Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Your Odyssey Podcast where your guides, Tara and Karen invite you on a transformative journey toward wholeness and personal growth.
Each week we'll discuss topics related to the human experience and offer insights to help you along the way.
Please note this podcast should not replace medical care or advice.
We are not licensed healthcare professionals or mental health therapists.
If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe so you don't miss out on our future discussions.
So explorers, let's dive into today's episode.
Hey explorers, it's Tara. Karen and I are so glad you pressed play.
Today's conversation came out of something we've both been noticing lately. How identity alignment creates sustainable overflow. So you can give lead live and love from abundance, not emptiness.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: The only place to do that from.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: We both been the dry container, not the dry container. Most of us don't need more discipline or to push ourselves harder. We need to become better aligned with our true selves.
Yes, and this overflow nourishes us and everyone connected to us.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: It's like mind your store, right? Mind your responsibility, mind your experience.
It all will flow from that. If you're taking care of you in all of the aspects of your being, you will have a plethora of all of it to share. You will have the abundance, the abondance to share. And it's a beautiful thing. It's like self regenerating. As long as you stay connected and aware and caring for yourself and remembering who you are, it will ripple outwards with no effort whatsoever.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And this overflow, it isn't accidental. It is absolutely produced within us. And that's why our identity is so important.
Our identity quietly shapes whether we live from obligation or authenticity, from just surviving or truly overflowing. I don't know about you Karen, but I love a good overflow. I love how it feels when my cup is full and then I'm running over into everyone else and how alive that alignment feels.
[00:02:40] Speaker B: Oh yeah. It is a palpable, palpable energy and feeling that is just so delicious. Right? Like I am full. I know who I'm here to be. And I just picture someone running through the fields spreading flower petals like here's some for you and here's some for you and here's some for you. Everyone, flower petals. It's just a beautiful thing.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Most of the time, overflow is not blocked by our circumstances, but by identities that no longer fit us.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Oh, we can talk about identities, couldn't we?
Identities that no longer fit us. I have found in my life that whenever I've attached too strongly to an identity, it just closes off the other 98%. You know, it's like, I am this. When I was in the 90s, I was like, I am a songwriter, and that's what I do. I had the most narrow experience of life. And now that I'm like, oh, I am all of it, it's just like, experiences are increasing exponentially.
Right?
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And this identity mismatch or this identity misalignment, like, I feel like it's really sneaky.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: So. Because it's a human desire to feel like I want to say who I am. I do titles, roles. Right. Relationships. I am a mom. I am a lot more than all that. But it's like we. It's like our humanness has to. We're attached to that because we love a label.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: If it doesn't have a label, is it even real? If it's not identified in some. Right. Most of these identities were created during seasons when we needed something. Maybe we needed protection or we needed approval or belonging or safety. Safety was the word.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: I was just gonna say. She. Don't say it. I'm gonna say it. Safety. Because that's exactly right. We developed the identities at a very small age, subconsciously to be part of the tribe, to be accepted, to be loved, to be cared for, to literally survive. And then we don't put the identity down, or we just add a new identity or we shift identity all in that same effort for safety, protection, love, worthiness.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: Yes.
And we're not saying that those identities were unhelpful because they absolutely helped us, but they're just not very helpful right now.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: There's just a new. Just new chapters. We're just going to keep reading. We're going to keep reading. Right. We're not going to just stay in chapter one. Why would we stay in chapter one? We'd never find out what's going on in chapter 39. Chapter one served a purpose. It had to set the scene right. We had to start somewhere with our awareness and our awakening and our remembering.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: So let's chat through a few of these identities. I think many of us have lived inside at one time or another. Karen, feel free to jump in here, because I know that you see these patterns. We've lived these patterns ourselves. The first identity, which is someone that I am working on integrating the lessons of, and that is the strong one.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Right, the armor swirl.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: Yes. This strong one identity, they are always reliable, capable, and holding it together. That's really beautiful. Admirable. But y', all, the strong one identity is exhaust. So depleting because that strength without softness, it's no bueno, no bueno.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: It's just brittle. That's just gonna break.
Have the softness, right?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Explore. Let me tell you, it do break it. It break and it's not, it's not always pretty.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: It's not pretty.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: So this strong on identity, Karen, do you see it as strength in your experiences, either personally or in people in your life? Like as strength or like as a residual survival Identity, Hands, absolute survival.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: The person who takes care of business, who is under the illusion of control in their life, right. Who's thinking three steps ahead because they want to make sure that they're safe, that they're okay. And part of the way they do that is by making sure their surroundings and their people are okay. Right. Anytime you move externally, Right. Anytime you move outside of yourself for an identity or some feeling of safety and protection, it's generally hiding some pretty soft, squishy parts that are very vulnerable and really want to be seen and held and felt.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: Second identity, the one who comes through, we know them, they're dependable. They're the fixer, the anchor.
And this showing up for everyone else sometimes means that they're abandoning themselves.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Well, you know, I've had many chapters as fixer come by it honestly. Long line of women who are fixers and, and enablers over nurturers over functioners. Right?
Yeah.
I don't know what else I can say about it.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: It's real. A third identity is the overcomer.
They're resilient, resourceful, and always pushing forward. But when this identity is built on surviving, they don't leave room for thriving.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: This is a tricky one because if you hold your identity in that, like I'm gonna keep pushing through. I'm a survivor, I'm resilient. That is really closely tied somewhere between victim mode, right. The world, things are happening to me, but I can come through it. And the I do it all, I'm the doer, the buy me mode, right. That I'm learning about, it's it like it's either it's happening to me or it's happening by me and it's somewhere in the middle there.
Both of which are not really very life affirming. Ultimately it's happening to me, but I've got it. Don't worry, I'm resilient. I have been through that stage as well. We all do.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: I feel like we couldn't talk about identities and roles without talking about the Self sacrifice.
The one who Karen is closely in your decades.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Decades.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: This self sacrificer gives endlessly, lovingly, but without ever asking, do I have enough to give?
And this giving from emptiness looks like generosity, but it's not sustainable.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: No, it will kill you.
Literally. Literally. What I was doing up until the point I got breast cancer, I was like, ooh, I'm not gonna do that anymore. That doesn't feel good. It took that for me to realize. Decades of over giving. That is a subset of feeling, a lack of worth and love. Feeling like you have to validate yourself, create importance of yourself, be recognized.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: For. For the good that you do, for the way that you help. But really it's just a mask for, you know, I'm not lovable as is.
You know.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Those identities are the ones that a lot of us have experience with, A lot of us are working through, be it through coaching, therapy, all of the things to help us unlearn and maybe even dig up where some of that identity misalignment came from.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, I feel like that's the biggest gift we can give ourselves. Allowing yourself to sort of experience it and embody the feeling.
Knowing that you can create the safety for yourself to have the feeling and move through it, process it, and know that it is just that, a feeling. Right.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. As we're talking through this, the image of this is a sports analogy. My strong, capable, a little bit controlling identity. I'm retiring her jersey. I'm not forgetting about her. I'm not ignoring her. I'm gonna hang her jersey in the rafters because she taught me so much about what I was capable of, who I actually am. I don't wanna forget her. I wanna int those lessons, but I need her to go. Her jersey is.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: She's hall of fame. She's hall of Fame.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Like respect all day.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Because you got me here. You did it. So, like, that's like the image, like, I'm retiring her jersey. I love you, girl. I do. But this truer version of me is leading that.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Like, I honor and respect and have gratitude for all that you did to bring me to this point.
And I'm at the point where I can see that you're gonna have to sit in the back seat, honor and acknowledge that you're here. But you don't actually drive, you don't run the show.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: You're like the least sports person. I just love that you had a sports analogy. That's great.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yes. All right, so let's clear space for this overflow and this identity alignment is really what Karen and I have been saying, putting the truest version of you in charge, this version of you who doesn't leak energy.
So, Karen, when I say doesn't leak energy, like, what does that stir up in your body?
[00:11:41] Speaker B: We're all energy.
We emit energy all the time.
The idea, though, is, is to feel a connection to your greater self. To know that just by virtue of you being here and being born, you are an expression of love, of creation, energy. You are meant to be here, and the universe wants to expand and experience life through you as you. Right. As the joy and the gratitude and even the challenges, because that's where the growing happens.
So leaking energy, however, is when you are just so wide open and thinking, like, you need to constantly give.
It's a little bit about the overnurturer that we talked about, right? So it's really important to know that your energy is sacred and to hold that sacred and protect it, not in a protector way, but just be aware, like, I'm energy, and someone else's energy can. Can come in and affect my energy. If I'm not mindful, I'm not filling my well and taking care of myself and taking breaks for silence, meditation, walks in nature, whatever it is that feeds your soul, then we can easily sort of leak out the energy, and then that container is.
Starts to go down.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So I have three observations, three lived lessons in this Creating space for overflow. The first being is that we live at the level of our identity, not our intention.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, my God. It is so true. It is so true. Like, we have. Right. The idea of. But if we.
If we feel we are this. We are closing off so much. Right? Oh, wow. Okay, go. I'm sorry. I couldn't believe you said that.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: The second is that you give at the level of your alignment, not your effort.
Mm.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: It's not about effort. It's about. Right. Like there's. It's like that idea of the hose, right? The water flow and effort kinks the hose.
Just allowing, surrendering, letting go, flows, everything. Right?
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay. Which is perfect that you said, like, effort kinks the hose. Because the third observation is you create at the level of your fullness, not your muscle.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Right? From the spigot, friends. Right from that spigot. You know what I mean?
We're tapped in. We're tapped into the energy, the universe. Absolutely. Holy cow.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: And when our identities are misaligned, everything feels harder until we stop, like, leaning and living from those identities, right?
[00:14:28] Speaker B: We're like this is just who I am. I swear, if I hear another person in my family say, this is just who I am, I'd be like, who you? Give me some. Give me. Who has Alka Seltzer. I can't.
This is not your.
You are in a small panic mode of holding onto the identity that you have aligned with for so long that you feel like it's who you are. I promise you, you are so much greater.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: When the version of you that is grounded, honest, present, and whole is leading.
Everything shifts. Your energy expands, your capacity grows, your emotional bandwidth increases, your intuition gets louder, your boundaries get clearer.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Your.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: And your overflow becomes effortless, right?
[00:15:12] Speaker B: It's a daily practice, right? It's an awareness. It's like chipping away at the raw kind of an awareness. You're like, oh, there. I. Oh, I wonder why I said yes to that. I absolutely do not want to do that thing. It's just kind of noticing the little moments where we disconnect, where we feel like we have to push or pretend or mask whatever it is.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: And it's like, why are all of these benefits coming when we live from this true version of ourselves? It's because overflow is not actually a behavior. It's not. Not something that you consciously create. It is a byproduct of our.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: It is our natural state of being. It is our inherent way that we are expanded. Limitless abundance of overflow.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: There are four identity shifts that I want to talk through that immediately create this inner order and overflow.
What I love about these identity shifts is, like, how practical they are. Like, it's not abstract or aspirational. I do this.
Karen does this. So I truly believe that you, explorer, can do this as well. All right.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Give them the tools. Give the tools.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: This first shift is from performing to belonging.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: It's from mask to.
To truth.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: The real truth. Yes. And when you stop performing identities to feel safe, you free. Enormous emotional and mental.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: So much energy. So much energy goes into that fear, that scarcity, that place of I'm not enough. Right? So much goes into, like, let me wrap this up real pretty so nobody sees that. That's how I feel, right?
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Me. And this overflow begins where performance ends. All right, Shift identity shift number two. From over giving to true generosity.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Like giving without a purpose, right? Like giving without. Like, attaching meaning and significance to it for you.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: And I don't know if you've heard this before, giving from emptiness leads to resentment.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: I had a whole number of chapters reference heretofore. Breast cancer, emptiness, emptiness, Emptiness, overgiving, overgiving, resentment, resentment, resentment. None of it was necessary.
I just wasn't aware enough to see that that's what I was doing and that there was many, like, holes and gaps in my ability to love and know myself and to feel my own worth.
So I expressed as an over giver. Absolutely.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And here's the kicker, y'. All. Giving from overflow creates joy. Like it invites it in. You're not looking for anything else. You're not expecting it. You're just giving because you want to give. This is so amazing. And I have all of this wisdom, energy, knowledge, truth and joy to share. Then it would be just like, I can't not do it.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Like, I can't hide your light under bushel.
Am I right?
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Yes. Shift number three is from proving to being.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: You don't have to prove anything. You don't. Like I said you. Are you here? Are you in a physical body?
Cool.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Are you in a physical body?
[00:18:31] Speaker B: You're good. You are meant to be here and meant to just live a life full of love and abundance.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: That proving energy drains us, being is what nourishes us.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Final identity is from fragmented to integrated.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Fragmented is such a powerful word, isn't it?
[00:18:55] Speaker A: It's big. And we don't even know that we're in that fragmented state that all of these survival, safety, approval identities that we've moshed together actually aren't true to who we are. When I'm in place where every part of me, mind, body, spirit, soul, emotion, all of it is on the same page and it's not competing and I'm not hiding and I'm not performing, I become someone who naturally overflows.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: When we're not impeding the wholeness and fullness of who we truly are, then there is abundant gushing and flowing to everyone world. It's a natural flow state. When we attach too closely to identities, it's a little bit disconnected. There's an idea of separation from that wholeness of ourselves.
Then that's not going to have the same repercussion. I have an analogy that I used in a coaching session. When we attach to an identity, we are like a lighthouse that has this one stream of light that might move around.
But really, my friends, we are disco balls.
We are not lighthouses. We are disco balls mirroring and reflecting all of the light and the goodness and the energy and the flow.
I want to be a disco ball. I want to be like 360 light everywhere, you know?
[00:20:25] Speaker A: All right, so practically, how are we Going to do this Karen. How can we encourage Express explorers to invite in this overflow mindset? I have, let's see, three.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: I probably have three.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: So the first is this full cup ritual. Every morning ask yourself what is one action that will add to my overflow today?
The second is a boundary of abundance which sounds like you telling yourself that I don't give from depletion, only from overflow. Like stand firm in that. Don't waver if I am running low on energy or feeling depleted, can't do it. That's a hard boundary on right?
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Like if it's not a resounding yes, not today.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: And then the third is an identity reroute you say and affirm to yourself that I am someone who lives from fullness.
Speak it as is, it's true.
And I am someone who honors my capacity.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Say that whole thing one more time for people to get.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: I am someone who lives from fullness.
I am someone who honors my capacity.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Put that on post it notes right around your house, on the fridge, on the bathroom mirror.
Because you are whole, you are full. Your inherent state is flow and overflow. And it's a beautiful thing. If you are feeling pulled in directions that don't feel good to you, that don't feel aligned, that don't feel soul filling and true for you, then notice it. Be aware of where you're spending your time and energy. Be aware of the self talk, right? The things that are like the. The ego part of you is telling you well you really do have to do that because if you don't, then so and so is going to think. But notice that and be like whoo. That is a no. That's a red light. That's a flag I just lean into and go back to every day I speak the gratitudes. The first time I go outside I say thank you son, thank you air, thank you water. Thank you Mother Earth. I feel deeply the gratitude of being able to live this amazing life and be in this physical body. Experiencing grass on the ground, flowers, the sun and all of its energy. I think gratitude and even thank you for the roof over my head. Thank you for the people who love and support me. Gratitude indicates and shows you how much you already have, the abundance you are enjoying and experiencing and it feels so good. Gratitude is a real high vibration. It's a way to connect to what's important.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: All right.
This song captures Overflow in a way that feels embodied. Not quiet, not reserved, but alive.
The song is Overflow, the afrobeat remix by Transformation Worship featuring Todd Delay.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Okay. I cannot wait.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Check out this week's song on the YO Podcast playlist on Spotify.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: I was flying around the room and I was all over the place.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: All right, over.
Oh hey.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Y.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Ask me where I'm living. I'm in the overflow.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: So great.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: This version is an overflow that I really felt in my body. It felt like joy, it felt like gratitude. It felt like. And this overflow didn't come from striving or proving, but from alignment and just.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Being in the moment with that beat and that.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: So whenever you listen to the Overflow Afrobeats remix version, notice what it stirs in you. Not what you feel pressured to fix, but what feels full, what feels alive and what feels true.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Like organic, primal, aliveness, truth.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
This also reminded me that overflow isn't passive, it's active. When we embody joy, when we share gratitude. Like, okay, all right, yeah, mini sermon on overflow. And what happens when your life is ordered from the inside out and this abundance has been room to flow.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: That's you, you know, preaching. And I mean preaching in the most sharing way of like, truth and of what it really feels like to just know on a deep soul and even cellular level, like, just know your worth. To know that you are connected to something that is a never ending abundant stream. Or ending.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: This is not now. Okay, let me focus on the question.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Oh, maybe. Okay.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: I mean, today's question.
Which version of you creates overflow and which version drains it immediately?
[00:25:49] Speaker B: You got.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: The draining version of me carries everything along because she doesn't want to burden anyone.
The overflow version of me asks for help and receives support.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: I will say the draining version of me starts to make lists, tasks, actions I feel I need to take to get to where I think I need to be.
The overflow version of me is very divine, feminine, just allowing it to flow to me. Just opening and receiving, surrendering and attracting. Not striving, forcing or pushing or doing. It is simply being for me. That's a lot of what meditation does. It resets me to my inherent state of stillness, calm enoughness, knowing, being and just fully filling with love.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Overflow isn't a fantasy. It's a form of identity stewardship.
It is what rises when you stop leading from the identities that drain your energy and start choosing and living. The one that knows how to hold your life with clarity, capacity and calm.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Just know, honestly, right there, that was it. That was the nugget, the tidbit. If you are feeling drained or in the middle of doing Something that feels draining.
Stop.
Just stop. I know it sounds easier than it actually is to do, but just stop and notice and be like, huh, yeah, that does not feel like overflow.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: It does not feel like overflow. So I have a quote from someone, we've quoted her a few times before from Audrey Lord.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: When I dare to be powerful, it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: And you know the meaning of powerful in the sense is to be empowered, to open up to the fullness of your power, which is the fullness of who you are, your inherent energy right there. And there is a place for fear when you are feeling the fullness and wholeness of love.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: If you're overflowing, it's overflowing. The love, the light and the joy. And like I said, fear doesn't have a place in that. There's no room for it.
Explorer, Overflow isn't something you manufacture or muscle your way through.
It's something that emerges when your identity is aligned, when you've stopped performing versions of yourself that you've outgrown, when you stop giving from depletion just to keep the peace, when you stop organizing your life around obligation instead of truth. That's when overflow rises.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Leaning into the joy that you experience, that you want to experience. Leaning into things that bring you joy. Just start there, Just start doing things every day that bring you joy. And I mean like untethered, just full liberation, childlike joy. Leaning into that and noticing how you feel, realizing that the dry, cracked riverbed of fear is not swimmable.
Right?
So jump into the river of love and just allow that the love and the joy and the gratitude to be where you swim, where you float, where.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: You be your life will organize itself around the identity you honor. So until next time, Explorer, may your identity be clear and your cup be filled to overflowing.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you for joining us, our friends, our explorers, our beautiful, beautiful community.
May you be full beyond capacity. May you know your wholeness and your truth. We love you so much. Take good care.
Thank you to Queenies in downtown Durham for the use of their community podcast studio and for welcoming us so warmly. Each week we'd like to give a shout out to Coco's Cinnamon, the birthplace of 1023 Media and the yo podcast. Please support your local women owned minority owned coffee shop in downtown Durham.
Brought to you by Durham based 1023 Media, a heart centered woman owned multimedia company.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Sa.
