Tuesday Apr 08, 2025
How to Let Go of What No Longer Serves You ( Spring Reset for the Soul )
It’s not just your closet that needs decluttering this season—your soul does too. In this episode, we’re doing some deep emotional spring cleaning. I'm walking you through how to clear out toxic habits, relationships, and even sneaky thought patterns that no longer align with your healing journey.
We'll also revisit my game-changing Hell Yes / Hell No method to help you evaluate what truly deserves space in your life right now. If you've been feeling stuck, heavy, or emotionally cluttered, this episode is your permission slip to release and rise.
Grab your Survivor's Journey to Peace Call and Blueprint here:
https://shethrives.thrivecart.com/journey-to-peace-coaching-blueprint/
My Empowered Boundaries Course:
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, my beautiful queens. You know what time it is? It is spring. Well, it depends what area of the world you're in, but for many of us it is spring cleaning. If you're somewhere else where it's not springtime, let's call it fall cleaning, whatever you want to call it, it is a new season approaching. And guess what that often means, physical declutter. But it also should mean to you mental declutter. They are attached, right? They go hand in hand. When for me, when my surroundings are like a hot mess express, that's usually a sign that my brain is kind of a hot mess express where I'm going through something. So think of it that way. And you're probably decluttering your closet, maybe working on spring projects. But what about your spirit? What about that soul? This episode is perfect for right now, in the new season, new energy, whether you're getting rid of that narcissist or just ready to release all the BS you put up with or ready to release the behaviors that you are still maybe practicing because you got accustomed to them by being with a narcissist or having narcissists in your life.
(01:15)
So stay close and we will dive in.
(01:21)
Hey, Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you want to stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with. I'm wondering how you can heal now. Do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted and mind effed? Girl, I see you. I'm Christie. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life and I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace.
(02:18)
All right, so let's start with that Soul clutter. We don't really talk about as much. So what is soul clutter? This can be lingering relationships that we are not really being served by, right? They're not serving us. They're not making us feel better. We're walking on eggshells. This may not be the narcissist that you're here listening to the narcissist podcast about, but guess what? Oftentimes when we do tolerate narcissists, we also tolerate just poor behavior from maybe poor people, people that treat us poorly, right? This is a theme of poor. We don't want to feel poor in spirit. I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about feeling poor in spirit. We want people who uplift us, who make us rich in spirit. So what are those relationships we maybe need to declutter? What are habits that we want to get rid of? And some of these could be people pleasing habits, right?
(03:19)
If you're here, you may know what it's like to people. Please, not necessarily with everyone. I'll say I myself was not a people pleaser with every person in my life, but with certain people, definitely with the narcissist and definitely with some family members, I felt too afraid to really speak my mind, speak up, protect myself and all that. So you may still be in the habit of not protecting yourself, not putting yourself first when you need to. You may have thoughts that clutter your mind. I know you know them that I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. Maybe I deserve this. Maybe I'm the crazy one. All those yucky thoughts we need to clear out. And here's a big one, the guilt. I have talked to so many clients recently that are co-parenting and they have guilt from maybe even being with the person they are now free from, or they have guilt of not wanting to have any contact with their ex besides the required because they want to feel like they're really co-parenting in a good, nice, healthy way in front of their children.
(04:33)
And then there's also the shoulds that go along with all of that, right? So emotional clutter sneaks in, especially after, well, during of course narcissistic abuse, but also after, because like I said, we have been primed. We have been conditioned to accept certain behaviors, and we have been twisted into thinking certain things about ourselves. We have been confused. We have been mind ed, excuse my French, that I didn't actually say. There's a lot of things that we have been victim of, but we are not going to be victims anymore. This is the spring cleaning I'm talking about. We are going to kick that soul clutter to the curb and say, no more say it with me. No more. No more. I am not accepting this clutter in my soul. You have so much better things to fill your life up with, your heart, up, your spirit, all of that.
(05:40)
We don't need this. So let's normalize the fact that this is normal after narcissistic abuse to have all these things. I mean, it's not fun. I'm not throwing a party all excited that it's here, but I want to normalize for you, and it's hard to let go of a lot of these things even when we know they're not good for us. Why is that? Why is that? There could be codependency on a narcissist, or even, let's say you have mutual friends. Sometimes it's hard to let go of people associated with the narcissist because you still have strings attached because that is what has happened to us. Again, we are the victims of these things, but it's time for you to take control and decide. We've got to make decisions here. If you're going to declutter your soul, girl, you have to say, I decide I'm going to do what is best for me as the best I can moving forward.
(06:43)
And some of those habits, those thoughts, the guilt, it's also hard to let go of those because we're so comfortable with them. They're part of our identity, it seems. Spoiler alert, it's not your identity that is not the core of who you are. You might even believe it is. I'm here to tell you, no, sissy, it ain't. It's not you. When you were born, this was not your identity. It was not your identity to have these thoughts, to have the guilt, to have the shoulds, to have these relationships that are crappy and not conducive to your life.
(07:30)
So I want you to let that sink in. Even though certain things might not be good for you, you're accepting them and I'm normalizing that for you. I'm giving you grace. You give yourself grace about it. And you also say, guess what? It's time for me to change. So something I do with my clients from the get go, and if we work together, this would be on a much more detailed, in a more detailed way than I'm going to kind of zoom out with you here, but we do this. Hell yes, hell no filter. So this is something you do when you work with me, and then my clients go back, even after they're done working with me, they will go back and reevaluate. It's pretty simple but so powerful. And so many people do not do this in their daily lives. They don't go back and check in and do this.
(08:32)
So if you get anything from this episode, I want you to write hell yes on one side of a piece of paper and hell no on the other side because we're spring cleaning and we're going to start small, okay? If you work with me, we go. I say sparkle by sparkle too. We do small, but it impacts big. Okay? So for me, I go back to this list myself. I just had to do this a couple weeks ago. I had a friend that I was like, man, I really love her. We've been there for each other through a lot, but there's a lot of things that just aren't sitting right, and I have to look at my hell yes, hell no list, and think about what's really conducive to my life and what's not, right? These are things we go back to and I felt like, you know what?
(09:26)
I think at this time, I've got to just take a little breather, just step back a little because this is not healthy for me. Sometimes we have to reevaluate even years later. So think about, and you can pick one of these topics, people, habits, thoughts or obligations. Which one just screams out to you when you say, oh God, it just feels exhausting. It could be people in your life. Maybe there's really draining people that are taking up too much of your time. You feel like you have to answer every one of their calls. You feel like you have to solve their problems. A lot of people pleasers really take on a lot. It could be habits, just destructive habits you have that's really taking over. It could be thoughts, it could be you are in your head telling yourself lies, you're not good enough, or you can't do this, or you'll never be able to get over this.
(10:20)
If that's taking over. Take note of that. And then the obligations. This was a huge one in my life, gosh, probably a decade ago when I read this book. The best yes, which I'm now rereading again, because obligations wise, I felt spread so thin as a new mom, going to all the little birthday parties and this and that on top of my stuff, just learning how to balance it all. I wasn't balancing. I was just adding, adding to my plate and I was exhausted. So that would be a good one for someone like that. If that's you, obligations could be it. So I want you to pick a topic and then kind of go a little deeper into it. Maybe just start with one person that pops up that you feel like is exhausting and start setting a boundary. It could be a friend, like I said, is calling multiple times a day and you feel like that's what friends do.
(11:22)
We're there for each other. Okay? You don't have to be there multiple times if it fills you up and that's how you want to spend your time. But also there's a lot more positive, better things. And if you're on a growth journey, it helps to work on yourself and maybe be doing those habits you're not doing. Go work out instead of sitting on the phone for an hour of someone just dumping all over you and not making changes in their life. I always say I like to help people who help themselves. I will be an ear, but I'm not here for people just complaining. Complaining without doing anything about it. So maybe that resonates with you. Maybe it's the obligations. Dig a little deeper. What specifically is it? Is it the family events? Or there are just so many and you feel like you have to go to all of them?
(12:14)
Maybe you only go to every other one and see how that feels for now and tell your family. Have an open discussion that you feel very spread thin in this phase of life and it's nothing personal, but you're trying to just take a little off your plate. And if your family loves you, they will understand. So what else do we have? And there's the thoughts, right? Maybe it's practicing, doing affirmations every day to counter the I am not worthy. We add, I am worthy, I am valuable, I am loved. I'm a damn queen. If you know my affirmations at the end of these episodes, a good affirmation can really just make you smile, crack that smile. So like I said, if we work together, we go really deep into this stuff, but this is just a zoomed out version that can make a shift in you if you choose one of these things to actually do. But you have to follow through. I love the people one, because I think everybody, I feel like a lot of people have boundary issues with people in our situations. People have gone through narcissistic abuse, even after, tend to have a little trouble setting boundaries. They've been taught that they shouldn't have any. So it's time to buckle up those boundaries.
(13:38)
So when you do release some of this soul clutter, some things that might come up are guilt. If you do cut someone out or you just don't answer the phone every time they call, you've got to do something with that guilt. I call it flushing it down the damn toilet. I'm just kidding. You have this guilt and you have to really get to the truth. The truth. If someone is dumping on you, and maybe it's a one-sided relationship, there's always drama and chaos and they always need advice, and it's just, you have to know. I'm telling you, and I think in the depths that's probably covered up by all this crap, but deep down, deep, deep down, if you search, you know, should not feel guilty about that. You shouldn't. That is not healthy for you. But guess what? This will help your guilt. It's not healthy for them.
(14:44)
It is not healthy for them, for you to enable them dumping on you and not doing anything about their life to make changes. And it's really just enabling and actually toxic to themselves. So throw the guilt out the door. Then there's, oh, this is a good one. So the limiting beliefs like the, I'm not worthy. Here's a big one. I can't trust myself. I have heard this so much recently with clients, listeners, to my podcast writing in, I can't trust myself. People write in, please, can you help me trust myself again? Yes I can by the way, but on a zoomed out version here, what can we do with that? I can't trust myself. You've got to get reconnected to your body, and I highly recommend meditation, yoga, and meditation doesn't always have to mean sitting with your legs crossed, owing, and listening to the birds chirping.
(15:55)
I think that's great. I love doing it myself. But there are different versions, and I think I do have some episodes on meditation specifically. You can search and I'll try to put'em in the description, but when you can't trust yourself, it's because you've been disconnected from yourself. That happens, especially with narcissistic abuse. Any type of abuse, any manipulation, gaslighting, confusion, someone inflicting confusion on you upon you will make you lose trust in yourself. You lose trust after narcissistic abuse saying, how did I let that happen to me? Oh my God, I can't trust myself. Well, you just got disconnected, baby, you got unplugged. So you need to get plugged back in. How do you do that? Carving out the time to be in quiet with yourself is, I would say the number one first thing you need to do. I have guided meditations. I can put my insight timer.
(16:53)
I have meditations on an app called Insight Timer. It's free. I can put that in the description to get you started with some good ones. I have a four minute morning one if you are on my email list, you probably already have that and go back to that. If you haven't done it, it is a great four minute quick way to connect to yourself every morning. And then there's longer ones and some real deep ones we can get into. But start small. And then the obligations, they just don't feel aligned anymore. On your hell yes, hell no. List. What are the obligations that still feel aligned? Put 'em in the hell yes. List the hell no. Maybe a growing out, a pickleball, honey. I don't know. I never tried it. I'm not a pickleball kind of gal. Tell me about it though. If you are, I'm excited for you. No, but there are things we just don't feel aligned more anymore and that's okay. That's okay. So don't feel this guilt over all of this stuff. It's okay to grow, to change, to not want to be dragged down. When you start growing guys, you're going to probably lose. You might lose a couple people. They're not growing with you. That happens. That happened to me, man.
(18:20)
I grew real quick. There was a couple years there, I just blew the hell into the sky. I was like, I call myself a unicorn. I felt like the biggest shift of my entire life. And I lost several people, several people, and it wasn't easy, but it was necessary. And I definitely feel so much better now. But this is part of your growth journey. If you really want to be happy, you want to grow, you truly want peace, it's going to get uncomfortable before it gets good. It's in parallel, but it is uncomfortable because you're not used to happy. You're not used to true happiness. You're not used to living in your truth, your way, your life, your alignment. You're probably used to living under other people's thumbs, right? Alright, so letting go. It doesn't have to be dramatic, even with a person. You don't have to have some big talk, which is always the way I go. I'm big and dramatic, okay? Say I'd be like, look, bitch, this ain't working out. But you don't have to do it that way. You can slowly shift slowly, not answer someone's calls. I'm not saying go someone that's awful. Don't drop kick someone unless they're abusive, in which case, drop, kick that motherfucker, block 'em, whatever you got to do.
(19:54)
But think of it as being intentional and sacred to protect your peace. It's protective. It doesn't have to be dramatic, it's just protective. It's simple. It might come off as cold at times, but look, there's a reason you're cutting someone out of your life, probably because they're not treating you right or they're just very negative, whatever it is, okay? Or letting go of patterns you have or thoughts you have that doesn't have to be dramatic either. You don't have to have some big seance about it. You start weaving in positive affirmations. You start praying if you're a God person, you start doing challenges with yourself. I did this in my little healing journey in the beginning. I remember saying, I'm going to try to go five hours without saying anything like negative. And also, if I have a negative thought, I'm going to try to turn it around.
(21:03)
And I'm not saying we're never going to have negative thoughts or feelings, but it's a great challenge to find out and be so aware of how often you have negative thoughts and are talking negatively. So challenge yourself not to and get into the habit of having more positivity in your brain and your words. Alright, now, here's a quick visualization we can do. So you have this list, you can work on it in real time, in real life, but also visualizations are powerful. So if you didn't have time to really get all the details out, you can do this later. But if you do have an idea, let's say you have this person in your mind that you're like, yeah, gosh, I wish I didn't spend so much time listening to them and just their energy suckers or whatever. Or maybe it's that narcissistic ex who you've decided you're just going to have contact when you need to around the kids.
(22:10)
And that's it. Okay? So you've decided I'm going to no longer have contact unless it's just about them on that third app and get that addendum set on your divorce decree, whatever you got to do to solidify it. Or maybe it's your mom and you still want her in your life, but maybe you just have a call with her once a week instead of every day or whatever it is. But imagine what is not serving you. What? What's the hell no to that? Hell yes or the hell yes that you want to have? What is the opposite there? So whatever's not serving you, imagine placing that into a suitcase. Pack it up.
(23:06)
This could be a person. It's weird. We're putting people in suitcases now. Okay, you're getting weird with Christie, but imagine whatever it is, whatever it represents, it doesn't have to be the person, right? Look, it's this darkness, it's this heaviness. Or maybe it's all those obligations. Maybe it's a bunch of balloons, it's a bunch of birthday parties you don't want to go to anymore. You don't have to go to all the damn birthday parties, pack 'em up in a small suitcase, in a big suitcase, whatever. Zip it up and then I want you to lift it up. Feel how heavy that is. That shit's heavy. That is heavy. But guess what? I'm a God person, so I'm going to visualize God. You visualize God if you're God person or you visualize your higher self, if that's what you want to do, the version of you you are becoming and can't wait to be.
(24:02)
She's got this. It's no problem because she's so healed that she is going to pick it up from you. And then she's just going to put it out there into the nethers, the others, the somewhere or give it to God. I'm a big proponent of giving it to God. So I am lifting this heavy burden of a suitcase and I'm saying, I can't do this anymore. I have something in my mind right now. I'll be honest. I have a situation in my life. It is in my family, not my immediate family, but it's in my family and it's weighed heavily on me. And I, I've been coping, but I feel like at times it's too heavy still. So guess what? We're all, are you with me? Hold my hand. Girl. I need you. I need you too. Alright, we are holding hands. We are packing our stuff.
(24:59)
We're saying, okay, I can't do this anymore. I don't want, I am choosing. Let's change the language. I am choosing not to do this. I'm deciding not to do this anymore. Alright, pick that heavy bag up, lift it up. I'm handing mine up to God. Who are you handing yours to? Maybe it's a guardian angel. Maybe it's someone who's passed on. Maybe it's one of your parents who's passed on. That was your world and they're always looking out for you. They are reaching down and saying, give me your baggage. Let me take this. And then they're going to go hand it to God. I'm sorry, I'm a guy. I told you I'm a God person. I can't stop. No, but whatever resonates for you, hand it over to that higher power, your higher self. Some other existential spiritual being outside of you or perhaps inside of you too. Say, I'm not in this alone. And here we say, I don't need to feel guilty for choosing this piece. I want you to repeat that after me. I don't need to feel guilty for choosing this piece.
(26:25)
So here's the actions you can take this week, right? Finish up your hell yes, hell no. List release one toxic person. And that doesn't mean you have to totally cold cut them out. You can. That's great if you, and they're a piece of crap, please by all means. But it could be backing away from someone a little bit. Maybe it's backing away from everyone a little bit. Maybe it's only answering your phone outside the hours of nine, two, seven. Maybe it's just, I actually do this, right? I generally talk to my mom in the morning and I say goodnight at night during the day. I don't really talk to people. I don't take calls. I used to don't take texts. I mean for emergencies, yes. And at lunchtime, that's my hour. Or I'll call my B fff while I'm eating taco or something. But I was so inundated with phone calls and advice seeking and dumping in my life.
(27:31)
I had to set huge boundaries. So release the one obligation or person or belief, just one. That's all you got to do to start. And then spend about 10 minutes after this if you can, or tonight, tomorrow morning, whenever you have a little slot, set a timer. Like set an alarm. I mean to carve this out, to carve this time out every day if you can. And you can because everyone has 10 minutes. Don't lie. You do in silence or prayer. You can meditate on it. You can pray on it to feel what's truly aligned. You could do that four minute meditation and sit for five minutes and see what comes up.
(28:21)
What is a line releasing one thing. And if you want you can add on. But that's where the accountability comes on. So if you're working with me, this is an example of some of the stuff we do. This really doesn't even touch the tip of the icebreaker here, but this gives you an example of it's something simple we can do. It's not going to take super amounts of time, but the accountability and the checking in is a beautiful thing. That's why you work with a coach essentially, to get my knowledge and all of that, which is great, but also the accountability. So you're allowed to choose peace. You are allowed to release and you are allowed to rise. So shall we end this with some affirmations and then I'm going to invite you also, I want you to share your hell now in my email, send me an email. Or if you're on Instagram, you can send it there. But my email is always in my description, fierce mama C at gmail. So hands over heart, eyes shut. If you are not driving or anywhere you need to have your eyes open, please don't shut them. If you need 'em open, take an inhale through the nose and exhale, inhale through the nose, exhale. And you're going to repeat after me. I'm going to do one at a time. You are allowed to choose peace. I am allowed to release. I am allowed to rise....cause I'm a queen!!!
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