Episode 78
Have you ever felt like you're moving into something new within yourself but somehow you're still living in the old world?
Maybe you're feeling more connected.
More aware.
More peaceful.
You're seeing things differently.
And then suddenly—something happens.
Someone says something.
You scroll through your feed.
You hear some news.
An old pattern gets triggered.
And you find yourself feeling fear, anxiety, frustration, heaviness...
And you wonder:
“Wait. Am I going backwards?”
Or maybe even:
“If I'm really expanding my consciousness, why does life still feel this hard sometimes?”
I think this is something so many of us are navigating right now. Because we're not simply leaving one reality and arriving in another.
We're learning how to live differently while we're still surrounded by the old.
We're learning how to hold a higher frequency while moving through very human experiences.
And we're learning that having a difficult day doesn't necessarily mean we've lost our path.
In this episode, I want to explore what it actually means to navigate these two worlds—to recognize what's pulling you into contraction, what supports your expansion, how to know when something needs to be felt rather than fixed, and why you may be much further along your path than you realize.
So, if you're ready to join me, pull up a comfy chair, invite in your soul, and be open to receive exactly what you need to live, be, and thrive as the embodied soul you are.
Let's begin.
There's something I've been feeling very strongly as I've tuned into this episode and into all of you who will be listening to it.
And that is anxiety. A lot of anxiety.
And when I asked, What's underneath this? What's causing this anxiety? what came through was uncertainty.
Uncertainty about the unknown.
Uncertainty about the future.
Uncertainty about our lives, about where we're going, about what's happening in the world around us.
And that brought me back to a question someone asked me a number of months ago, which was:
How do we navigate the old and the new?
How do we navigate living in two realities at the same time?
And I think this is something that so many of us are experiencing right now.
Because we're living in a world that’s changing very, very rapidly. And many of us are simultaneously experiencing something different within ourselves.
We're feeling different.
We're seeing differently.
We're becoming aware of things we weren't aware of before.
We're experiencing more connection, more love, more compassion, more peace, more joy.
And yet, we’re still living in a world where there’s fear, disruption, uncertainty, conflict, and a tremendous amount of information being presented to us that is designed to capture our attention.
And so there can be this strange experience of feeling like we're straddling two worlds.
And I want to talk about that today.
Because I think there’s a way to navigate this with much more ease.
Now, when I talk about the old and the new, I'm not necessarily talking about two physical places that we're moving between.
Remember, in the way that I understand this, everything is already here.
All of the possible realities, all of the different frequencies and densities of experience already exist.
And what we're doing is expanding our capacity to experience and inhabit different frequencies of reality.
We're lifting our consciousness.
We're expanding our capacity.
And then we're learning how to align to, maintain and stabilize ourselves there.
Because when we're not consciously choosing where we're aligning, we're still aligning somewhere.
We're aligning with the frequency that we’re holding.
With the consciousness that we're holding.
With what we're consuming.
With what we're focusing on.
With what we're repeatedly thinking about.
And this is why it can be particularly challenging right now.
Because we’re surrounded by information.
We're surrounded by other people's fear.We're surrounded by predictions.
We're surrounded by narratives about what might happen, what’s going to happen, what could go wrong, what’s coming next.
And our media environment, as we all know, is very good at getting our attention through fear.
Because fear gets attention.
And the more attention something gets, the more it gets shown to us.
And so we can very easily find ourselves in a feedback loop where we're consuming fear, our system responds with fear, we become more attuned to fearful information, and then we're given more of that.
And before we know it, we're living inside a reality that feels very dense.
And yet there may be another reality available to us.
A reality where there is more peace.
More joy.
More compassion.
More connection.
More recognition that we are not separate from everything around us.
And so the question becomes:
How do we live our actual lives while also supporting our ability to expand, stabilize, and anchor into that higher frequency?
And I think the beautiful thing is that the more you do this, the easier it becomes.
The more you expand your consciousness, the more familiar those higher frequencies become.
And the more you anchor into them, the more they become your baseline.
And that means you spend less time dropping all the way back down into the places that may have once been very familiar to you.
But how do we make that easier, wherever we are right now?
The first thing I would suggest, if you're not already doing this, is to begin your day with an intention.
And you can also use it any time during the day when you feel yourself get a little off kilter.
And the intention is simply:
“I am now choosing to align my energy systems to the highest level they can maintain right now.”
Not the highest level imaginable.
Not some frequency that you think you should be able to hold.
The highest level that you can maintain right now.
And there’s an important distinction here.
This isn't a mantra.
You're not just repeating words and hoping something happens.
It's an intention.
You're actually intending to lift your energy field.
And then be present enough to notice what happens.
For those of you who feel energy, can you feel that?
Can you feel even a slight lifting?
Or maybe you feel a lightness?
A shift in your perspective?
Because when you shift your state, you change your vantage point.
And when you change your vantage point, you see the world differently.
Things that might have triggered you or brought you a great deal of unease may suddenly not feel quite as dense or as heavy.
Not because the thing itself necessarily changed.
You changed the place from which you were seeing it.
You are seeing it from a vantage point that is closer to the perspective of your soul, your higher self, your expanded consciousness.
And that, in and of itself, can be a game changer if you actually use it.
The next fundamental is to become conscious of what you're consuming.
And I'm not just talking about food.
What are you watching?
What are you scrolling through?
Where are you spending your time?
What interviews or podcasts are you listening to?
What conversations are you having?
What family stories are you repeatedly listening to?
What are the people around you talking about?
And here's a really simple question:
How do you feel after you've consumed it?
Do you feel lighter?
Do you feel more expanded?
Do you feel more connected?
Do you feel more peaceful?
Or do you feel heavier?
More contracted?
More fearful?
More hopeless?
Pay attention.
Because your body is giving you information all the time.
And I'm not saying that everything uncomfortable is something you should eliminate.
That's an important distinction.
We're not creating a little spiritual bubble around ourselves where nothing difficult is ever allowed to enter.
That's not life.
And that's not embodiment.
We're developing the capacity to encounter things without automatically becoming them.
So if you notice that something consistently contracts your system, ask yourself:
Do I actually need more of this?
And if the answer is no, you get to consume less of it.
You get to choose differently.
And then I hear some of you saying:
"But Joanne, I have my life. I have my family. I have my work. I have people around me who aren't aligned with higher frequency. They're always bringing me down.”
Well, that's great information.
Because we’re in interaction with other people all the time.
We’re constantly being influenced.
By people's words.
By people's emotions.
By their intentions.
By what they're offering us to consume.
But here's the piece I really want you to remember:
You are always in choice in how you receive it.
You don't necessarily get to control what someone else brings into the room.
But you do have a choice about whether you shake hands with it.
Whether you dance with it.
Whether you buy into it.
Someone can hand you fear.
Someone can hand you a prediction.
Someone can hand you a doomsday scenario.
Someone can tell you what they believe is going to happen.
And you can recognize:
Oh. I recognize that this is coded in fear.
I recognize that this is somebody else's perspective.
I recognize that this is somebody else's energy.
And then you get to choose.
Do I want to continue consuming this?
Do I want to continue participating in this conversation?
Do I want to keep watching this?
Or can I simply recognize it for what it is and say:
“No. I'm not buying into that narrative.”
Not because you need to argue with it.
Not because you need to convince them that they're wrong.
But because you know how powerful you are as a creator.
And you know that you're creating your experience of your reality in every moment, through the choices that you make.
You are that powerful.
And this is also where we have to become really honest with ourselves about where we're giving our power away.
"They're doing this to me."
"They're making me think this."
"They're making me feel this."
"They're not spiritual enough."
"They're bringing me down."
"They have this problem."
"They're the reason I'm experiencing this."
And I'm not saying other people don't affect us.
Of course they do.
We're relational beings.
But wherever we put all of the responsibility outside of ourselves, we also give away our ability to choose how we meet the moment.
And I think there’s a really important distinction between blaming yourself and reclaiming your agency.
This isn't:
"Everything that's happening is your fault."
It's:
Where is my power in this?
What am I experiencing?
What am I being invited to participate in?
What am I consuming?
What choice is available to me right now?
It's a little like going to a buffet.
The buffet has everything.
You've got the sweets.
You've got the fatty dishes.
You've got the soda pops and the chips.
And you've got all the salads.
You've got the balanced meal.
It's all there.
The question isn't whether the buffet contains things you don't want to eat.
The question is: What are you choosing?
And the same thing is happening energetically.
We're being offered a spectrum.
Fear.
Contraction.
Separation.
And also love.
Peace.
Joy.
Connection.
Expansion.
The entire buffet is there.
And we get to become increasingly conscious of what we're choosing from it.
But—and this is important—there’s another piece of this conversation that I don't want us to miss.
Because it can be very easy, especially when we're talking about higher frequencies, to begin believing that if we're truly evolving, then we should always feel good.
That if we're really aligned, we shouldn't be anxious.
We shouldn't be angry.
We shouldn't be grieving.
We shouldn't be frustrated.
We shouldn't have difficult days.
And I want to say very clearly: That is not what this is about.
You didn't sign up for a joy ride.
You didn't sign up for rainbows and unicorns every day.
Yes, there are periods of tremendous joy.
There are periods of profound peace.
There are moments where you experience extraordinary connection and love and expansiveness.
And those experiences are incredibly important.
Because they show you what's possible.
They give you hope.
They give you inspiration.
They give you a felt experience of where you're going.
But in order to stabilize and maintain those frequencies, there are things within us that need to be seen.
Felt.
Acknowledged.
Released.
Transmuted.
Integrated.
There are old patterns.
Old beliefs.
Old architecture.
Family structures.
Cultural structures.
Societal structures.
Religious structures.
Ways of being that may have been appropriate for where you were, but are no longer aligned with who you're becoming.
And those things are going to come up.
Sometimes life itself will bring them up.
Sometimes another person will provoke something within you.
Sometimes you'll find yourself responding in a way that surprises you.
And instead of saying,
"Oh my God, I'm doing it wrong. I've fallen backwards. I've lost my frequency,"
what if you simply became curious?
What’s this showing me?
Because you're always being shown something.
And that doesn't mean everything difficult is something you need to fix.
Sometimes you're integrating.
Sometimes you're releasing.
Sometimes you're being asked simply to feel something that you've been avoiding.
And sometimes there actually is a choice you can make that changes the situation.
That's where discernment comes in.
Maybe you've been scrolling for an hour and you've suddenly realized that your entire feed is filled with fear about the world ending.
Maybe you've been spending a lot of time with someone and you realize that every conversation leaves you contracted.
Maybe you've been consuming something that you know doesn't support the state you're trying to cultivate.
That's information.
And then you get to make a new choice.
But sometimes there’s nothing to change.
Sometimes something painful is simply asking to be felt.
And that’s also part of the path.
I think of this a little bit like going on a hike.
You can be walking through the most beautiful forest.
Everything is gorgeous.
The light is coming through the trees.
You're enjoying the scenery.
And then suddenly you come to a bog.
And now you're walking through mud.
Maybe you're up to your knees—or your waist—in mud.
Maybe you've got to cross a river.
Maybe you've got to climb a steep hill.
Maybe you've got to cut a few weeds and vines out of your way.
And you could look around and say,
"This is terrible. I thought I was on the right path. Why am I in the mud?"
But you're still on the trail.
And eventually, after that climb, you might emerge onto a vista overlooking the ocean.
And suddenly you can see so much farther.
You can see the landscape.
You can see how interconnected everything is.
You can see where you've come from.
And you have a much vaster perspective.
And then you go down another hill.
Because that's how hiking works.
You don't just walk uphill forever.
There are valleys.
There are climbs.
There are beautiful stretches.
And there are difficult stretches.
And yet, the overall trail can still be taking you higher.
You are not necessarily going backwards because you’ve temporarily moved down.
And this is something I think is so important for us to understand when we're navigating these two worlds.
I actually think of it a little bit like musical octaves.
Within every octave, there are high and low notes.
And when you move into the next octave up, you haven't eliminated the low notes.
They're still there.
But the lowest notes in the new octave are higher than the lowest notes in the octave below.
And I think consciousness can work in a similar way.
As we expand and stabilize at a higher level of consciousness, we may still have difficult days.
We may still experience grief.
Anger.
Fear.
Frustration.
Uncertainty.
We haven't somehow transcended being human.
But our whole range has shifted upward.
So even when we move into a lower part of our current octave, we're not necessarily dropping back into the depths that were once familiar to us.
The floor has moved.
And over time, you can actually feel that.
You may still get triggered.
You may still have a really hard day.
You may still find yourself in fear.
But perhaps you don't stay there as long.
Perhaps you don't go as deep.
Perhaps you recognize it more quickly.
Perhaps you have more tools.
Perhaps you have more clarity.
Perhaps you can see what's happening while it's happening.
And that's progress.
That's the elevation.
Because the goal isn't to never experience a low note again.
The goal is to become increasingly stable in a higher octave.
And that's why I don't want you to judge yourself when you have a difficult experience.
I don't want you to compare yourself to somebody else.
I don't want you to think,
"Well, they're so evolved and they're experiencing all this joy, and I'm over here having a terrible week."
You don't know where someone else is on their trail.
And you don't need to.
You have your trail.
You have your pace.
You have your timing.
And you're always being given the next step that you need to move through.
So when you feel down, realign.
When you notice yourself contracting, become aware.
When you notice yourself consuming things that bring you into fear, make a different choice where you can.
And when something genuinely needs to be felt, feel it.
Don't throw away your practices because you're having a hard time.
Don't decide that you've failed because you're experiencing something uncomfortable.
This is where your practice matters the most.
It's easy to stay connected when you're meditating.
It's easy to stay connected when you're listening to a beautiful transmission.
It's easy to maintain a higher frequency when life is going well.
The real practice is:
Can I remember who I am when life is not going the way I want it to go?
Can I return to my center?
Can I align my energy to the highest level I can maintain right now?
Can I make the next highest choice?
Can I stop consuming the things that are unnecessarily pulling me down?
Can I allow myself to feel what genuinely needs to be felt without deciding that the feeling is my reality?
And for those of you who are particularly empathic, there’s another tool that I have talked about in earlier episodes that I want to bring back here.
The energetic egg.
That field around you that you can imagine as having little windows or portals that you can open and close.
You can remain connected to Source.
You can remain open to the light.
You can remain receptive to everything that supports you.
And at the same time, you can become more discerning about what you're allowing into your field.
Because so many of you feel other people's emotions very strongly.
You care deeply.
You sense things.
You pick up what's happening around you.
And that can be a beautiful gift.
But it can also become very exhausting when you believe that because you can feel something, you are responsible for carrying it.
You don't have to carry everyone else's problems.
You don't have to carry someone’s emotions.
You don't have to fix everyone.
You don't have to make everyone else's life better or more comfortable.
And if you find yourself constantly needing to do that, I would simply become curious.
Is there a pattern there?
Is there some part of you that believes that you need to be needed in order to be loved?
Is there some part of you that learned that keeping everyone else comfortable is how you stay safe?
Is there some people-pleasing pattern?
And again, not as judgment.
Just information.
Because this is what we're doing.
We're becoming increasingly honest with ourselves.
We're noticing where we're putting responsibility outside of ourselves.
We're noticing where we're giving away our power.
We're noticing where we're taking responsibility for things that aren't ours.
And we're bringing it back.
Back to ourselves.
Back to our center.
Back to:
I am a powerful creator being.
I am making choices all the time.
I get to choose how I meet this moment.
And one of the most beautiful things about this whole process is that your life is constantly reflecting information back to you.
Not good.
Not bad.
Not success.
Not failure.
Information.
If things are going beautifully right now, that's beautiful.
Notice it.
What are you thinking?
What are you consuming?
What are you spending your time with?
How are you treating yourself?
What choices are you making?
Pay attention to those things.
And instead of thinking,
"Oh, I should do that,"
perhaps:
"I get to do more of that."
And if you're experiencing something you don't want to experience, that's information too.
Maybe you're taking on other people's energies.
And maybe you're in an integration period.
Maybe something is surfacing.
Maybe there's something that needs to be acknowledged.
Maybe you've been consuming something that’s affecting you.
Maybe there's a choice available to you.
Or maybe there’s absolutely nothing to change right now.
Maybe you simply need to allow yourself to be where you are.
And that's okay too.
Because you're not going backwards.
You're not failing.
You're not somehow disqualified from this path because you had a difficult day.
You're moving through it.
And the more conscious you become of what's impacting you, and the more conscious you become of how it's impacting you, the more choices you have.
And the more choices you have, the more you can choose the things that expand you.
The things that enliven you.
The things that brighten you.
The things that bring you more peace.
The things that bring you into greater connection.
And the more you do that, the more you anchor into those higher frequencies.
And something beautiful happens.
You may still go down.
You may still experience difficult things.
You may still have challenging emotions.
But you don't go down as far.
Because your baseline has changed.
Your octave has changed.
The floor has shifted upward.
And that is why, over time, it becomes easier.
Not because life stops happening.
But because you have changed the place from which you meet life.
And I think that's what it means to navigate these two worlds.
It's not about rejecting the world we're currently living in.
It's not about pretending that fear doesn't exist.
It's not about avoiding difficult people or difficult experiences or difficult emotions.
It's about learning how to remain connected to who you are while you're moving through all of it.
It's learning how to honor and parent the parts of yourself that are still very much anchored in the old.
The part that still thinks you need to be enough.
The part that needs to be protected.
The part that wants to hide.
The part that thinks you need to become whoever someone else wants you to be.
The part that is still carrying old beliefs, old expectations, old ways of surviving.
We don't have to reject those parts.
We don't have to shame them.
We don't have to call them low vibration and try to get rid of them.
We can meet them.
We can listen to them.
We can love them.
And we can help them learn that there’s another way.
That is embodiment.
Because we're not trying to become some perfect spiritual version of ourselves who floats above everything.
We're learning how to bring more of who we really are into the body, into the life, into the relationships, into the messy Wednesday afternoons.
That's where the work is.
And that's also why we're here together.
Because none of us is doing this alone.
We're each moving through it at our own pace.
In our own timing.
There are collective energies, absolutely.
There are collective shifts.
There are things happening in the larger field that we’re all experiencing.
But we're each meeting them differently.
And that's by design.
Because sometimes you're going to be the one who's feeling down.
And someone else is… someone else in this community is going to have the hand available.
The shoulder available.
The words available.
The energetic support available.
And sometimes you're going to be the one on that higher part of the trail.
And you're going to be providing that for someone else.
Sometimes consciously.
And sometimes simply through the sheer power of your being.
Because the more clear you become, the more radiant you become.
And the more you live as who you actually are, the more that radiance affects the people around you without you having to do anything.
We're all transmitters of the light.
We're all contributing simply by being.
And so perhaps, if there’s uncertainty right now, you don't need to know exactly what's going to happen next.
You don't need to know exactly what the future looks like.
You don't need certainty about the entire path.
You can simply know:
I can meet the next moment.
I can choose again.
I can realign.
I can feel.
I can discern.
I can let go of what isn't mine.
I can make the highest choice available to me right now.
And then I can take the next step.
And the next.
And the next.
Because maybe that's the real answer to the uncertainty.
Not knowing exactly where the trail goes.
But trusting your capacity to walk it.
To navigate the beautiful parts.
To navigate the mud.
To navigate the steep climbs.
To emerge onto the vistas.
To rest when you need to rest.
To reach a hand out when someone else needs it.
And to keep moving.
Higher.
More deeply into yourself.
More deeply into connection.
More deeply into who you actually are.
This is the path home to ourselves.
And we're walking it together.
So I'm incredibly grateful that you are here.
I'm grateful that you're walking this journey with me.
I'm grateful that we're navigating these old and new realities together.
It has its ups and downs.
It has its enormous waves.
And it has its calm periods.
And I am so happy to be on this path with you.
Surfing it with you.
And if something in this episode has supported you, or you've had an insight about what you're moving through right now, I would love for you to share it in the comments.
Because you never know who is going to read your words at exactly the right moment and realize:
"Oh. I'm not the only one."
Your experience might be the hand that someone else needs.
And someone else's experience may be the hand you need.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you for walking this path with me.
And I'm sending you so much love for the week ahead.
I'll see you next time on Embodied Soul.
