Healing Is Not a Hustle: Real Talk on Emotional Accountability

What happens when you have all the external markers of success but feel profoundly unhappy? Heather Stewart faced this reality as a senior director of finance with the degree, the job, and the lifestyle that society deemed successful—yet something was missing. In a courageous act of self-reclamation, she quit her corporate position, ended her marriage, sold her house, and embarked on a three-month journey to India that would forever alter her perspective on life.

Her time in India revealed a stark contrast between Western materialism and community-centered values, leading to a profound realization: "I am a complete person." This awareness freed her from the constant seeking that characterizes much of modern existence. Upon returning to Canada, Heather transformed her career path, opening a yoga studio and becoming a massage therapist to help others reconnect with their physical wellness after experiencing the cerebral nature of corporate life.

The universe wasn't finished with Heather's transformation, however. A stroke in 2021 became what she calls "the gift of a three-day silent retreat" in the ER, forcing her to confront a powerful truth—while she was moving in the right direction, she was "playing too small." This health crisis birthed her Thriving Life Method, a holistic approach that harmonizes physical, emotional, spiritual, occupational, and financial wellbeing.

Throughout our conversation, Heather challenges popular notions about manifestation, emphasizing that visualization alone isn't enough—we must take ownership and action. "If you want to decide that you need a different life," she explains, "I had to stand up for myself, use my voice, and make something different happen." This perspective offers a refreshing alternative to passive manifestation practices that often leave people frustrated when results don't materialize.

Whether you're feeling stuck in a career that no longer serves you, struggling to process emotions authentically, or seeking to create meaningful change in your life, Heather's journey demonstrates the transformative power of taking ownership. By reclaiming responsibility for our choices and circumstances, we unlock our capacity to manifest the reality we truly desire.

Cont

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Lift One Self
• 1:13 Heather's Transformation Journey
• 10:12 India: A Life-Changing Experience
• 20:07 Mindful Moment Practice
• 31:23 Processing Emotions in the Body
• 42:05 Manifesting Reality Through Ownership
• 48:39 Final Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

NatNatBe: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, nat Nat, and today we are with Heather Stewart, and I think we're going to get into a juicy, delicious conversation, because before we started recording, we were talking about blame and accountability and how a lot of people like to talk about manifesting their reality. Yet the biggest part is taking accountability for your actions and not blaming the external world. So before we dive in, heather, would you be so gracious to introduce yourself to myself and the listeners and let us know a little bit about yourself?

Heather Stewart: 1:13

Sure Myself to myself. I would love that. And yes, so my name is Heather and I call myself a real life coach and a transformation facilitator. And the transformation facilitator came when I went to Sarasota last year and I had a session with a channel this gentleman I love who channels the collective and I asked them what I was good at and they said that my first. They told me they was really, really good at what I did and I said, well, you tell me what it is. So my one of my superpowers is helping people to transform and I think part of that is the transformation of myself. So I did the things we were supposed to do. We were just talking.

Heather Stewart: 2:06

I went to Ottawa U, I got the degree, I became a CPA, I was a senior director of finance, I was working in corporate life, I had the external trappings that people would say were successful, and I was unhappy and I quit my job. I mean, people thought it was like an instantaneous thing. It took me a little bit of deciding what to do, but I quit my job and I got divorced and I sold my house. I lived in Mississauga and, um, I said it's done, this is the wrong thing, it's done and I transformed myself and I actually went away to India for three months and when I came back, yeah, I had started teaching yoga, opened my own yoga studio because I felt like there was like there was a lot of cerebral, there's a lot of brain thinking when you're in a corporate world, but your body is suffering and I felt like the body really needed to have some attention. I went back to school for two years. I became a massage therapist and teaching yoga. I'm a personal trainer. I'm helping people with their physical wellness. I'm like, yeah, this is amazing. People knew what my previous job was, so I would have all these health and wellness people saying, heather, I got a letter from the government. I'm so scared. I'm like, well, let's open it and see what's inside. So so I started business coaching for health and wellness because they were so sweet and they were trying to help people and they were struggling. I said, okay, now I've got it because I'm helping people with business. I got that skill. I'm helping people with their physical wellness, yeah.

Heather Stewart: 3:53

And then the universe kicked me in the butt as hard as it could without permanent damage and I had a stroke in 2021. And it's COVID. Nobody could come and visit me. I was in the ER for three days because there was no beds in the hospital and I couldn't see properly, so I couldn't do the thing that people do I probably would have done myself go to the phone and start scrolling to distract yourself. I just had to lay there.

Heather Stewart: 4:20

I tell people I had the gift of a three-day silent retreat and it was Halloween weekend, so the ER was a fascinating place to be an observer. And I just at one point said, okay, the doctors say I've had a stroke, they're probably pretty right. Okay, I'll trust them and I'll let them do their job and take care of me and stop arguing with them that it's impossible, because you know how healthy I am. And and I said, okay, why am I here? So I started paying attention and what I realized was I was doing the. I was going in the right direction, but I was playing too small. So while I was there, in the right direction, but I was playing too small.

Heather Stewart: 5:05

So while I was there, dropped in my program which I called the Thriving Life Method, and it's like helping people. Harmonize Balance is not the word I use. I use harmonize on purpose. Yes, I was working on their physical health and, yes, their businesses. But we needed to talk about their emotional health and the community around them and their occupation and their financial health and their spiritual health. I said, okay, all the things got it.

Heather Stewart: 5:35

And while I was there, it was also my podcast was born that day, those three days, and it's called Back to Me trying to help people understand that the current belief that it's better to be a martyr and sacrifice yourself than to take care of yourself so that you can take care of other people, and ways to do it. And yeah, I always have fascinating conversations with people. On my podcast, I talked to a sexual fantasy expert once. So cool, such a cool conversation. Anyway, so that's what I do. I help people transform, I help people fit. I call, I use real life coach on purpose, because whatever solutions we explore together to help people, I want it to fit their real life as it is now, because you don't need more overwhelm, you don't need more disruption. People are trying to find a way to come back to themselves, even if they don't call it that, and I want to help them do that in an easy way. It doesn't have to be hard, right.

NatNatBe: 6:46

Yeah, we have a lot of similarities in our journey, so I'm looking forward to the dialogue that we're going to get into. Yeah, before that, will you join me in a mindful moment, of course, so we can calm ourselves and open ourselves even better? Mm-hmm, so we can ground ourselves and open ourselves even better. For the listeners, as you always hear, safety first. If you are driving or need your visual, please do not close your eyes. Yet all the other prompts you're able to do with whatever you're doing. So, heather, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, you're going to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose, and you're not going to try and control your breath, you're just going to be aware of its rhythm, allowing it to guide you into your body.

NatNatBe: 7:39

There may be some sensations or feelings coming up, and that's okay. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go, surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop deeper into your body. Be with your breath, drop deeper into your body. Now there may be some thoughts or to-do lists that have popped up in the mind, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping even deeper into the body, giving yourself permission to just be Again. More thoughts may have popped up. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, back to your breath, beginning again, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts, just surrendering into the body, just being. You may notice the rhythm of your breath has changed. You may notice or observe some different sensations or feelings in the body and just stay with that breath. Now, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath. How's your heart doing?

Heather Stewart: 9:32

Fabulous, how's your heart doing.

NatNatBe: 9:34

It's curious, there's been a lot in the past five months. Yesterday I went to a spa called Coena, which is and cold, so really getting you in the body, and there was a lot of insight in things that came up that allowed me to go further deeper into myself and see it with clarity and feel those emotions and have better understanding of my behavior and the feelings and sensations. So thank you for the question. Tell me about India. What had you go to India? Because that's not something anybody just jumps on and goes.

Heather Stewart: 10:19

Right. So it was interesting when I was still in corporate, you know, always looking for ways to relieve stress and I had taken a meditation class with a gentleman and he had studied he had a degree in like a major in Hinduism and a minor in Christianity, like he had gone to school for this, and so I would have taken these meditation classes and I'm like, okay, that's pretty good. I was inconsistent at the time. And then a VP in my that I talked to a lot in in the staff room, a friend of mine. He had started practicing Ashtanga yoga and he said, oh, you know what? Would you like a free pass for the studio I go to? I was like, yeah, sure, I hear that's good for stress.

Heather Stewart: 11:09

So I started or I'm a, I'm recovering overachiever I started going to yoga five days a week because I was going to be the best damn yogi ever and I was gonna be the stress-free superwoman and don't ever do that to yourself Like don't put those things on yourself, that you have to be something. But I was doing that and I went for the stress, thinking, you know, this is going to help me with my stress. And when I had my own yoga studio I used to joke that people would come for the yoga but and not realize that they were actually getting not the yoga but but way more dimensionally expanded things happening. So I was doing all of this yoga and when I learned something and I get lit up by it, really, I was just born to teach people. I want to teach people. So I started searching around for a yoga teacher training. So I started taking a yoga teacher training on the weekends between my corporate job and it was amazing. I loved it. It was taking me further and further down a path to what I was supposed to be doing.

Heather Stewart: 12:26

I didn't know it at the time and I was working on this big project at work that was amalgamating some divisions and I knew that when the project was finished that the next step was going to be to step in to be the controller of the division. And I was talking to a colleague and I said you know, I don't want another promotion. And my now ex-husband, of course he wanted to be a VP by 35. And I said it to him as well. I was like what do you mean? You don't want another promotion. It just didn't compute for him. And I was like, look, yeah, you get recognition, you get all of this stuff. You get tighter handcuffs on your wrists, the golden handcuffs, but the price of that is my life and my time and my energy, and it's not worth it. So I place a value on my health, my wellness, my time, the things I want to do in life, and it doesn't even have to be curing cancer. What if I just want to sit by the ocean for half an hour? You, it's like that is valuable to me, more valuable than 12 hours at a desk.

Heather Stewart: 13:47

So there was a person in my yoga teacher training class who had been to India. So I was like deep into figuring out meditation and yoga and I was all ash tag at the time. I've expanded my horizons since then. I'm still teaching 20 years later and now I'm a mashup of everything I've ever learned. So people say, what kind of style of yoga do you teach? Heather style. And I knew this person had been to India. So I said, can we go for coffee and can you tell me about India? Because I was curious and I had kind of felt like I was my felt kind of called to go. I was like I feel like I'm gonna go to India, I feel like I'm gonna quit my job and go to India. And we went for coffee and he brought a photo album with him do you remember those?

Heather Stewart: 14:36

yeah, I still have them, yeah, and he showed me the pictures and he's telling me about it. And I told him what my plan was. I said, oh, oh, yeah, so I'm quitting my job and I'm my my house is, I was getting divorced, my house is on the market and I'm selling my house and I'm I'm just going to go take off for a little while to India. So I wanted to know what to expect and he's like, really, he said you know, I'm taking a leave of absence from my job and I'm going back. And it was like we were going at the same time.

Heather Stewart: 15:09

So we went together and it was just like I felt like it was, um, I had been to some like I've been to Peru and I've been to the European countries, but I'd never been anywhere that was so intense and so intense but so open. I mean, it's hard to, unless you've been there, it's hard to describe the energy of the place Like the contrast is so stark and at one point I'm sitting on the train. I'd only been there a few days. It took me a couple of weeks to really let my energy settle because it was so confronting. In some ways. I'm sitting on the train and there's a man wearing a three-piece suit. There's a Nokia I can see it very clearly, a Nokia. Behind him he's on his cell phone and next to him on the ground is a man with no legs banging. And I'm like what? Like? It was like my brain cells fuse, it was like third world and first world living in the same container and it was really hard to for my you know, middle-class Canadian brain to process it and the more time I spent there, the more time I was like these people are, have a whole different view of the world, like an entirely different view, and not to glamorize it or anything, because it is hard there, people sleeping on the streets and you know the caste system, but they're what they value is very different.

Heather Stewart: 16:49

I mean, I was sitting in a family, we were staying with the family and we were sitting around the stove it was diwali, so it was like november-ish sitting around the stove and they had killed a goat for us, because we're guests and I can't identify any of the parts of the goat in the stew, but it's all good. And they were asking us questions and we're like, no, we don't have jobs, we don't have kids, we don't have a spouse, and they felt so bad for us and I'm thinking my coat is worth more than this house and you, wow. Totally different perspective, right, and they value community so much and I was sick at the time and I didn't know this at first. Every time I left the the house to go, the washroom was in a room out in a building out back. The ladies would follow me and and sit at a distance because they were. They wanted to make sure that I was okay. So they're all about caring for each other.

Heather Stewart: 17:56

Um, although there's that cast, it's like, I guess, in your cast system, but it was just such a different place to explore. I stayed for three months and I would have stayed longer, but I promised my grandmother I would come back for Christmas. You can't go against, grant, sorry.

NatNatBe: 18:17

What did you learn about yourself while you were there for three months?

Heather Stewart: 18:22

Oh, that's a good question. I learned to. It's interesting when you have that space to think right and that alone time. So I learned that I was a complete person. You know, I always felt like something was missing. Like you know, you're always searching, searching. This is something I was having a conversation with just last night.

Heather Stewart: 18:55

Humans are searching, searching, searching for something, and I made a comment that what if we know, if we found it? Because we don't know what we're looking for Exactly, we don't stop the search. So I can remember I was in Manali. Was I in Manali at the time and I stepped off this curb and I just realized how comfortable and at ease I was. And I just realized how comfortable and at ease I was. I'm like, wow, I'm just like.

Heather Stewart: 19:35

I just felt like I am a solid, full, developed, amazing person, human being, soul of expression, and I don't need to be doing anything right now except just walking down the street.

Heather Stewart: 19:41

You know, just walking down the street, you know, and that frees so much of that angst and that energy of these, the shooting, the supposed to's, the, the trappings that we put on ourselves, and I mean it comes and goes, because we still, when I came back to Canada.

Heather Stewart: 20:04

It was actually a bit disruptive. I was like, oh whoa, it's so bright, everything is so shiny, it's so strange to go to the grocery store and feel traumatized by our grocery store. So it comes like you integrate yourself where you are, but you still hold that memory and you tap into that at those times when you're thinking I feel small, I feel inadequate, I feel undeserving, I feel unvalued and it's like, well, no, you have everything you need. It's that internal view that we often don't like when we did our mindfulness. So I've now been meditating for over 20 years and it's I love that like check in with yourself and the more you do it, the more you get to know yourself and you can recognize oh, there's that strong person there is that I don't need that person outside of me to give that to me because I'm already here.

NatNatBe: 21:10

So, in hearing this, if you could give your younger self permission to do one thing, what would it be?

Heather Stewart: 21:20

Stop being afraid to speak. Stop being afraid to speak. So, for I was very shy as a, even into university in my twenties, somewhere in my around 27, 27, by the way, is a huge age of shifting right. 27 was when I left my first partner, who was a narcissist, and I still have the fridge magnet that says I am no longer afraid when that was when I had to find my voice and my self-value to say this is not the right place for me and I need to do this for me because no one else is going to do it for me. And, um, this goes back to that ownership thing. I had to step up for myself and part of that was finding my voice to say no and to speak, and I still I mean even now.

Heather Stewart: 22:21

so I do, I read Akashic records for myself and others and every now and then, when I'm talking to the record keepers, they're reminding me yeah, you need to talk more, heather. I'm like, okay, I'm on it, understood.

NatNatBe: 22:36

So, going on that, what is one fear you were afraid other people would see. Yet now you've owned it and you own fully.

Heather Stewart: 22:49

And it's so interesting because I was doing a little exercise this morning. Even when you overcome a fear, the seeds are still there. They're just not growing anymore, right? So I have always had a fear that people would realize that I didn't know the answers, because I'm the oldest of four children. I't know, and that's a challenge. I mean, some people see it as like sometimes it comes out as a control freak needing to control a situation, but it doesn't always come out that way. Sometimes it comes out as I won't do something if I don't know what's gonna happen. And I can see it in myself and, um, I, luckily I can see it in myself and I will do a breath practice, because you need to release that thing that's starting to try and drill its way into you and go and do it anyway yeah, yeah.

NatNatBe: 24:06

So going back, you said the akasha records. Some of the listeners might be like what we should talk about. What the heck is that? I know what it is, yet could you let the listeners know what that is?

Heather Stewart: 24:19

yeah, the akashic records, oh my gosh they're. I didn't know what they were a few years ago and when I found out about them I just went full like I do go full head on into it. And it is so. If we understand that we are all energy and we are all, we were all connected at some point. Right, it's like the energy was contained and then the energy went out and we are all, are part of that energy. So in our 3d density this is how I like to think of it in our 3d density, this body can't possibly contain all that is me. This is just an expression that I've put into me right now and in the energetic realms is the rest of me and everything that ever was, ever could be, ever will be. All possibilities, everything everywhere, all at once. So, even though I'm here talking to you, there's a version of me who's packing for I'm leaving for Portugal today, packing for Portugal. You know there's all of these versions and they're all in the energy because it doesn't coalesce into form until you make a decision that coalesces into form and there's energetic beings who are in charge of my.

Heather Stewart: 25:33

I'd like to imagine it as a library, because it helps me frame it for myself. So there's a library of heather and then there's dudes. My dudes are hanging out at the door and they're my record keepers and when I drop into the right space and open my records, I can ask them questions. And the interesting thing about the record keepers because some people see it as kind of like, um, psychics it's not really psychics, because psychics I don't know what energy stream they're tapping into. They're kind of tapping into timelines. This is just me and they won't answer me. If they, if it's, they don't think it's going to be helpful. I'll ask them something and they're like they'll just say straight up yeah, you don't need to know that. And sometimes they talk like yoda for me. So everybody's record keepers, because I'll read for other people as well. Um, you get permission to open other people's records and their record keepers will answer questions for you.

Heather Stewart: 26:35

Everybody's record keepers have a slightly different energy. Mine are a bunch of comedians and they sound like yoda sometimes. Sometimes they sound like Dr Seuss and sometimes they'll give you the answer in a way that you don't understand until later. But, um, interesting, talking to them and asking them questions that are on my mind helps me feel like, helps me drop into that trust place that it might feel like something's not going right right now, but really it's. It's all good, like anytime. Something happens now and I start to feel that stress, I'm oh yeah, this is actually happening for a reason. This is supposed to happen. So just ride it out Right. Recognize that I'm going to have emotions, but don't let them stay too long. Let them keep going.

NatNatBe: 27:40

Speaking about emotions you had mentioned, you know that that is one of the things that is required in healing and and you know real life, where a lot of people are cerebral, and it's the same practice that I educate people a lot of people think their feelings they don't actually feel. Their feelings and emotions aren't to be analyzed when you're feeling them. They're only supposed to be felt and processed so that the information can come up. But if you're analyzing, you're suppressing and bypassing some of that embodiment that's needed. What does that process look like for you?

Heather Stewart: 28:18

It can depend on what's happening. So, and it's true, I mean, if you think about like an emotion is um cause, your body is intelligent. That's how it's going to speak to you, right, if it? If it thinks something is dangerous for you, it's going to give you fear. Dangerous for you, it's going to give you fear. And if it thinks something was, you know, undesirable, sad, like all these emotions that come and I sometimes joke with people, it's like we don't live in Pleasantville, you know.

Heather Stewart: 29:02

So don't tell people not just to get over it and cheer up, because if we don't process it especially as a yoga teacher, you know people tuck it away in their bodies and when they start doing yoga, sometimes it comes out at the time. They don't want it. So for me, I usually have like I've met. What I do now I didn't used to do it. This is what I found to be the most effective is, first, you have to realize that you're having one right, you're having something and not push it away, depending on what it is. And if there's people in the room, I might tell them just so they don't, so they don't get any. You know, they don't get into the range of what's going to come out, you know, stay out of the line of fire.

Heather Stewart: 29:52

And I actually will kind of talk to it, because it's kind of like a meditation practice, like oh, hi there, what's going on? Like where did you come from? Why are you here? What have you got to tell me? And it's interesting because I started, I noticed, specifically yesterday. I was like anxiety, what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in years and it's a physical feeling that I have, which is why I recognize it, and I really have not seen it for years.

Heather Stewart: 30:20

I'm like what are you doing here? And that's what I was talking about earlier. I'm going to Portugal today. I have never been, and I'm going alone and I've rented a car and my body is going, but you don't know what's going to happen, even though I'm like it's going to be fine, I'll be fine, everything's fine. No, what if something happens? You know I can hear like my, my grandmother, is what if something happens? Well, well, it'll be fine. You know, it's like I'm, I feel like I'm without a safety net for quite a while and I had to pause and go hello. What are you doing here? And do some breath work and especially diaphragmatic, like letting all of that stuff move through, don't let it grab a hold, don't let it pull you into it. So really taking some time to talk to yourself about why it's there so valuable.

NatNatBe: 31:29

Yeah, I think there's also because people don't know how to validate themselves, they don't know how to witness. So of course we're going to shut down and push it away because it's overwhelming, it's uncomfortable and we've been taught a lot of us that whatever we're feeling isn't the feeling to be feeling right now. It should be something different than that. So, to allow these authentic emotions to come up and recognize, sometimes you know it's unknown territory because you're allowing an emotion that you haven't ever felt. Unknown territory because you're allowing an emotion that you haven't ever felt. Yet you are recognizing too that certain body sensations lets me know oh, here you are visiting again.

NatNatBe: 32:10

I thought I got rid of you, yet there's no such thing. It's always when they come knock at the door. Are you gonna let me in or are you gonna slam the door and freak out and be and it's like no, if you can allow it in and be in the space and recognize, you can be in the space, but you're not taking over to hijack my behavior yeah, we're taught to drive the bus exactly, yet you can be in the space of acknowledging it and we haven't really been given that space of validation well, even like if you have started observing people with that thought in mind, of it's almost like they want us to be homogeneously happy, which is why I use Pleasantville.

Heather Stewart: 32:51

You know, little kids are upset. Don't cry. Big boys don't cry. I'm like, yeah, they do. Like, let them cry. Oh my God, if they stuff it down, what's going to happen to them later? Or, you know, little girls don't scream. Yeah, they do. And if they don't, they'll become I don't know who knows, they'll become muted actress. Yeah, they'll become the actress who's known for screaming, and it's just all of these things if we don't allow them.

Heather Stewart: 33:22

And I, I had a client once who had a head injury and it was so fascinating to talk to her because her brain started working differently. I could talk to her and she talked about how one day she was angry and her fist was coming and she was looking like the anger was in her fist and she was looking at it. It's like who is this? And I'm like you can have anger. It's like who is this and I'm like you can have anger, but don't be angry. Like your body was telling you that you had anger, but you didn't have to become this embodiment of anger and it was just so fascinating the way her brain worked and we have the ability to do that. So anxiety came to visit me and I let them in and I had a conversation with them. I gave them a coffee, but I asked them to leave. We had a conversation like thank you for your concern, I'm going anyway.

NatNatBe: 34:15

Yeah. So a question If your pain could speak, what would it say to you today?

Heather Stewart: 34:22

Pain, pain. It doesn't use clean language, that's fine, okay, listen, bitch, get up off your ass and just get moving and how have you had?

NatNatBe: 34:42

were you always with a good relationship with pain?

Heather Stewart: 34:47

hmm, I don't know the answer to that. I don't it. It's funny because I don't. When I think of pain in two different ways, I think of, like physical pain. Physical pain and I are on a. I'm going to be 60 in a couple of years and I don't think people need to have pain as they get old. But just the way my body's built, some things have started talking to me. I'm like, hey, how's it going? And I think emotional pain is the think that we hide. Emotional pain, and my emotional pain is saying stop hiding, stop hiding the things that you don't want people to know about you and putting those you know, that happiness face on, though most of the time I am happy, but deep down in everyone there's some something that they don't want people to know about them because of fear, like fear of being kicked off the island, fear of judgment, fear of then people will have a different idea of who I am. Instead of, what usually happens is people say oh, thank goodness, I'm not the only one right exactly, exactly.

NatNatBe: 36:25

It's what it is to be human and have a nervous system and, rather than chastise it, you know, befriend it and ask what are you trying to protect me from that? You think that I don't have the capacity to feel and experience, so in that, why it's?

Heather Stewart: 36:40

so funny right. Yeah, why it's so funny.

NatNatBe: 36:43

Yeah, and it's just being able to look at it in a reverse way, rather than getting rid of something or becoming something else. It's about integration, and the integration requires you to feel. Yet we're taught in society not to feel pain, not to feel emotions, and just keep pushing through, you know, cerebrally, academically, and just go.

Heather Stewart: 37:06

We glorify the logic brain so much. I mean, I've been doing a lot of reading. It's like that logical, it's a math. It's not men versus women, it's a masculine energy, where the feminine energy is the feeling energy and has been discounted for so long as inappropriate we don't like, imagine if you're in the workplace and having a temper tantrum.

Heather Stewart: 37:32

imagine if, as an accountant actually I did cry sometimes when I was an accountant but I would go hide in the bathroom. Yeah, of course you can't. You can't cry, you're at work. No, crying at work.

NatNatBe: 37:44

Not at all. Not at all. You will be weaponized and vilified Like no. Weaponized and vilified Like no. It's so unsafe, no, yeah. So what is one BS? And when I say BS, I mean belief systems that you once believed, that you were able to release because you recognize it no longer serves you.

Heather Stewart: 38:07

So, because I spent 12 years with a narcissist, I had a belief for a long time that my value was only tied to that person, that I was not smart, that I was not attractive, that nobody else would want me like and and I mean it's insidious and it would, and it and I started with that person at a time when I was still in you know, I was still a teenager. So you're in your developmental phases where you're so worried, like teenagers they're trying to figure out who they are, and when you come through that, believing those things about yourself, that takes some time to untangle those things right. It takes some time to recognize that it's a small T. Truth is what I call it. Yeah, you might've believed it is true, but there's too much evidence to the contrary, which is the logical side of it. But for me, I had to start with the logic to move into the feeling and the allowing of it to be true, because I didn't know how else to get out of it. You know.

NatNatBe: 39:27

Thank you for that vulnerability and that transparency. Thank you for that vulnerability and that transparency. You know, speaking our own story, you have to. You know well you don't have to. Yet If you are really doing the work, you're going through seeing yourself and what that look like with this awareness, and sometimes our present awareness wants to chastise the past awareness because you should have known better or you should have been this, to chastise the past awareness because you should have known better, or you should have been this, or, and it's like no, it's really seeing that vulnerability of being able to integrate it all and I don't think like I think sometimes about things that I thought when I was younger or things I did when I was younger and you could give yourself a hard time.

Heather Stewart: 40:08

But that's like giving yourself a hard time for wearing your hair teased in the 80s like it was. You did what you could, but at the time with what you knew and I was. It's funny, it's related to exercise but, um, I was doing this class this this morning and he said if you're not challenging your stability, then you're not improving your stability. So we were. I was doing balancing and it's all about you know, if you are, if you can like be in a place where you're a little bit unsteady, then you, your steadiness just improves and improves. But you can't do that from the get-go. You have to like learn your way there.

Heather Stewart: 40:54

You have to take step by step by step. So I look at myself now and sometimes I go, wow, if I knew what I knew back then. But I wouldn't be who I am now if I didn't have to go through all that bullshit that I went through.

NatNatBe: 41:07

Yeah, it's really rewiring what learning looks like. It's not about getting the a's and knowing it all. Learning means you have no idea what you're doing and you're figuring it out and it's really uncomfortable to learn like. It's really um challenging to learn like the, the grit that goes in the mind, because the mind wants to know it everything, because perfection feels like safety, perfection, and that's been like that, like that was the thing that I, that's the thing that I Mind wants to know it everything.

Heather Stewart: 41:31

Because perfection feels like safety. Perfection feels secure and that's been my like. That was the thing that I, that's the thing that I, when it's going to show up, that's the thing that's going to show up for me still is no, you're the A student. You have to have all the answers and get the A's and be the best and don't make mistakes, because then people will know you don't know everything.

NatNatBe: 41:53

Right. Yeah, the most powerful strength you could have is like acknowledging I don't know Right and stand in that and feel all the winds and the whistles and just still stand firm. You're safe to not know in a world that wants all the answers.

Heather Stewart: 42:11

Yeah, I started practicing the I don't know, and I actually did it consciously because I realized and the person that I went to India with we're having our 20th anniversary this summer, nice, but I because, because of who he is, it was like he was sent to me. Because of who he is, I started practicing with him. I don't know and does he still like me? Like like everything that I've learned and done and challenged over the past 20 years and we are, he is still 100 like he is, he's like my teacher of how to be okay, not like developing, and it's just been amazing we started off the conversation talking about manifesting your reality, right and how.

NatNatBe: 43:05

if people really understood the ownership of that and they might be recognizing the work that goes into that. So can you elaborate a little bit more on your perspective on this and what some people might be missing in this work, right?

Heather Stewart: 43:22

So we can go from 3D to quantum with this. So, if you think, I'm always reminded of someone I knew who had read the Secret and said I'm visualizing my new home, I'm manifesting, and nothing ever happened. I said, well, it's not like you can't do something. You have to be a participant in this. So there has to be an action and the action has to be taken by you. So if I want to decide that I need a different life, I could have visualized all I want, that I wanted a different life when I was in corporate, but I had to stand up for myself, use my voice and make something different happen and trust that the actions that I was taking were going to help create the world that I was envisioning. Right, but then you can go quantum and say, because people will say, you are the, basically you are God, if you want to use the G word, and you have created this entire thing to have an experience of yourself. And I have created NatNet and I have created podcasts and I've created the whole thing and including the war, including the famine, including, you know, terrorism, including crazy politicians and the political system and I was having a conversation last night.

Heather Stewart: 44:56

On a 3D scale, we have difficulty taking ownership for our own lives. As I'm thinking of someone who's Pacific, who complains constantly that this is not right and this is not right, and this is not right and this is not right, I'm like, well, then, change it. But she won't take ownership for her life. So if it's hard to take ownership for your life, you can't take ownership for the whole universe. It's like start small, start with you and start with your environment. If you don't, if your environment is uncomfortable, you change it. And don't complain about how someone is treating you because you're giving them permission to treat you that way. Don't complain. We were complaining earlier about the government. Don't complain about the government because we created the government. If you want it to change, you have to do something, and people will say say I'm too small and too alone. And no, you are not small. That's what we were talking about earlier. You are a big, powerful being and you are here for a purpose, I believe, and not everybody's purpose has to be curing cancer. Some people's purposes aren't?

Heather Stewart: 46:10

I talk about a beautiful garden that I walk by that woman. I'm pretty sure her purpose in life is to make that garden gorgeous, because I stop in front of it every day, especially now spring's here, and just look at the flowers and it makes my heart so happy. And if that's her purpose in life, she's achieving it. Right, it's just beautiful. But people attach this need for it to be something huge and significant. And the word significant is so loaded because she's making a significant difference in my life, but it's not measurable in a monetary scale, right? So we don't say it's significant.

Heather Stewart: 46:55

So I think manifesting and ownership is be okay. That wherever you are now is where you decided to be. Be okay that it may not be where you want to be, right, it may be like holy shit, how did I get here? I don't like it. That's what happened with me when I was an accountant. How did I get here? I don't like it.

Heather Stewart: 47:24

So I decided to put on my like I say my big girl pants and be the boss, be the CEO of my life, be the boss of my life and say, okay, I want something different. How am I going to do this? And not everybody is going to quit their job and leave the country, but even small changes can help you start to exercise, flex that muscle of ownership, of responsibility, and once you start to get stronger. You make those bigger decisions until you can actually look and say, okay, this is my life, this is how I like it. The city is okay, it's working. Okay, the country? Well, let's make some changes in the country. The world, like. My big, fat, hairy goal is to I always joke with my mom change to save the world. And I do it by tidal wave. I put drips in the water and they flow outwards and get bigger and bigger and bigger. Exactly Right.

NatNatBe: 48:27

Yeah. So I know the listeners are like, okay, where can I get a hold of Heather and where can I find her. So could you let the listeners know where they can find you and what you have to offer?

Heather Stewart: 48:39

Yes, so everything is. It's easy to find because who wants to jump all over the planet? Heather Stewartcoach is where all the alls are. I have the podcast you can listen to and actually, starting in June, I'm going to be on the Inspired Choices Network, so I will be on 300 live TV stations and 80 audio platforms. Oh my God Talking big. I really got to pull up to get up to that. And I have a free membership area area which is off social media and there's no toxicity allowed in that area. It's a place where there's I have my free resources. You know. I have like some meditations and I teach this yoga, tai chi fusion class that I love teaching and, um, there's a quiz there. There's like a roadmap for I teach the thriving life method and then I have like a diy space group coaching, the like one-on-one coaching, but it's all housed because it's easier to send people to heather shortcoach and instagram, facebook, linkedin all the alls well, I want to thank you, for it's already been almost an hour and it feels fast right.

NatNatBe: 49:57

Yeah, it was very opening and inviting conversation and one thing you know that stood out is I want to thank you for the alchemy that you've done in your life, taking those impurities, you know, really seeing where you were and recognizing this isn't where I want to be Also going through some health challenges and illnesses and still, you know, pivoting and asking yourself some very profound questions. So you've taken those impurities and you've turned them into gold, yet you didn't keep the gold for yourself. You're sharing it with others. So thank you you so much, heather, for all of the work that you are doing in the light you're bringing into the world. Thank you, thank you. Please remember to be kind to yourself yes, hey you made it all the way here.

NatNatBe: 50:47

I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation, so please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on facebook, instagram and tiktok under lift oneself, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.