I'm so excited to announce that the Be You Find Happy podcast transcripts will be available right here beginning February 2020. After a year and 47 episodes, and a lot of feedback, it became apparent that having the podcast available in written form aligned with the intention of the show.
But what about the old episodes? Many of them will remain in audio form only, but the BEST of the first season of Be You Find Happy (meaning your favorites) are going to be available in the Be You Find Happy book, which will be re-released in 2020. The new happiness starter kit will include takes concepts and highlights from the first year of the podcast as well as new and improved tools to set you on your way to happiness.
I'm beyond excited about the way this initiative has morphed into something that I believe can truly help people move through the setbacks of life.
PART I E48 Susan Burrell blows up the self help industry with the truth (transcript)
Michaela: 00:00 Hi Susan. So I'm thrilled to have you on today. Thank you. And it's ironic because my first question for you is about a wants it now attitude and felt that with this podcast recording this morning, but before we get into that, can you tell the listeners a little bit about who you are, what you do and what you have going on?
Susan Burrell: 00:35 Well, my name is Susan Ford and I am an intuitive healer and a spiritual guide. And I mostly work with women who are kind of at a crossroads in their life of whether it's going through divorce and they want to come out whole or empty nesting or changing jobs. And I help each individual come more into, become more in tune with their themselves so that they can make better choices. So they come into clarity and confidence and, and a lot of the work that I do with people is about learning how to love yourself more than you ever have. And the reason why I do this work is because I've lived this, you know, I had to learn how to love and respect myself when I was going through a very contentious divorce because when I entered into divorce, I realized that I didn't know who I was after 28 years of marriage, I, I thought I did.
Susan Burrell: 01:41 I had a master's degree. You know, I was educated, intelligent, I'd been working, but the pain of divorce sent me into a downward spiral where I realized I just didn't have any foundation of self-love or self-respect. And so that's what I teach now, having lived it. And yeah. And so, and, and I have a book that came out last fall called live and empowered life, a 30 day journey. And it's a workbook that's interactive with my website. So there's guided meditations you're required to listen to. There's videos to watch, there's lots of journaling, there's all different kinds of modalities of things that I use so that I could really reground myself and really trust myself and respect myself. And I think that the book, well, the, what the feedback I'm getting from the book is it's changing people's lives. So I'm so thrilled because it changed mine. So there you have it. Well, gosh, Susan,
Michaela: 02:50 Everything you just talked about. I mean, I'm scribbling notes as you're, as you're talking because I don't, I don't know a single woman in my life, single woman that I touch in my therapy practice that, that hasn't shared some sort of similar story to what you're describing in the way of, you know, a big life change and, and feeling lost or disconnected with their true self. I mean, and that is exactly what this podcast is all about is you know, being you and, and finding your authentic voice. And I think a lot of us realize during various different losses in life and changes that we, each time we come into these situations with other people relationships, work, whatever communities we let go of, a little bit of ourselves. And, and if we don't reconnect with it, it's, it, it's gone out into outer space, you know, and it's and then you, then you find yourself sitting there going, well, who am I?
Michaela: 03:49 Exactly? What do I want? So, so I, I can so relate to that. And, and I even had an experience similar to that myself about 13 years ago now where I kind of woke up and looked in the mirror and realize that I was like a shade of gray. You know, there was no, there was no color, there was no vibrance anymore. And so I can completely relate to that. So what does, and this book, by the way, such an excellent resource, recommended it already numerous times and have gotten feedback. Thank you. Yes. And I want to talk more about that. But before we get into that what does, what does live an empowered life mean? What can you help define that?
Susan Burrell: 04:39 Okay. So for me it means living from the inside out. It means being in contact with
Michaela: 04:49 What I call the divine spark of who you are. Because we all have this divine spark and
Susan Burrell: 04:55 Is it a long with that connection, it resides within us, but there is also wisdom. We have, each individual has their own wisdom and so many people have been taught over millennium to look outside themselves actually since the advertising age last, last century. But to look outside themselves, to find something to put inside themselves so they feel better, right? Either the magic pill or the great hair color or the man that's going to love us because we don't even know that we don't love ourselves. And so living an empowered life means that there is a place of inner connection to your higher power, if you want to call it that, to source to your inner wisdom. And so when people, or I can just talk about myself, when I began to trust myself, which I realized I didn't myself to make good choices anymore, when I began to trust myself again, it was because I was listening to myself.
Susan Burrell: 06:04 Does that make sense? I was listed, I have the answers and I didn't need to go around asking everybody's opinion. And although asking someone's opinion with intention to clarify within yourself, right? Instead of don't ask somebody, now I'm just telling you what to do. Oh my God. But when you, when we are asking outside of ourselves, what do you think I should do? And then we do what that person says. Well, that's what that person would do. But you, you need to understand, we all need to understand individually what would I do? You know? And that again, that goes, that takes you deeper into really understanding who you are. So living an empowered life isn't about looking outside of ourselves and gathering all the material things or the Hunka Hunka man or you know, and women were taught over millennium that we were chattel, that we were worthless, that we were to stand behind the man that we were, I'm not relevant.
Susan Burrell: 07:13 And what's occurring in the last decade I would say is, and we're seeing it out in, in the political arena, is women are waking up and saying, Hey, I am relevant. I am intelligent. I, I know I can make a difference. But that comes from an inner confidence that we often wobble on because we've not been supported collectively. And so the, the other piece about this McKayla is that there's it's vital that women support each other. And I'm not talking about bashing men, I'm just talking about standing with another woman who may be in pain or may have a brilliant idea and just being a listening post and not an advice giver, but listening deeply so that person can be seen and heard and know that she is standing on her own two feet, making healthy choices for herself. That's, that to me is empowerment. Really being free of old belief systems family and cultural belief systems that download not just into our mind but into our bodies so that we begin to develop illnesses because we think we're supposed to be.
Michaela: 08:36 That makes sense. It does. And it does. And I'm, and I'm just sitting here and I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, she's my spirit sister. I mean, everything that you said I completely resonate with. That's exactly what, what I, I'm aligned with what I share in the world myself. I actually was on a dream journey. I don't know if you've ever done one of those. Like a cow dream ceremony is amazing. And I was in this like almost woodsy kind of Woodstock environment with the rain coming down and there were all these women around me and we were raising our voices. And I just feel like just having you on this podcast is, is evident of that. Like it's, it's, it's real life example of that dream journey kind of coming to fruition. I know that sounds very hippy, but yeah,
Susan Burrell: 09:24 Listen, hippy dippy is good. You know, there's pieces that, well, there's parts of that that have reality to them. You know, it's not, it's not it, so here's my opinion on that that when you think somebody is woo it's because you're afraid of what they're talking about. I like that. I have a, I have a friend who started as a student with me and we, we, we'd met at a cocktail party and I started talking to her and she's like, I really like you. And then when I was starting a class, I ran into her at the supermarket. I said, I'm starting this class. I think you need to take it. And she's like, Oh, okay. And the first night she, afterwards, I said, so what do you think? Are you staying? And she goes, well, this is what I was going to say, some bad words. Sorry, but it's woo stuff. Right? And I said, okay. And now she's, she took every single class. In fact, she's the one that pushed me to write this book because she was like, okay, it doesn't matter how woo it is, there's truth to it. And what I, what she wanted was to live her truth, which she's doing now because of the practices that I taught her and because of the, you know, what's in my book,
Michaela: 10:47 So, so awesome. So completely, incredibly divine as you describe, I mean, just really, truly one of the things that you mentioned was making a better choice from a self love perspective. And I really like that. How do you think women feel? Somewhat. I mean, I hear this a lot. They feel responsibility to others and making decisions. And that's why they don't make the responsibilities that align with their true intention or their true self purpose or their, you know, or, or coming from a space of self love.
Susan Burrell: 11:22 Well, you know, it's like I said earlier, we've been called women have been culturalized to take care of everybody. So the last person on the list that you get to take care of is you right that, that's the way it used to be. There was an old, you know, wives tale phrase of a woman's work is never done. And that's true because a woman can see the big picture of running a household, let's say, or when you're, when you're in an office, you see the bigger picture most often times. And what happens is we will do and take on responsibility for others before we take care of herself, ourselves. And the thing that I learned is I had to flip that. I had to start taking care of myself. And I actually got caught by a client yesterday because I've been having like a mini cold and she was supposed to come over and she said, I heard you not feeling good.
Susan Burrell: 12:19 Are we still having an appointment? I said, yeah, sure we can do this. And then she texted me back. She goes, are you taking care of yourself? I was like, Oh damn. You know, and I said, you're right. You're right. Thank you for calling me on my stuff. I'm not taking care of myself if I'm going to have a session with you. So thank you. We will see each other the following week, you know? But, but because we've, I felt responsible for her. I wanted to show I wanted to be there for her. Right. But in that, then I wasn't being there for me. So how can women make these better choices? How do they, how do they choose from the inside out? How do they, how do they choose themselves? How do they make choices with those glasses on rather than what the rest of the world expects or, well, that's a big, that's a big question McKayla.
Susan Burrell: 13:11 That's a very broad question because again, it's different for each individual. So I can only speak for myself, but I I have had various spiritual practices over 30 plus years. And and what what I mean by that is either it's meditation or it's walking in nature and running an affirmation. When I started, when I knew my marriage was ending I was hiking and I started this affirmation that is, I, I am love, I am loving and I love myself more than I ever have. And while I was walking repeating that out loud, I mean, if anybody walked by me on the trail, they would've thought I was cuckoo. But but I, I said it out loud to myself over and over and over again until I felt it drop in. Do you know what I mean? Until I found that there were neuro synopsis that were starting to reach out to each other and wire in this idea of self love, that I love myself more than I ever have.
Susan Burrell: 14:20 And that became my mantra off and on through my divorce. You know? So there's, there's all sorts of ways to to get there. It's not unfortunately there isn't a magic pill. There isn't a guru book to read. I mean, there's lots of amazing books out there to read and be inspired by. But unless you do the work, unless you actually sit down and excavate your garbage and begin to see what you want to keep, you begin to see what you've been hiding from yourself. And you also begin to see what you put up with and then put all that garbage on top of yourself so that you're just in this rubbish heap. You know, not knowing where you are, who you are, where you stand, what you want. You know, a lot of people, when I was going through divorce people would say to me, well, what do you want? What do I want? I didn't even know who I was. How could I say, Oh, I want this. I want a happy life, right? Everybody wants to be happy, but you can't just go straight to happy. I mean, if somebody out there knows how to go straight to happy, please let me know because that'd be great.
Michaela: 15:40 I, I love, I absolutely love what you said about different spiritual modalities, but I was thinking about how the first time that I trained for a marathon marathon, the first time that I ran a marathon how it, how it started is I put on my shoes and ran until my negative self talk stopped. Oh my God, that's brilliant. And then I turned around and ran home with a more like positive focus. That's literally how, and even to this day when I hike, I start out just [inaudible] and then, you know, by the time I'm done and I'll con I'll extend the high good, extend the hike and extend that until I get to the point where I'm like, okay, I'm ready to go back to the world now.
Susan Burrell: 16:24 Oh my God. That's, that's brilliant. And that's exactly, that's exactly what I did. There was a certain turn on the trail that I eventually knew was, Oh my, my negative self talk has receded. Now I can use my affirmation. Now what do I want? How, what's my intention for the day or what's my intention for my life? And, and the movement helped me. I did not realize that I was like a tactile person, but movement I work with crystals now that, you know, I, when I'm in a session with someone, I'll hold a crystal to ground me or help me hear deeply what they need or want, you know, and okay, that's woo. Right? Woo. (Michaela: I am currently am holding a green adventurine.) Oh, well there you go. I have one beside my bed. I can relate to that. So I kind of am the person that says, you know, there isn't one size fits all in terms of spiritual healing emotional healing, physical healing. There is not one size fits all. And so if you need to use a crystal because it gives you courage, awesome. And if you want to use affirmations because it makes sense, you great. Some people say they hate journaling and I have other people that
Michaela: 17:50 Are like, okay, I just journaled my brains out yesterday. And I finally figured out why I do the thing I do. I'm like, okay, good. That's great. I love it. I, you know, I attend a Write Club here where it's, it's kind of like a group journaling, which is really fun. But obviously with my clients, I have different types of journaling. I recommend everything from, you know, the daily gratitude journals, which can be a good start to just writing the weather and how it relates to your day. You know, today's gloomy, today's hot, today's whatever. How does it relate? And, and one of them that I love and actually just recommended this to a client this morning is if I were to run into you on the street five years from now and you were to tell him and I were to say, Hey, how are you doing?
Michaela: 18:34 What's going on in your life? What, what would you tell me? Write that down. Write that story in your journal. Because I think that that can really inspire a lot of connection to maybe what's missing. Like in that space where we're our best selves when we run into someone five years from now. And we get, we have endless opportunity to tell the story of what our life looks like. We realize, wow, what I'm doing today doesn't look like that at all. And if that's something really nailing prompt, yeah, if I change nothing today, that's exactly what it's gonna look like. So years from now, you know? Yeah. So one of the things I see people get hung up on a lot is when they start to realize when they start to have some insights to the fact that they're not living their true life, their best intention, whatever, they get angry, right? They didn't agree, and then they start to blame or they start to become a victim of that anger. W w what are your thoughts for women who have these realizations and then just get mad at the world and start to blame others?
Susan Burrell: 19:42 I actually, I've had a few clients that, that, you know, and I, myself, I'm raising my hand. I myself, you know, got angry when I realized I had made choices that kept me in a a 28 year marriage, that it was unhealthy for me. And the rage, the rage when you make a realization like that or when I did was huge cause I had been suppressing my rage for 28 years, probably all my life actually. But so what I recommend is what I did is get in a healthy space. Like this sounds so fundamentally cliche, but getting a healthy space like your bedroom with the window shut and scream your brains out and, and beat up a pillow and yell about all the things you're so angry about. And what happens besides a raw and sexy voice after that is is that the, the rage has to be released.
Susan Burrell: 20:44 The anger has to be released. It, you know, it turns in on you and it becomes a disease. So and I'm an I experienced that. I was not, we were nine years into our marriage. I was very angry and disappointed, but I wasn't allowing my emotions because I wanted to be quote unquote happy with this relationship. And because of the stress and strain and my denial of what really was happening, I became a type one diabetic. Like overnight. I almost died. So I came out of that and that's when my spiritual practice deepened. But I still didn't look at what was the cause of that, right? The anger, the suppressed anger, the suppressed disappointment, the suppressed, not feeling loved or seen or heard or, you know, all the things I was doing that to get more love from my now ex husband, that he, he didn't know how to provide.
Susan Burrell: 21:46 Right. And I didn't know how to get it from him except to do more until I practically killed myself. So I say if you're angry, get angry, but with the intention to get through it, it, nobody wants to be around a raving lunatics bitch. Right. So so I encourage my clients to get angry and when they do it, you know, it's a shocker of how much suppressed rage there is underneath there, but the, but the story needs to be told, not in a shame and blame the other person, but with intention to become healthier because you're entering out that garbage again. That's all. That's garbage that you don't need to carry around. And when you start to empty it out by being, by crying your RAs out or screaming your head off or whatever it is, then then you create an empty space within yourself to fill it up with love and self esteem and self respect. But the blaming thing does happen often because there is a place all okay. In my experience there is a place where you don't want to take self responsibility. It's so much easier if it was somebody else's fault. Right?
Michaela: 23:10 Yeah. I literally just put out an eternal last week where I talked about having a conversation with a friend who said she wanted a peaceful life. And so that's why she was moving out of her situation. And I said, let's not translate you running away, right? You're choosing the easy thing that's not necessarily what's going to bring you happiness and contentment and peace. It's, it's a choice to turn away from rather than to face and walk through. And, and so, I mean, I think it is easy sometimes when we're faced with these, these challenges in life to say, Nope, you know what? It's easier to stay in this space that I'm in or to run away from this space that I'm in. Then to then to deal with that hard thing. And I like to say thank you hard thing because at the end of the day, if I'm walking through you, I'm coming out better. I'm coming out improved with more life experience than I was on the other side. I would agree. Thank you. Hard thing. Thank you. Whatever. for giving me this insight to realize how maybe I contributed to this too. How am I, God, everyone else is responsible but maybe I created it.
Susan Burrell: 24:23 Yup. My ex husband and I used to always say, you know there's, there was lots of lovely things in that marriage but and, and we would always say it takes two to fight. You know, it takes two to tango, it takes two to fight. And so where is my responsibility on one, on that one side and, and what's, what's mine to deal with and what's not mine to deal with? Cause it's the other person's and that, that feels healthier to me. But I, and I got to say your thank you. The gratitude for the hard thing. I applaud you because I got to go kicking and screaming first.
Michaela: 24:58 Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you something though. I've had this realization lately because I feel like I want to continually grow. I feel like I am the kind of person who can get resentful and have and allow that anger to come out in ways that are unfair to other people. You know, rather than dealing with the person that I'm actually feeling resentment towards. I let it pile up and then snap at my son cause you didn't get ready for school on time or something like that, you know? But, but I've had this crazy realization lately that my energy is insane. And I'll give you a perfect example. So last night my husband and I were standing in the kitchen.
Part II
Michaela: 00:00 And we were talking about something pertaining to work and it got heated, not, not necessarily between us but about the topic. And I just felt myself like boiling about it, like so angry and I was, I had my tea and I took my tea bag out and I went to set my mug in the sink. And granted this is a, this is a new clay mug, like a nice mug. And I set it in the, I did not throw it, nothing. And it shattered. And I mean it was, I have set that mug down more heavily than that a million times in the past six months or three months, however long I've had it. But it was the energy that I transferred. I mean, I firmly believe this. And so it, it's crazy when you were saying, you gotta get it out. I was like, yes you do. Because what does that energy become if you don't let it out?
Susan Burrell: 00:56 Right? And, and, and what a brilliant example too, of what happens when we are not aware of the energy that is moving through us. Because the truth is, for all your listeners, if you haven't heard this, the truth is, is there is continual energy moving through us all the time. It's the thing that's, that help. It's the energy that helps ourselves regenerate and slough off the old stuff. It's the energy that keeps our neuro synopsis functioning. It's the energy. It, you know, the cha in Chinese medicine, they call it cheat it. It is an energy system that our bodies are the conduit or, and the broadcasting station for. And so when we are not necessarily conscious of that energy, it will block in the body creating disease or pain and or it will come out in uncontrolled ways, right? In an unconscious way. It's like you're, you're mug shattering and I'm sorry. And the last thing I want to say about that is all of us on the entire planet are being tuned up right now. There's energy systems that have been downloading for the last several years. And the more consciously aware we become within ourselves, the better we can handle that energy system and use it in positive ways that build our lives into areas that we want to grow, expand and just be in. So
Michaela: 02:35 I was just gonna tell you a story about every year I go to this retreat, a meditation retreat called, it's at 1440 in Scott's Valley. And amazing, I've been going since the, the actual first time they opened and they weren't even completely built out yet. And it just gets better every year, but they offer a daily QiGong. And that was the first experience that I'd had. This was about maybe, I don't know, five or six years ago whenever they opened with QiGong and without, you know, he, he had us doing this exercise and it, and it says if we were holding a ball or two hands, and what's crazy is after doing the, the energy movement, you literally could squeeze this non-existent ball and feel the ball squeeze and feel it expanding contract. Even there was no ball. If we just read our hands, it was our energy.
Michaela: 03:29 I mean, it was really powerful. And I think that's the first realization that I had, that yes, there is some sort of not only energy within, but energy that that is exuding from me that of course people in my space could pick up on. Of course they can feel that and participate in it in some way. And that was really an amazing, amazing thought. And when I think about living an empowered life, I think about the, the people who choose to have to tap into some of these Eastern modalities or to tap into this idea that universally there is a lot of untapped brainwaves and emotions and ability to control things and really supernatural type experiences. And when I think of an empowered life, I think of people who are seeking that greater knowledge so that they can have a better life on this planet.
Susan Burrell: 04:24 Yes, I, and, and those are the clients and students I work with. I I realized, Oh, well during the course of my close to 25, 30 years of, of teaching and principal I've come to realization that I, I want to work with the people that want to Uplevel and stand in their own self love and self respect and self-empowerment and, and, and there's many people that are okay staying in their little box and there's many people that are okay living a life of fear and, or anger or disappointment because it's comfortable. And the people I want I work with are the people that are ready to take that step even if they may not know it. You know, I have a couple of clients that came to me thinking I was helped going to help them with their divorce. And what developed and shifted for them is they became self-aware and self responsible and loving and respecting themselves more than, and finding their voice then because of it, you know, a lot of women don't have, don't feel like they can speak up about something. And so those are living an empowered life is an important thing and it takes ongoing work. Has, guess what, Mikayla, I'm starting a book study next week in person book study in Ventura County. And as I'm getting ready to teach my book, I'm realizing, Oh crap, I got to work the book again because some of my old over the last couple of months, some of those old behaviors started to rear their head again. And I'm like, where did you see, I thought I cut you off. I, you know, so it's an ongoing thing and we always have to work.
Michaela: 06:23 It really is. And, and you know, it also I think takes a lot of courage too. It's so much easier. You know, I was talking to someone the other day who had told me that they'd recently become sober and had connected with a spiritual practice. And I said, I think the hardest part, and we were talking about that, and I said, I think sometimes the hardest part of getting healthy is that a lot of times that doesn't benefit the people in your life. And it's harder to to you when people start to see you get healthy, they freak out a little bit. They're kind of like, wow, look at you. You're making all these changes and this doesn't necessarily fit what worked for me in the way of what I demanded from you or the expectations I had of you. And now you're setting these boundaries and I don't like these boundaries you've created, you know, so it takes a lot of courage, I think too.
Susan Burrell: 07:16 It does take a lot of courage. I would agree with you. And, and when you, when an individual wakes up and realizes that, that we're all on a spiritual path and that spiritual transition or transmutation starts happening within, it's so subtle that the people around us don't realize it. You know, I, I, when I came out of my divorce, I had done so much deep inner work, you know, I've kind of sequestered myself for three years and really did my deep inner work. And, and after the final decree, I was, I felt released, you know, I felt emancipated and all of a sudden I would, I would go out in public and people say, did you lose weight? No. Oh, did you do something with you? Hadn't done anything, hadn't lost weight, hadn't done anything. I was just lighter. Yeah. Because all that gunk was, was I had worked through and released a lot of it and, and I felt better about myself and that reflected out into what needed what I was doing and being out in the world. So
Michaela: 08:27 One of the questions I had here, and I brought this up in the beginning, is you know, you, you've talked about this, people that have this one at now attitude. And I see that so much. I mean, posting on social media for that immediate gratification, that instant gratification, how does that contribute to our inability to do the work we need to do?
Susan Burrell: 08:47 Wow. I have to think about that because like we started the podcast, we wanted to do it now. So what happens, okay. In, in what I see in myself and, and reflected to me from my clients is the, that the work, when you start digging in, you think, okay, there's going to be an end point. Right. And, and really there isn't necessarily an end point. And so we get very impatient. Well, I, I do want it now. I want, I want to be happy now. I want to be healthy now. And for whatever reason, I have no freaking clue. I wish I could snap my fingers or click my heels and make it happy now. But there's, there is a, it's a, that's why I call it a spiritual practice because you have to keep coming back to yourself and clarifying what am I thinking?
Susan Burrell: 09:43 What am I feeling? You have to keep coming back to the actual what the work, whether it's sitting and meditating or journaling or asking yourself big questions that you don't want to face because because we are all part of this dynamic system that is an energy system, a spiritual system, and it's because it's dynamic. It is always changing, right? The only thing you can trust is that everything's going to change. And because it's always changing. There is no immediate gratification. I think that's a, that's a bunch of stuff we got sold, especially when technology started like multiplying itself and rapidly producing new product that we thought, or we were trained by big box companies by advertisers, by whoever you want to say, that's going to get the money. Right. We were trained that you need that immediately now. And that's not what, that's not the way life actually works. If there was no technology in the olden days when there was no technology in the olden days where there was, you couldn't leave a voicemail. If you made a phone call on a rotary phone or a push button phone, you couldn't leave a message unless somebody picked up the phone on the other end. Right. And then you had to wait for them to call you back.
Michaela: 11:16 Well, I like what you said earlier. There's no straight line to happy. No. You know, and I think about, in so many ways we've taken, we've removed the work in everything from heating our homes to eating our food. Right? It didn't always used to be so convenient or you know, such a straight line to that instant gratification. It, it took that work and then feelings, a reward. And then, so I think what shifted in our modern society is we feel like, well, I can turn on the button and push it up to 72 to eat, to heat my house. So how do I turn on the button and crank it up to 72 to make me happy? That's the level of effort I'm willing to put in for my comfort rather than, no, you've got to go cut the kindling first. You've got to go find the tree, you've got to go get the wood, and then you've got to cut the kindling and then you've got to start the fire.
Michaela: 12:13 And in a, you know, and after all that's done in an hour or so, you'll feel that comfort after you put it in the works. And then you got to make sure that the fire stays lit. Right. You got to keep putting logs on that. Right. I love that. So it's just this, it's just so true. So insightful. So, so how can people take control of their life? And I know we, we don't have a lot of time here but, but I have two questions left for you. And the first one is how can people take control of their life today? Right now if they, if they have heard this and they feel inspired and they want to start now, how can they do that? Okay. One is buy my book, living empowered life, a 30 day journey and start today. But the other thing is to recognize
Susan Burrell: 13:02 It takes, like you said earlier, Michaela, it takes courage to recognize that I'm unhappy. And so how you take control of your life and control this, my whole body is just like wiggling now because control I've learned is not, does not bring you happy, can control is the thing we do to keep us from changing and keeping circumstances from changing. Let me control it so that I don't have to do the work.
Michaela: 13:33 Ooh, I love that
Susan Burrell: 13:35 You can get to that place of feeling vulnerable, which is a actually a huge plus when we feel vulnerable. I used to think it was a weakness, but it's a huge plus. Then. Then the, the need for control is eradicated sometimes or at least diminished so that we can feel more comfortable in our vulnerability, in our openness, open heartedness and not, and not put up those barriers that keep us from feeling the love and giving and receiving the love that we actually are.
Michaela: 14:13 That's so true. And I forget where I saw that control word when I was creating these notes, but I love that you, you, you kind of called that out because that is absolutely true. And I hope that everybody that was listening heard that it's more about inspiring change, making better choices, awareness, and not so much about control. I love that. That is so true. Susan. Thank you for that. And so people, what people are saying about your books, it says it may crash the self help industry. Why is that? Yeah, why is that? Can you share a little bit about why that is? Well, because all my gosh, I,
Susan Burrell: 14:52 That's the first time I've heard that. But I, okay, so because if when you do the work and I set it up that you do the work then you don't need to keep getting another guru book. Right?
Michaela: 15:10 Yeah. It's a continual work in progress is what people think. They could just read the guru book and solve and solve all the,
Susan Burrell: 15:17 Oh, I was that person. I read just about everything by Wayne Dyer. I tried to live by Wayne Dyer, you know, or Marianne Williamson or you know, a lot of these [inaudible] and yet I still had to do the work. I had to set the intentions. I had to find that, that space between my self criticism and my love myself.
Michaela: 15:41 I had clients, a couple client and they they came in here this last session and they only come about once a month, ma, you know, kind of thing every other month, something like that. And then they disappear for like three months and then they come back and they said, I feel like we're talking about the same.
Susan Burrell: 15:58 And I said, newsflash, you are,
Michaela: 16:03 You guys are coming in here once every couple months. And then you're not even going home and doing the work that I'm giving you at all.
Susan Burrell: 16:09 So you can keep doing that. We can keep seeing each other once every six months. Nothing's going to change. Well, and this is the thing I found, which is why I made the book a 30 day journey. A lot of people are doing it over 60 days or 90 days that it doesn't matter as long as you do it, but the consistency of doing the work and it has to be a daily consistent working to get to the thing you say you want. You know?
Michaela: 16:37 Absolutely. It absolutely is so true. I mean, I think that we pick up these things and we do them for a day or two or a week and then we're, you know, go right back to our old habits. It takes longer than that.
Susan Burrell: 16:50 It does. And I had a client when the book came out, she, she grabbed a copy and started doing the book and this woman could quote any self help guru, anybody. She was, she'd read everything and she said, after she got to like day 10 or something, she said, Oh my God, my life is changing so rapidly because I'm doing the work in this book. And she said this, she said, every self help book I ever read, I read it thinking that there would be this, this brilliant idea that would download into me and I would be healed, I would be fixed, I would be happy. And she said, but that never happened. And now that she's actually doing the work herself, she was beginning to feel happy
Michaela: 17:35 And that, and it's beautiful. And, and you know, one of the other things that I noticed this, that I, I put out a happiness starter kit is what I call it. And it's all tangible tools. It's, it's a, it's a similar idea. It's a workbook. And I did it and it's very short. And I did it because every client that was coming and sitting in my office was having the same kind of core stuff, you know? And I thought if I could just do this and make my life a lot easier, hand them this thing and say, start with this. But the funny thing is is the feedback was like, well man, it's, this seems so obvious.
Susan Burrell: 18:10 Yeah,
Michaela: 18:12 It does seem so obvious, but yet people don't do it. Right.
Susan Burrell: 18:16 And it's so simple, right? There's only a handful of things that you need to do. It's not like you have to do all the other stuff that's out there.
Michaela: 18:28 It's, it's absolutely true. And, and, and find what works for you and work within that, right. Something that's sustainable for you to do. And yeah, I mean, even as simple as just starting your day with some intention every day, you know, can make such a powerful difference in, in the way you're living your life and how you're going out in the world every day. [inaudible] Wow. Well, thank you so much Susan. I, like I said, I've already recommended this, this book because it really is different. I absolutely love it. I'm so thankful I got to have you on the podcast and I just, I am inspired by what you said. I know others will be too.