Episode 8 – Finding the Answers Within Yourself

Christy Fechser 0:00
Hey everyone, welcome back to All in the Name of Growth. I’m really excited to have another guest on today. Today we have Karyn that is joining us and I’m so excited for this episode, I was reviewing everything Karyn and I have actually spoken before. And I’m just really excited for her to be able to get on and share her wisdom with everybody because there’s a lot to be had there. So Karen, thank you for jumping on. I’m really excited to have you here.

Karyn Seitz 0:23
Thank you for having me here. I’m also very excited to talk and, and to share today.

Christy Fechser 0:29
Good, good. Okay. So as an icebreaker, I just have a couple of questions, which are super random. What is your favorite author or book?

Karyn Seitz 0:38
Oh, my, that is quite a question. Well, currently, one of my favorite books, that’s really helping me with time management, which is something I have not been natural at. It’s a skill that I’ve had to build. It’s called Eat That Frog. Yes, Tracy, it’s a really wonderful book on time management. So I’d say that’s one of my favorite books. I used to be a book junkie, which I’ll probably get into later, so I won’t share too much now. So I don’t read as much as they used to. And there’s a story behind that.

Christy Fechser 1:13
Yes, yes. Yes. And I love I love your story behind it too, which we will definitely get to, um, chocolate or vanilla.

Karyn Seitz 1:21
Definitely chocolate.

Christy Fechser 1:22
Yeah?

Karyn Seitz 1:23
Oh yeah, definitely chocolate.

Christy Fechser 1:26
Your favorite destination to go to.

Karyn Seitz 1:28
You know, this is one of my favorite destinations from growing up and it still just has such a place in my heart is Florida. I love Florida so much. My husband and I went on a trip last fall down to South Central Florida and got to kayak in this little tiny fishing town called battler che. And it’s just it’s beautiful. It brings back nostalgic memories. And I just I have a special place in my heart for Florida.

Christy Fechser 1:58
Oh, me too. Me too. We actually so we traveled for a couple of years in an RV as a family. Oh wow. And ended up on the Forgotten Coast. I have a really good friend that lives there in East Point and yeah, we watched Santa come in on a shrimp bone Apalachicola and it was oh my gosh, then beaches that are squeaky and yeah, it was like dreamy. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love Florida too. Okay. What do you do to relax?

Karyn Seitz 2:23
What I do to relax the something that’s really important to me is finding activities that I really enjoy and love that recharge me and I call that filling my cup. So one of the things that fills my cup that helps me to relax helps me to recharge is grilling. I love to grow it just going down on my own. Last week actually grilled some wings and then tossed them in barbecue sauce. And I hadn’t grilled wings before I usually just bake them off. And that’s it. And last week, I decided to grill them and there’s just something about going down. Girling that just totally fills my cup and is one of my favorite things to do to relax and recharge.

Christy Fechser 3:08
I love that. Have you ever grilled pineapple?

Karyn Seitz 3:10
I have not. But that sounds wonderful. What a great idea. Thank you, Christy.

Christy Fechser 3:15
Yes. Yes, you just kind of into long strips is how we do it. Just cut the outside off. And then, you know, core it. And then you’re good in long strips on the grill. Oh, you will thank me later.

Karyn Seitz 3:28
I will, what a great idea. Thank you so much.

Christy Fechser 3:32
Okay, awesome. All right, well, now we’re gonna kind of jump into like the real the meat of the episode and getting into kind of your story and how this all came about. And I, I really love your story. I think that it’s really applicable, particularly for women, because I think that all of us at some point are trying to find ourselves because it’s really easy in our society, to get lost to what, whether that’s in our educational pursuits, or in our relationships, or in it being a mom, being a wife being whatever in your work life. Like it’s really easy to forget that when you signed up for all those things you actually weren’t signing up to like, get rid of yourself, you still are you, the you you were before all of those things came about and all the responsibilities happened. And it’s so easy to lose ourselves in the shuffle of life. And so just kind of walk walk us through our listeners through what it was like, and kind of what took you on your journey kind of share a little bit about your journey and like you’re saying about the books like why you’re not a big book reader at this point.

Karyn Seitz 4:46
Of course I can certainly include that in there. My journey. I like what you said Christy How are on the search really to find ourselves and I do We agree that as women, we’re really desperate to find out who we are. And then in my case, it was really because I’d become so many different things for people and expectations outside of me, trying to find a sense of acceptance, belonging, to be liked, yeah,

Christy Fechser 5:25
…To be all things to all people.

Karyn Seitz 5:26
Yes. And that is, in my experience, just from my own journey. And in working with a lot of other women. It’s really universal. My journey of trying to become who I thought I needed to be started very young, I would say probably as soon as I started school and kindergarten, I can remember trying to turn myself into who I thought I needed to be to fit in, right. But my journey, my, I would say, kind of my conscious journey to try to figure myself out, really started in my mid 20s, I was very rebellious as a young adult, that came with me into my 20s. And around 25, it really hit this place of, I need to start to get a handle on me in my life. I started with therapy, I started going to therapy, and it was helpful to a certain point to get a foundation underneath me that I wanted more. And that started my spiritual seeking path. Yes, and I went deep into all things woowoo anything that I could find that I thought was gonna help me figure myself out, I did Reiki and became a Reiki Master, I practice yoga, I became a yoga teacher, I studied shamanism and became a shamanic practitioner, essentially, everything I did spiritually, then I wanted to get certified or trained to do that, because I wanted to help others. And I read about 250 self help books or I joke, I ordered about 250, self help books from Amazon, I read a select few, a lot of them stayed on the bookshelf, because I was desperately and all these paths. And all these books, I was desperately seeking answers to myself. And then I was trying to take what I was learning, and help others with it. But at the end of the day, I felt like a total fraud. Because I was living behind the spiritual facade, pretending to have it all figured out. But on the inside, I still felt very insecure. I felt like a little girl trapped in a woman’s body. And I didn’t feel any closer to knowing who I was, or having myself or my life figured out. And then I was very fortunate. In 2015, to meet my mentors, who were very grounded, very practical, very much the opposite and nothing against like I lovingly say, all the woowoo nothing against that, right. But it wasn’t, that wasn’t helping me find myself. So it was really refreshing to meet my mentors who were very grounded, very pragmatic. They were the first people to tell me I was the problem in my life. It wasn’t my upbringing. It wasn’t. I know, right? It wasn’t my upbringing. It wasn’t my past. It wasn’t my past lives. It wasn’t anything other than me. And that was a good thing, because then I can become the solution. They were also the first people to really teach me that my answers were within me and empowered me to know how to go within to find me and find my answers. I realized from there, it wasn’t in the books. The answers weren’t in the books. They weren’t in the healers. They weren’t in yoga, they weren’t in the psychics, they weren’t anywhere there. It was with me all the time. The problem with my spiritual path is I was trying to become anybody other than me. Which is why I never found myself on my spiritual path.

Christy Fechser 9:14
Right. And that is that’s so valuable in recognizing you know, when you said that your mentors you know, were the first people that told you you are your own problem that is something that I think a lot of people are we in our society there is a blame game that happens right? And it’s it’s always without us it’s always somewhere else it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s something that happened, they did this or they did that or I am the way that I am because of you know this person or you know, like it comes the snowball effect but one of the the Well the main problem in doing that and always looking without is that then you’ve totally given up all control over your life because you are no longer in the driver’s seat if everybody else or is the people that are in control of your Life. And so for somebody to come to you and say, you are actually the problem, I’m sure that that was a little bitter to swallow. It was like, wait a minute, like, I thought that it was supposed to be all these other things, which, you know, and and let me just address really quick because I don’t want people to get off off track and not to not realize that those things that you were doing can help in aspects of your life that they will never help you find yourself because you are, you are within you. And if you’re always out there searching for something else to fill you up, then and you don’t have a way to fill yourself up to recognize your own divine nature to recognize your own worth, nothing on the outside is ever going to do that. So while they’re those things are so beneficial in their own rights, they’re not going to be the thing that are going to like solve your problem corrected.

Karyn Seitz 11:04
It was really, those were all stepping stones that were necessary to lead to where I got to, I am so thankful for my path and what I’ve learned from it, and and how I’ve grown, and I never would have found my mentors found the path I’m on now, without everything I did before and it was helpful for where I was in my life.

Christy Fechser 11:27
Well, I’m grateful that you went along that path and that those things are there too, because I’m very much like your mentors. I’m very blunt and kind of like, well, like, let’s really look at it and talk about it. Because what all of that is, is what this is. So I totally relate to that on a very personal level, I have people that that that kind of like grounding down on Earth, like, okay, let’s really talk about what’s actually happening here. Instead of it being you know, that kind of like you say the woowoo stuff, but so when When did you actually I mean, I know that they had kind of pointed you in the direction that the answers were within you, but when did you and it’s, it’s easy to, you know, lead a horse to water, right, but you can’t make it drink. It had to have been something within yourself where you were like, Yes, I do have the answers within myself. Like where was that moment that you recognize that what they were saying was actually true? And that you identified at that point? Well, if it’s within me, then I can actually do something about it.

Karyn Seitz 12:28
I would say there was such truth. So the first time I met my mentors, was that a workshop that they were teaching, I listened to them and listen to them help people understand their answers were within and they were just speaking such truth, it resonated at such a deep level with me, I had to be ready for it. That’s where I think my path was so essential to where I was before. Because it led me to a place where I was ready to hear it. And something in me knew what they were saying. You were the problem. I knew it was true. I needed somebody to I most needed somebody to validate that which I already knew and myself. So like you said, yeah, a bitter pill to swallow. But I was hungry for that. Because everything else I had been doing helpful for where I was, but it wasn’t working. And I was nowhere closer to myself. So I was so hungry for it. When I had met my mentors a month prior, I had also had a profound experience. I ended up really sick, and in the ER with tremendous neck pain, a migraine and a fever that wouldn’t budge for almost a week. And I was trying to tough it out. My husband said we gotta go, we need to go to the emergency room, you need to go to see the doctor. And at that point, I was like, Yeah. And I actually went to an urgent care and they said, We think you have been in giantess. That’s what I was wondering, yes, you we think you have meningitis, you need to go to the ER where they can actually perform the proper test, which if you’ve ever been tested for meningitis is a spinal tap and and you know, you know this big and my husband takes me to the ER, they run all the tests. I go through a spinal tap, my husband’s having to sit there, hold my hands, keep a steal, and he’s seen the needle on ICU space go white, right? They’re pumping me full of like, the strongest pain meds you could find, and nothing is touching my pain. And at the end of the day, they said we can’t figure out what’s wrong with you. And must be some kind of super virus or something like that. In hindsight, I can look back and see that that was an awakening within me in my body was giving me a sign so that I was headed in the totally wrong direction. And they can see that now. And now I believe that was a profound awakening experience that actually prepared me for something new, which is what I met what I learned with my mentors and continued to learn. Yeah. And that was only a month after that experience. So I think that played a huge part, too. I knew somewhere in me knew even if I wasn’t quite ready to admit it. I wasn’t on the right path for me, and I was slipping further and further away.

Christy Fechser 15:32
Yeah. It’s amazing how there are moments in our life that are like an awakening like it. It is, I mean, sometimes it comes in the form of like, a two by four, right? Like, is similar to what you’re talking about, like, it just came totally out of the blue? And was this thing that made us realize that it’s time for something else, like wake up and listen, right? Like, wake up, do something, start taking action, you know, whatever it is. That’s incredible. So one of the things that you had touched on in your story is about insecurity, and in really just not feeling enough. And I think that in all of the coaching that I’ve done over the last 10 years, the idea of not being enough feeling like you’re not enough, is so prevalent within women, that I think that it is something that’s really valuable to talk about, and something that if you could touch on that a little bit like, what, why? Why do you think it is so hard for women to feel like they’re enough? And how do we fix that? Like, what is that mindset shift that needs to happen?

Karyn Seitz 16:47
Great question, the best way for me to explain it. And I agree with you, Christy, and in the women I talked to the women I’ve worked with, it is a really common theme, that as women, we don’t feel enough, I’d say it’s probably the biggest complaint or hardship or challenge that I hear from the best way that I can explain through my experience, and how I help other women is really understanding that we put ourselves last, it’s easy to, like you mentioned earlier, go within the blame game, that it’s society that puts the pressure on us or culture or being a woman that we’re expected to put ourselves last. The problem with that is exactly what you said, then we give all our control away. And we have no power to change, because that’s happening to us. So I take a different approach and a different viewpoint. To know that as women we put ourselves last how I explain it is we unknowingly do that on purpose. And that’s a good thing. Again, maybe a bitter pill to swallow. But that’s a good thing, because then we have control to change it. So unknowingly, we put ourselves last on purpose, because in our humaneness, we’re seeking our sense of self worth, our sense of importance, our sense of value and validation from our outside world. So we tell ourselves, if I do everything for everyone else under the sun, surely that will come back to me, and I’ll be taken care of. But that’s not how life works. And nobody can take care of us if we’re not putting the care into ourselves. So what ends up happening, as they say, it’s like we’re an empty bucket with holes in it. And we put everyone and everything before us never slowing down to consider ourselves and even asking ourselves, what do I want? What’s important to me? What would make me feel good. So we do all these things for everybody else. And then it just leaks right through. And we remain feeling empty, drained, overwhelmed, resentful, out of control, burns out. Yes. And that’s why we never feel enough because we put ourselves last. We’ve never been taught. Also, it’s often frowned upon in our society to think of putting ourselves first that that will be selfish and self centered. But it’s actually the opposite because when you put yourself last, that’s when everybody in your life is getting that empty, burned out, overwhelmed woman. When we put ourselves first we can actually fill our cup with ourselves. We’re slowing down making ourselves important considering who we are what we need, what will feel good, and then we feel alive, vibrant in control. Soft cared for. And people get that version. So I always ask when that fight comes up, like, but isn’t that selfish to put ourselves first? It’s like, but which you would you rather get? Who do you think the people in your life want? So it’s not at the expense of others that we put ourselves first. It’s actually the benefit, because everybody benefits when we’re the best version of ourselves. And it’s the solution to feeling not enough.

Christy Fechser 20:28
Yeah, that was… I love that everything you just said, yeah, you you touched on validation that we are seeking outside of ourselves for validation for our own self, and you will never find validation for your own self, you have to validate yourself, you have to be able to do that. And the problem with like you said, in giving and giving and giving and giving, is that we keep saying yes. And I have a course, which is talking about creating boundaries, and about what it’s like to try and like gain more confidence in yourself and things like that. And one of the things that we talk about in that is that when you are saying yes to other people, would you actually want to be saying no, you’re actually saying no to the people that matter the most to you. Because you only have 24 hours, you only have so much time to give. And if you are constantly saying yes to things you don’t want to be saying yes to because for some reason, you can’t just say no. It, it creates something inside of you. And then you became you become upset, and you’re resenting the people that you said yes to you’re frustrated with the people who actually need you. And then it just spirals in, you know, mentally and emotionally into this tailspin, which then exacerbates the situation where we do more for other people hoping that it’s going to validate us and fill us up only to realize that we just have all these holes, that it’s all just leaking out. Because we haven’t stopped to say, Okay, who do I want to be? Who is my best self? How do I get to that place so that I can show up better for people? And a lot of times, it is saying no to things you want to say no to? And maybe that’s the laundry, maybe it’s not even the person, right? Maybe it’s just the laundry for the day, or it’s, you know, cleaning or whatever it is. It’s just, we have to come from a place more of intuition I find in listening to ourselves, and the hard truth, like you were saying about, you know, it being that bitter, that bitter pill to swallow in that you are the problem. If we don’t ever get real with ourselves, you can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge. So what is your advice for people, you had talked about how you were really just like rocking it on the outside? Like you were like showing up and you had all the things and it looked like you were doing awesome. And you were like dying on the inside? I think that that’s very common. Very, very, very common. And so how do you what is it? What are your tips for women who are in that place, trying to stop the inner rot, and like make the inside and the outside match?

Karyn Seitz 23:06
Well, first, for the women listening, I think it’s really important to normalize that experience that it’s really common, even though you might not hear a lot of your friends or other women necessarily talk about it. But it is really, really common that we have everything we ever wanted, or close to everything we ever wanted or just a good life. Yet we still feel unfulfilled, we still feel like you said Christie, like were rotting on the inside. I think the first thing is just I want to normalize that for everyone listening, you’re not alone. And there are so many women around you having that exact same experience. Yet we are so invested in putting that facade forward that we’ve got everything put together because we’re terrified to expose to ourselves yet alone. Anybody else that we don’t, because then we’ll have to confront ourselves and actually change. So I think that’s the first step because then it doesn’t seem so big and it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. So that’s the first tip is to normalize it, I promise you’re not alone, every single woman I’ve worked with, and Christy and I know for you too, suffers from this experience. And that can just pop the balloon so you can actually do something about it. Yeah, the other piece, and it doesn’t matter. If you’re in the consequences of your past choices now, or you’re thinking about the future and what you want to create, and you’ll have choices to make later. It’s really important to understand that our choices matter and we don’t realize that because proof, right we get in this place of going after the next thing we think we need that will complete us or complete our lives. Whether that’s a new career, whether that’s getting married, whether that’s getting divorced, whether that’s having kids, we don’t stop to think about the choices we’re making, and the responsibilities or the natural consequences of those choices, we end up waking up. One day I call this the Jada Pinkett Smith syndrome, because she talks about this on an read table talk interview, where we wake up one day, and we look around at the things we have the life we’ve created. And we wonder to ourselves, how did I end up here? This isn’t what I wanted, or this isn’t what I thought this would be. It’s not turning out how I thought it would and Jada Pinkett Smith talks about that, where she wakes up in this $25 million mansion, Mary duel Smith didn’t want any of it. And the truth is, we have to really realize we made choices, and that we’ve ended up where we are because of ourselves. And because of our own choices and decision, which is again, a good thing. Go ahead.

Christy Fechser 26:05
I was just gonna let me just say that a lot of people will think that them not making choices, isn’t making choices, but it is it is it is you not making a choice is making a choice.

Karyn Seitz 26:19
It is. So we don’t realize that. And we don’t realize this, our choices matter. So we go through life. And we wonder how did I end up here? How did this become my wife, there’s an it’s empowering. To realize, I’ve ended up where I am, because of my choices and decisions, which means I can fix that you can change it or even I call it taking responsibility. That’s I am where I am because of my choices and decisions. We can change it. And we can change our experience without needing to change anything in our lives. Just by taking responsibility. Because let’s say Christy, you make the choice to have children, you, you have children, and you’re always going to be a mother. So you’re not necessarily going to change that aspect of your life. But you can change your experience of it. By realizing I’m here because of me, nobody made me do this, I made this choice. And then we can let go of being a victim to the choices we’ve made and how our lives have turned out, put on our big girl pants, and make the best of the life we’ve created for ourselves, we also end up realizing that it’s not the things in our life, children, marriage, job, what family whatever it is making us unhappy. We all know that happiness is an inside job. And it was a what my mentor calls a dull moment. For me to realize that of happiness is an inside job. unhappiness, it’s an inside job. It’s not the people and things in our lives that make us unhappy. It’s how we feel about ourselves on the inside. And what we’re giving away to our external world to fill us and complete us validate us give us a sense of value, that they can’t change. But I can change if I know I’m unhappy. And that I am where I am because of my choices and decisions. I can learn a path to build that internal self value instead of looking for it externally. So that I feel good about myself, changes everything. When I feel good about myself, I have a totally different experience of my relationships. When I feel bad about myself, I have a totally different experience of my relationships. So that I know that a lot that that that’s my advice and just perspective that we can take not from a place of getting down on ourselves, but to lift ourselves up and empower ourselves to take responsibility and start working on the internal recognizing that’s where unhappiness is coming from, which will totally change the experience of our external relationships.

Christy Fechser 29:20
Yes, yes, I that was a it was a great answer. And a great kind of closing thought too. I think that’s it is really important for people to understand that happiness does actually come from within and that can be another bitter pill to swallow. You know, when you’re used to saying, well, he made me mad or she made me mad or this made me you know, like when it’s all about outside of ourselves. We don’t have any control over making the changes to be able to change your life to get to the place we want it to be and to be in to be an abbey place. Because like you said, you you kind of give an illustration of if we’re always giving outside of ourselves hoping to return something that the thing is is that you can give out But the thing is, is that you can’t take something from outside and put it with a new and fill up that cup. It you it is your own job to fill up your own cup. And if we’re constantly depleting that by saying yes all the time and looking for that validation outside of ourselves, and and doing the blame game, it all it does is diminishes ourselves and makes us less in the eyes of ourselves really, because it doesn’t really matter what the other people think about us. Again, you can’t you can’t put that in unless you’ve allowed it to be in you know, so Wow, we could have like an hour long discussion. That was amazing. Thank you. That was I loved everything that you said. So much of it is like applicable right now. And I think that probably will be applicable till the end of time because I think that women are inclined to want to give and want to serve. And so they in themselves feel like if I start giving and serving, and I try and just preserve myself and take care of myself that somehow that’s selfish. When I loved what you had said about you know, what kind of woman do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to be? Who do you want to be? Do you want to be like the resentful, bitter? I hate this out of control person? Or do you want to be the person that’s filled up so much that you have enough to give to others? Because you’re overflowing? Your cup is overflowing?

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