal. But your mind is not trained to change its mind once you have reached a goal, Right? You know, You hear about people who have made it in business, Who have made it in life, Generally speaking, And they're still not happy because they have trained their mind to look towards the future. And they have trained their mind themselves to deny their right to be happy now. And it is a. . . I don't want to say that it's a difficult pattern to break because it isn't. But. . . And you do have to recognize that it's a pattern inside of you that you want to break. But it's a pattern that is pervasive in everything that we do now. It's in everything. It's in your, You know, The experiences, All the experiences that you've had now in this life. It's in the experiences that your parents have had in their lives. It's in. . . It's a pattern that we hold as a collective society. And so if you break from that pattern, You know, You break away from society in a sense. And we know that it's safer to do what everybody else is doing, To be a sheep, Right? Because there's less danger than that. It's a very. . . What's the word? It's a pattern that we've held for generations and generations as a way of surviving, Right? So in that sense, It is a difficult pattern to break. But it's a necessary pattern to break if you want to step into who you really are and what you really want to do, Right? So I'd like you to take a moment to look into the stress and anxiety that you're feeling in your life on a regular basis. And feel into the deeper reason why you're experiencing that stress. So why are you forcing to do more, To be more, To have more? Is it. . . I mean, For many women, The answer straight away will be, I feel unsupported and nobody's helping me and blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. I don't want you to go down into that victim mindset. I just want you to go a little bit deeper. What is the deeper reason? I feel unsupported, Yes. And? What do you. . . What do you. . . What do you. . . What are you seeking to earn? What are you seeking to gain from running around like a headless chicken? If you knew that you were safe, If you knew that you were held, If you knew that you were loved unconditionally, Would you still behave in this way? Probably not. So where is the lack of love in your life? Where does it stem from? And why are you holding on to it? And that is the bigger question. You know, And so many of us feel unsupported and we're alone and, You know, Nobody's helping us. And, You know, We're always, You know, Trying to keep the house tidy and cook everybody some nice healthy dinner. And we're trying to take care of everyone. And just the other day, You know, I was. . . I was at work at a meeting and I spoke to my big boss afterwards. Well, He spoke to me. I was trying to. . . I was trying to run away. Anyway, So he spoke to me and he said, Celine, You know, You have to take care of yourself without feeling guilty. And we have heard this a million times, But I broke down into tears in front of my big boss. And I thought, Yeah, There is still something there for me to look at. You know, Why is it that we deny ourselves the right to take care of ourselves? And I want you to go beyond all the fluffy stuff that we normally talk about. I want to. . . I want you to dive into the reason why you are denying yourself the right to be cherished. And it's not a matter of loss of time. That is just a symptom. That's not the cause. It's not that your husband is useless. That's a symptom. That's not the cause. It's not that you have young children. Again, That's the symptom and not the cause. I want you to look for the cause. And if you're finding it difficult to find the cause, I will happily dig into your belief systems with you. And let's get to the bottom of it together. So anyway, So that's something for you to think about. You know, Why are you a headless chicken? Now, A part of us knows that there is no use running faster and doing more and, You know, Going harder at it. But we're never going to go anywhere with this sort of mindset. But if you've been in that mindset for a long time, And I will wager that you have, You know, Experienced some sort of headless chicken mindset for most of your life, As soon as you started to become an adult, You know, You lost that innocence. You, You know, Had exams and you had expectations and you had dreams and, You know, You started to want things. And then you started to run around like a headless chicken. I can remember, I can remember the shift from childhood to, Into adulthood for me. And it was very clear. I remember when I was a child, I was looking at adults. And it's so funny to say it now, But I just, I just saw that adults had problems and concerns. And I thought if I want to be an adult and I really wanted to grow up, I, You know, I was the youngest in my class and some of the kids were three, Four years older than me. And when you're a child, That's a huge difference. And I thought, Oh, I want to, I want to grow up and I want to be like those adults. I want to be an adult now. So surely that means that I should have a list of problems. So I created some problems for myself and there we go. Then I was an adult. So I wrote down a list of problems that I had. And I remember very consciously that I had to think really hard about problems that I had, But then I had shifted my mind. I had created a pattern inside of my brain that said, Look for problems, Then you will grow up. So, Yeah, It's so funny how the mind works. So we know that there's no use in running around like a headless chicken. There's no use in creating a list of problems for you to make yourself feel better and more adult like I did. So what do we do? It's not about, I mean, It is definitely about working smarter, But not in this conversation. What is the answer? Well, The answer to me is to pause and do absolutely nothing at all. So most of you will know that I had a business called My Dawning Light for six years. And I wasn't running around like a headless chicken. And I was teaching self-love and I was teaching peace and meditation. And yet I was burning out. And so eventually it came to a stage where it just really wasn't sustainable anymore. I wasn't making enough money to justify all the work that I was doing. And I think that God, The universe, Really had to bring me down on my knees to force me to stop. And so this episode really is an invitation for you to stop before the universe has to bring you on your knees. Because it was the hardest lesson that I ever had to learn. So the answer for me has been to pause and do nothing. So for two years, I did nothing at all in my business. I did no amount, I did zero amount of work on myself. I did no work whatsoever on my limiting beliefs. The only thing I kept doing is that I meditated for 40 minutes in the morning before going to work. I did nothing else. No journaling, No rituals, No courses, No retreats, No. . . I barely did any yoga because I thought it was too intense and it brought up too much stuff. I did nothing. I thought, You know, Fine, You know, My business has collapsed, Then fudge you, I'm not going to do anything about this. If this is meant for me, Then it will come my way again. But I will never work hard for it again. Never again. And so I stopped. And I realized just how much time I had. And so, You know, I found myself a nice job and I wasn't working. . . I mean, It was tiring, But I wasn't working 40 hours a week. It was more around, You know, 25, 30, 35. And then I would go home and I would, You know, Cook something nice. So I would have a nap and we got ourselves a cat and then we got ourselves a second cat. And I went for walks at night time with my husband. And I went for horse rides and I started to do pottery again. And I spent a lot of time reading. And I started to do all the things that I enjoyed doing, Like knitting, And that I never had time for before because I was running around like a headless chicken. And I stopped all of my efforts. And I was angry. Oh man, I was angry. I was very angry. I was angry at myself for, You know, Being so silly and stupid and persevering, You know, For something that clearly wasn't working. I was angry at God. I was angry at people. I was angry at, You know, People who were more successful than me. I was angry at my husband. I'll just close the door. Give me a second. But I forced myself to stop. And eventually I, You know, Recovered from exhaustion and fatigue. And, You know, I stopped having headaches and I started to cook healthy things and, You know, Sugar-free desserts for myself once again. And I started to regain my strength. And I spent a lot of time just feeling those feelings of anger and loneliness and disconnection and poverty and all these things that were coming up that I had never had. I never had the time to deal with them when I had the business because I was always running around like a headless chicken. And because I forced myself to stop, I forced myself to be present with those feelings and I forced myself to. . . I was forced to face who I was, You know, The worst parts of me. And I was forced to give up on all of my efforts. And in that space of silence came the answers. You know, Often we pray to God, The universe for answers and we, You know, Do these meditations and clearings very much in a space of despair because we want more money, We want more time, We want a better marriage, We want a better body, We want better clothes, We want a better house. And we feel despair at our situation. And so we cry to God because we feel so deeply unhappy. And we feel that God doesn't hear us, Right? And we feel that we are all alone and we have to do more faster. We have to be stronger, We have to keep going. And it is a sign of our times. You know, We celebrate the stories of people who have kept going no matter what. You know, We see the stories online of teachers and coaches and healers and whatever who, You know, Kept at it until they were successful. And all you need to do is to keep going, Right? Well, I would like to offer you a different approach because I tried to keep going and it didn't work for me. And there was no peace in that path. There was only destruction. And it sounds a bit dramatic, But it is what it is. No, The answers came in silence. And we are afraid of silence. We are so deeply afraid of silence. We are afraid of the answers we are going to get. We are afraid that there is no God in this universe that loves us. We are afraid of facing our shadows. My invitation to you is to experience silence. And you don't need to sit your butt down, You know, Your back erect for 40 minutes. You know, You can experience silence in a walk in nature. But my invitation to you is to experience silence every day, To make space for silence every day in your life. You know, Even if it is just, You know, You know, Pulling over on the side of the road and just closing your eyes for 5 minutes before you get back home after work. Find the space to experience silence. It is the single most important thing that you can do for yourself. Because in the silence you will find the answers. In the silence you will find what you are looking for. And it will feel strange. It will feel uncomfortable. But I truly believe that that is the path. So I hope that you enjoyed this episode today. I hope that you are feeling well. If you are not, Then this is an invitation to spend quite a bit of time in silence today. If you have been busy helping others digging up mud and silt in their homes or whatever. If you have been participating in our recovery here in Hawke's Bay. This is truly an invitation for you to take a moment. Have a cry if you need to. Have a nap. Have a bath. Whatever you do, Spend some time in silence. So I'm sending you so so so much love and I'll speak to you very soon.