Choose Yourself, Expand Your Life

What if shrinking isn’t your personality—it’s your programming? We sit down with author Candice Shepherd to unpack the hidden codes that keep so many of us stuck in people pleasing, perfectionism, and pretending to be fine. From the moment her marriage hit a crossroads to the day she chose her truth over approval, Candice maps a path that is brave, messy, and deeply human.

We explore how the nervous system reacts before the mind can catch up, why a slammed cupboard can send you straight into freeze, and how to move from fight or flight into neutrality so choice becomes possible again. Candice shares the two core beliefs that ran her life—“not enough” and “unsafe”—and how those scripts fueled fawning, over-responsibility, and the illusion of control. Together we break down practical tools: free-writing to surface the inner critic, breath and orientation to regulate the amygdala, and small, embodied experiments that help you rediscover what you actually want.

The conversation gets real about relationships, too. We talk about stepping back so kids can struggle and find their voice, transforming partnerships by choosing each other from a healed place, and letting go of friendships that only loved the version of you that abandoned herself. Healing isn’t linear; it’s a spiral. There are setbacks, grief that arrives years late, and days when choosing yourself feels terrifying. But on the other side is alignment, potency, and a life that fits.

If you’re ready to stop shrinking, rewrite the story, and own your space with clear boundaries and calm confidence, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to tell us the one code you’re ready to disrupt.

You can information about Candice's book and her services HERE. 

Chapters

• 0:05 Welcome And Core Mantra
• 1:14 Meet Candace Lynn And Her Mission
• 2:26 The Pivotal Choice To Choose Self
• 6:15 Decoding Not-Enough And Unsafe
• 9:20 Nervous System: Fight Flight Freeze Fawn
• 13:42 Spotting Codes Through Body Signals
• 17:23 Journaling To Reach Neutrality
• 21:15 Shifting From Fixing Others To Self
• 25:12 Daily Alignment With Potency
• 28:24 Time Scarcity As A Code
• 32:10 Control Disguised As People Pleasing
• 36:04 Letting Kids Struggle And Grow
• 39:44 Learning Your Own Wants

Transcript

Mary: 0:05

Welcome to No Shrinking Violets. I'm your host, Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist and certified integrative mental health practitioner. I've created a space where we celebrate the intuition and power of women who want to break free from limiting narratives. We'll explore all realms of wellness, what it means to take up space unapologetically, and how your essential nature is key to living life on your terms. It's time to own your space, trust your nature, and flourish. Let's dive in. Hey Violets, welcome to the show. Y'all know that one of the mantras of this show is take up your space. We do that in a million little ways, all of which are nuggets to be mined from my episodes. But rarely do I talk directly about how to cut right to the heart of it. I talked about this in my very first episode back in January. However, today I'm guessing my guest will be much clearer about our barriers to truly standing in our space and how to push through them to find our foundation and live more authentically. I'm gonna keep this intro uncharacteristically short so we can get to the meat of this. Candace Lynn is the author of Awaken, a book that doesn't teach you who to be, it reminds you who the hell you are. Through raw storytelling, subconscious reprogramming, and the occasional cuss word, which I love, Candace helps people break the beliefs that have their lives running on autopilot. She speaks to those who feel like they have outgrown people pleasing, perfectionism, and pretending to be fine. And if you listen at all to this podcast, you know those are common themes. Candace is here to help listeners unravel emotional coding, reclaim their power, and rewrite the internal narratives they didn't realize they were living by. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Candace. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, I think this is going to be fun. So, okay, this is a big topic and it goes to the heart of pretty much everything I talk about. I like, though, to have guests talk to me first about how did you end up where you are today? So if you could start with your journey, like what moments do you feel stand out for you that sort of brought you to where you are sitting here today?

Candice: 2:20

Oh, yeah, that's that could be a whole episode on its own, but we'll read her digest version of sure. Okay. Um, so you know, typical growing up, you know, I was married at 20. We have we've been married for 19 years. We have three beautiful daughters, and just through our own life path and ups and downs, and um, you know, trying to make a marriage work in today's society, learning what works and what doesn't. Um, we we had a few years of very high conflict, high, high conflict, quite a few years. Um, and went through coaching and doing all the things and couples retreats, right? And everything would be good for a while. And then we'd revert back to what what we knew, which was conflict. And there just became it, there was a pivotal moment um early this year where we had just done ten thousand dollars worth of coaching, and and somehow we reverted back. And I was like, you know, this is I just felt in my bones that this is a moment right now where I choose. And it gets me emotional. It was one of the scariest moments of my life where I had to decide that regardless of what happened with my marriage, I was gonna choose me. Yeah, I was going to choose to live by my truth and live authentically, regardless of what that meant. And it was terrifying. Um, and lucky for me, I'm married to a wonderful man who was always, you know, even when we were in high conflict, has always been committed to growth with me and growing and changing and becoming better parents, becoming who we're meant to be. And so as I stepped into me, I was afraid. I'm like, regardless of what happens, I'm not shrinking anymore, I'm not people pleasing anymore, I'm going to walk into my truth. And everything I feel like changed from that moment. Um, I was fortunate, like I said, being married to a wonderful man. He's always wanted me to be authentically me. We just had all these codes bumping into each other. And so that was the moment. That was it. It was all this just the past and the conflict and everything led up to this moment where I said, I'm I'm done. I'm done shrinking. It's not, it's not serving me, it's not serving my family. And that's where everything unraveled. And I started following my truth, and I wrote the book, and and here we are.

Mary: 4:56

Yeah. So you talked about several things that I want to asterisk and come back to. So, you know, I think it's interesting that you talk about how scary it is to take up your space. And I say that all the time. And I think sometimes people don't, well, sometimes it doesn't resonate, but I feel like for most women, especially, it does because you talked about the narratives and you used the word shrinking, which is, of course, in the title of my podcast. So, you know, we do shrink. We are, we I don't think we start out that way, and we can get to that because I know you believe that too. I think when we're born, we naturally know who we are. And then we start to get those subtle messages like, well, that's weird, or why are you doing that? Or, and then we, especially if we're really perceptive, we pick that up and then we chop that part of ourselves off or we hide it somewhere. So when we finally get to this age where we're like, wait a minute, I if I don't live authentically for me, then I'm not being authentic in anything. Where do you think the fear comes from?

Candice: 6:07

I believe it's, you know, my identity was wrapped up in being the people pleaser and being the shrinking, right? And we've got that ego, well, if I'm not that, then what am I? And that's terrifying. You know, so the fear is I I genuinely thought there was a there's a chance that my family doesn't love this non, this version of me that don't abandon herself, right? What if I end up alone and it's terrifying if to lose everything that I've built for almost 20 years by choosing me? That was the fear for me, which the fear was a lie. My family loves me. They want me to be me, they want to see me happy, but that wasn't in there in that identity crumbling space of my brain. I thought that I was gonna lose everything.

Mary: 6:53

Which again is interesting. After doing all that work and knowing that you had a partner. I mean, I when I use the word partner, I truly think sometimes we truly have a partner. Sometimes we just use the word, but often when somebody's walking with us, they are our partner. And so even as someone who's had children and navigated a lot of this and put time into it, you could still be afraid that what you need to do is going to be alienating to them. So you've used the word code. Can you give an example of whether it's with someone you worked with generally or for you? What do what do those codes look like and how do they operate?

Candice: 7:35

Oh, I'll use the not enough code for me, um, because that is a lot of I'm not I'm not enough and I'm unsafe, is where a lot of my uh programs were stemming from. And whether where they came from, you know, could who knows? Early on, we're we're taught these things. We pick things up, like we said. But so that was how I lived my life. I'm not enough, I'm unsafe. And so I'm constantly trying to prove my enoughness externally and be everything to everybody and keep everything and then the unsafe. And so I have to make sure everybody's emotions are regulated, never looking back and asking me if I'm okay, just making sure everybody else is okay. And so we have these codes running, and they the symptoms are our nervous system going into fight or flight, right? When it when somebody slams a cupboard, it's like, oh shoot, right? And then the program is that external um, I'm trying to think of the word, but where you're externally trying to source your safety and your your enoughness and your worth, that's where the whole web just starts to get all tangled up.

Mary: 8:41

Yeah. So you mentioned the slamming of a cupboard. Let me expand on that a little bit. So if that was part of potentially someone's childhood where anger came out in slamming things, throwing things, we learned that a loud sound, a loud, sudden sound, typically means somebody's mad at us.

Candice: 8:59

Right? Yes, yep. And I would go into instant freeze, right? Our re our nervous system responds within a nanosecond. You're within fight, flight, freezer, fawn within a nanosecond. And so it's not, it's it's a lot more intricate than just saying, Oh, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna let a covered slam bother me anymore.

Mary: 9:17

Yeah, right.

Candice: 9:18

It's noticing, oh, I'm frozen. Okay, I feel unsafe. Let me breathe, you know, and starting to unravel it that way. Just recognizing that these codes take off before in your body before your your thinking brain even realizes what's happened.

Mary: 9:36

Yeah, they're coded by the amygdala, which is, you know, I call it, and people have heard this several times, that I call it the smoke alarm. So it's that smoke alarm that is very sensitive. So when the toast is burning, the house is not burning down, but the amygdala wants to keep us safe. So it tells us the house is burning down. And by being aware of that, that's where you're saying, like, figure out when you have this reaction, where did that come from? And I love that you mentioned all four Fs. So they're they're not cuss words. What we're talking about is fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And we're we're very familiar with fight or flight. The freeze, I think, is when, especially women, because I work with a lot of college students, and within that, you're going to get sexual assaults. You have a lot of young people together in a in a small community. And that would be the thing that would cause women later to feel guilt or shame. Why did I freeze? Why didn't I do more? And you're you're making the point. You can no more change that natural reaction. Now we can learn from it, but that natural way that we respond to something that scares us or, you know, that that is startling, that is natural. And so that was a thing where when it's like a bunny, if you've ever noticed a bunny gets scared and it's like, why is it not running? Well, it feels like I'm safe if I stay small. And so that's exactly kind of what you're talking about. Like shrinking in those situations makes you feel safe and it might keep you safe, but later it does not work for you.

Candice: 11:18

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that freeze, I as soon as I would thaw, I would go right into fawn. Right. And so it's not this linear thing where you need to recognize, you know, we kind of cycle through all of them, one of them more than the other sometimes, and learning to regulate through that process, get that prefrontal cortex back on, right? Start breathing and regulating through it is where we can really start to make major change.

Mary: 11:48

So before we go on, can you explain fawn? Because I think that's one we don't often hear. So people might not be familiar with that reaction.

Candice: 11:56

Yeah. So that for me was my people pleaser, right? Let's say the cupboard slammed and I finally thaw and I go out there. I'm like, okay, who needs what? Who's mad? Are is everybody okay? Do you need oh, did it did this break? Let me clean it up. It's it's just externally focusing on everybody around you, making sure they're okay, and never ever clocking in with yourself to see what you need.

Mary: 12:20

And so I think the beginning, and you explained this a little bit, you were kind enough to give me a chapter of your book. So one of the things that you talk about is being aware of the reaction to start with, because we all react in a certain way for a reason. So if we're irritated by loud noises or, you know, something, the way somebody looks at us makes us feel scared and we're not sure why. You sort of start with the idea of, you know, be aware of that and reflect on it, right?

Candice: 12:49

Yes, yep. I call it looking for the symptoms of a code, right? Those codes have have ran unchecked. I believe we're seven when they're when they're cemented in our brain. And so we aren't attuned to recognizing the code, but we can start to become attuned to our body and recognize when something's off, when when our chest is tight and things like that, and starting to get more into the body because I like to get people out of their mind. Our thoughts are our cage. That's where the the little chatter box is going off saying, I'm unsafe, they don't love me. I'm, you know, I need to run away. If we can get back into our body, find those symptoms, love ourselves, we can start to uncover those codes from the body up.

unknown: 13:33

Yeah.

Mary: 13:34

Well, and I think sometimes when the how do I want to say, when the narrative is running, I don't know it. Well, I'll say in my experience with clients, they don't often hear that or perceive it. It's the actual body reaction. Well, I they can't get past the feeling of anxiety or the worry or all of that heart-pounding feeling to actually access what is my brain telling me about that? Give some hints. How do you get from that body, which I think we do need to connect with and calm? But then how do we start to hear what that inner critic, the narrative, the code, whatever we want to call it, what is that that is telling us? How do we get there?

Candice: 14:19

For me, it's it's always from a place of neutrality. I don't want to go up there if I'm not neutral. I don't want, I don't want to. And so it's always getting neutral first. For me, journaling, I can free writing has always been great for me. And and I can just write whatever comes out and then look at it. Oh, wow, I really feel like I'm not enough. There's little clues in here, you know, they never listen to me or I never do enough. There's little clues in there. If we can listen to it from a neutral space and not get swept up by it, we can really learn a lot about ourselves.

Mary: 14:56

And there's two parts as I see it. And again, I pulled this sort of out of your first chapter that you shared. The first part is what you're saying that what do we tell ourselves? So someone does something, and of course, we have that emotional or physical reaction, but then we're telling ourselves a story about it. No one cares about me. They always do this. So the first thing, obviously, is be aware of those absolutes. Always and never are rarely true. But we're starting to tell ourselves this story. We recognize it, we feel, okay, they're acting some type of way. And, you know, it is they don't like me or they're judging me or those kinds of things.

Candice: 15:37

Yes, yes. And it's interesting when we have the realization that they, the other person, probably has these thoughts going on in their head as well, right? That, oh, they think I'm not enough, right? We're all just these little inner critics outwardly expressing our wounds onto each other. And that's that's just where I wanted to start. My life, I did all the things. I took all the classes, I read all the books, but and things would get good for a little while, and then I'd be back to where I was, and I'd be back to being afraid and and wanting to stay small and not wanting to be seen. And so for me, it was really just time to get to the root. What is this? What is this? And so, really just recognizing and listening, it's it's a total journey of self-discovery, radical self-honesty. You know, you have to be honest with yourself. And the number one thing that I made sure was that I never shamed myself. I never shamed myself for my response to my traumas or for anything, because that there's no growth in shame, right? That sticks us right back in that victim guilt mentality, just spinning out in it. And so meeting it with curiosity and compassion and processing, you know, maybe the little resentment that came up for what put the code there in the first place, learning to let that go. And I have just for the first time, I'm 39, I've created a relationship with myself through self-discovery.

Mary: 17:03

Well, and again, it's interesting that you were doing work in your partnership and as a parent, and then this started to become very apparent to you that wait a minute, I've sort of bypassed the most important person in this whole thing, which is myself. Can you explain to us and you share only as much as you want, but in your marriage, how did that come out for you? That unhealthy or misaligned coding?

Candice: 17:29

Um, for a lot of me, I recognize I'm like, well, everything will be fine once Jason learns to control his anger. You know, everything will be fine. Like, we'll be fine once Jason can change this, once he can heal his childhood, we're gonna be fine. And so he did, right? He he learned to he does not get angry anymore. He's healed things from his childhood, he's grown, but then here I still am going into fawn and freeze and and panic mode because I was so focused on him needing the healing. I forgot that I needed to heal as well.

Mary: 18:04

Yeah. Yeah. Anything that we go through as we're growing up, it's gonna revisit us in our most intimate relationships. And I and I used to say that to my college students like, now's the time. Now is the time to get yourself healthy. And because I think life will keep reminding you, it'll keep turning the volume up. Like it sounds like for you, it's like you tried, and then you tried again, and then you tried again. And finally, there was something that was like, Candace, I think you need to maybe look in the mirror and start to wade through some of this stuff.

Candice: 18:38

Yes, absolutely, you know, and it was the moment that moment that I talked about, that pivotal moment, was I was so locked into that potency and potential that we talked a little bit about in my book, that I thought anything that isn't this isn't me. This is me. I this is my essence. I feel powerful, I feel vibrant, I feel alive. And obviously there's still ups and downs or human, but I just made a commitment to check in with that truth on a moment-to-moment basis, minute by minute, hour by hour. Am I living in line with this? You know, am I trying to control the situation? I don't want my kids to fight, I don't want this to happen. How do I feel in my body when I'm doing that? I don't feel potent, I don't feel my power. I feel small and like I need to keep everybody happy. And so learning to lock into that potency that I felt when I was a kid. I I always believed I was here to do something special, I'm here to help people, I'm here to do something amazing. And locking back into that was very emotional. I don't ever want to let that go. And so now that's just how I live my life. Is this an alignment? You know, if if I'm about to have a conversation with my husband, lock into that first because that is a very loving, kind part of me. And so now I'm just developing this relationship with my potency and learning to live authentically through that. And it doesn't include shrinking, it just doesn't. Yeah.

Mary: 20:09

And I can already hear, because again, I've heard sort of the protests from clients over 35 years. I'm guessing there are people out there that are thinking, Candace, I don't have time to focus on myself. I have to, again, take care of a family. I have a job, I'm married, I'm working, all of these things. What would you say to somebody that's thinking that?

Candice: 20:32

Well, believing there's never enough time in the day is a code. Right. And if you're running that code, you probably say yes to things you want to say no to. You run yourself into the dirt, you guilt yourself for rest, you probably guilt yourself for taking time for yourself. So it sounds like to me that might be something you need to pencil in at the top of your priority list and start make because nothing's going to, I won't say nothing, that's too absolute. But the your life is more than likely not going to go down the path you want it to if you don't start, maybe wake up five minutes earlier and whether you like to journal, meditate, or maybe turn the news off on your way to work or whatever it is, and start penciling time in for you and start believing that you have time for yourself because that's a code. Yeah.

Mary: 21:23

And it's also to circle back a little bit, I think it's that fear that if I really start to stand in my space and sometimes make boundaries and maybe not do all the things I used to do, that it's going to negatively affect my family.

Candice: 21:41

Yes. Yeah, that's was something I had to think about because I've been their mother and wife for almost 20 years. Everything will fall apart if I come out different, right? And I never realized, you know, when we would have conversations, the the word controlling would come up, and that would be the hill I would die on. I am not controlling. There's no way. I am the most backbending, people-pleasing person ever. But what I realized was that was my way of control. That was my way of controlling everything around me, so I felt safe. So I felt like I was enough and I was worthy. And so finally admitting to myself, wow, I really do have a control problem.

Mary: 22:25

Yeah.

Candice: 22:26

But it's not controlling what this person does, it's controlling my environment. What would happen if I didn't? What if I just let my kids have a conversation that sounds a little like it might go sideways and I breathe into my nervous system and see what happens? I thought the world would burn down.

Mary: 22:46

Yeah.

Candice: 22:47

But it turns out, you know, kids are meant to have conversations that their mothers aren't. You know, yeah. They're learning things by me stepping back. And it's been beautiful.

Mary: 22:59

Well, you brought up something that I love this flip side of the coin, because this is what a lot of people, in fact, I just was recently talking to a client about a lot of these themes. And we have this idea that when we take care of everything and we keep the road smooth, that that's keeping people's lives happy. And it's what it's really doing in some cases is giving the message, I don't really trust you to take care of your own situation. And also, especially with children, we have to allow them sometimes to flounder and find a solution and let it be messy. Because when they aren't under your roof anymore, then they'll discover it and then they won't have, you know, I always talk about nature and young trees. They need the wind to make their roots deeper and stronger. And if they don't have that, if we protect them, then when the first wind comes along, they're going to just break. So I think that flip side is so important for people to consider because it's also freeing, right? Because now it's like, oh, wait a minute. This isn't really about me. This is also about my environment and letting the people in my environment be who they need to be.

Candice: 24:17

Oh, absolutely. That has been another beautiful side effect of me, you know, choosing into myself. And because I was such a people pleaser, and I never learned to speak my needs, I never even learned how to find what my needs were. My girls, you know, nobody needed to speak their needs because I was 10 steps ahead of everybody. I knew what everybody needed and I was taking care of it. And now I've kind of reverted back and I've told it my family, you know, I'm going to wait for you guys to ask me for what you need and what you want. And it's not been easy on my end, right? It's a lot of breathing, and yeah, but they are they're starting to to speak up and and tell me what they need, and and it's it's been great, you know. My oldest is I have a 20, 17, and 13-year-old, and they need to learn how to speak their needs. And I was I was crippling them in that way.

Mary: 25:16

Yeah. So when you decided, okay, I need to allow these things to happen, you also mentioned wanting to sort of make decisions based on what you want and need. But when you spend a lot of years focusing on what other people want and need, it I think it's really challenging to be able to figure that out for yourself, which maybe sounds weird to some people, but how did you start to do that?

Candice: 25:44

Right. It was interesting because I I literally have no idea what I like. And when it comes time to eat, I don't have it. I don't know. I don't know. That part was completely turned off. And it's been kind of fun. I am so an advocate of embodiment. And so if there's choices in front of me, let's take it down to the easy. Where do we want to eat? What one inside me makes me feel excited? You know, do I feel more excited? It's just, it's this crazy process of getting to learn about yourself and see what lights you up. Did something give me a flutter in my belly? Did something make me feel, oh it's it sounds simple, but it's it's a huge task and it's fun, honestly.

Mary: 26:28

And it's that other part of being aware of your body when something happens that alarms you or creates that anxiety or heart pounding. The other part of that is what do you feel excited about, or what is something that you realize? Oh, I'm I'm sort of looking forward to this. And instead of saying, Well, you decide, it's like, wait a minute, let me try to think about maybe what I want to have for dinner or what I want to do. So you're discovering this for yourself, right? Yeah, what did you figure, what did you figure out? Like, what do you now think about? Okay, this is these are the things I want to prioritize just for me.

Candice: 27:05

I'm really liking qigong and love it, you know. I've always been like a heavy weight lifter, you know, grinded out, all this. And I'm like, wow, I really enjoy Qi Gong. This is interesting, you know. And starting to talk about I'm turning 40 in February, and we're kind of like, I've never had a birthday where I said what I wanted. You know, I'm like, I don't know, you guys just I'll love anything. It don't matter. It's okay, you know. Um, like I kind of want to go to the beach. I want to find, I want to, I want to get to the ocean, you know, and just these little things. It's been a lot of work. I'm not saying this is easy, it's still a process for me. I I have to journal a lot of the times. Um, and when I first started the process of writing the book and coming on podcasts, terrified, terrified because being seen was clopped as unsafe because I have an you know, I'm an unsafe code. And now I just recognize I'm getting ready this morning. I just I can't wait to come on and talk with you. And and that is so different for me. That is such a 180 from who I used to be.

Mary: 28:15

Yeah. So I'm gonna take a little side lane here because, you know, sometimes people have pretty severe traumas. And, you know, we develop these ways of responding to keep us safe. And then we reach a point, most people end up in my office when they realize what they did naturally doesn't work anymore. So I want to also be careful about when we talk about sort of overcorrecting, that it this is not simple. And sometimes people will say, like, oh, just get over it. So this idea of toxic positivity, which I'm a little, I mean, I have a couple thoughts about that, but I do think sometimes people can simplify something that is not complex. So I know you're not doing this. I want to talk about this a little bit though. When people feel like this is so ingrained in me, this reaction of whatever it is, like irritation or like snapping out at somebody or defending things. What would you say about that? When if something is so they just believe that they there's no change? Like, I think it's very hard for them to change or they dismiss it like, you know, you're making this easy. It's I just can't say smile and everything's gonna be great.

Candice: 29:28

Oh, yes, a hundred percent. Um, and I want to make it very well known that this was not easy. It it's I broke it down into a simple step by step in my book, but it's not easy. It is it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Like I said, that moment when I decided I was gonna choose myself, I literally felt like I was burning my marriage and my family to the ground. Um, and it's moment by moment, it's it's literally. Coming back, it's regulating your nervous system, it's help making yourself feel safe in areas that you've never felt safe in, you know, areas of your mind, things going on. And I was, I'm just coming out of, I would say, 12 years of disassociating. I lost my brother, um, devastating, tragic, and I just dissociated for 12 years, is what I can call it, right? I was still here, I was still doing the things, and the process of coming back to myself after disassociating for so long, never really processing the grief of losing my brother, never allowing myself to feel the pain is definitely not something that was easy, but it was necessary. It was necessary if I wanted to have a more fulfilled enriched life. And I believe that I did so much nervous system healing that I was finally at a place where I could feel that grief. I could finally accept it and feel it. And so the it's it's a process, and it's not always a solo process. You know, thank goodness there are amazing counselors and therapists out there like for people like you, because this isn't always a solo process. It can run deep and being guided is is beautiful, but I it's definitely worth taking the steps, and even if it's just a little bit today, like maybe I want to turn left instead of turn right, right? Just starting to play with these little things. Maybe I always get the vanilla latte because that's what I've always done, but maybe I want to try. Just starting to play with little things, just and learning to feel that flutter of excitement in your belly again is such a great starting point.

Mary: 31:43

Oh, I love those those suggestions because you've said a couple of times it's not easy. And here's one of the funny things in the world a lot of things are simple, but that doesn't mean they're easy. So you said you break it down, and we can say, okay, there's X number of steps here, but each of those steps is first of all unique to each person, and it's not linear. So you could go three steps forward feeling great the next day. You're like, holy crap, I'm like right back where I started, right? So it's not linear either.

Candice: 32:13

Very not linear. Yes. That's what the book lays it out in this linear process. But you know, you're spotting the code, um, disrupting the code, that's where you say, Wow, okay, first I had awareness, and I the disruption is I want to change this, getting neutral, reclaiming and embodiment, but sometimes it's in neutrality where you spot the code, or you know, sometimes it's an embodiment when you say, I want to disrupt this, and always just being gentle with yourself. It's a cycle, everything is cyclical, right? And I think I think the belief that anything is linear has really hurt us as a society for sure.

Mary: 32:54

Yeah, a lot of things we believe that, you know, we just start and then we keep progressing and progressing, and we do progress, but it can sometimes look more like maybe a roller coaster or you know, like a ball of yarn instead of a straight road. Um, and so I think the other part that you brought up was, you know, we have we have the code and then it's what are we saying to ourselves? So it is like, okay, this people are always ignoring me or they think what I'm saying isn't important. And, you know, sometimes you're right. You know, sometimes you'll see somebody doing something and you are 100% reading that correctly. But I think that last step that again you allude to in what I've read already is that's not about you. That does not have to define anything about you. It sort of defines something about that person, and you decide what you do with the knowledge.

Candice: 33:51

Yeah, yes. Your reaction to it is about you.

Mary: 33:54

Yeah.

Candice: 33:54

Right. And that's the beautiful thing about this process of healing um and getting to know yourself and locking into your truth, because now you can walk away from things that aren't for you, right? It if that doesn't feel in alignment, if this person's always treating you like this, it's not about you, it's something going on in them, but that don't mean you have to partake in it. That don't mean you have to participate. You can walk away.

Mary: 34:21

Yeah. And and that is the empowering part that recognizing it, but then not allowing it to define something about you. So you talked a lot about being a caretaker and a people pleaser. And that's hard when people step back a little bit from that because they think, well, my worth is really based to everyone else on what I do for them. So there's that scary thing. When I stop doing for them, am I going to then become worthless? And that pattern is not, again, about your worth. Your worth is consistent, it stays the same. If other people react and they're upset or they're mad, that's not your responsibility.

Candice: 35:06

Exactly. Exactly. And I talk about, you know, in the embodiment phase, not everybody's going to throw a parade that you that you've healed. You know, nope. There's a lot of people out there that that loved the the version of me that abandoned herself to keep everybody happy. And so I just got to make the decision. Am I do I want that relationship or do I want myself? Am I gonna choose me? And now I'm always gonna choose me.

Mary: 35:36

Well, and you find out who's really in your life to be in your life, and that again, it is very scary in the beginning because you're talking about your marriage, but what you discover is my god, this is even better than I thought.

Candice: 35:50

Yeah, yep. Yeah, now my now my kids get to watch two healed people have a relationship because they choose each other, right? Not because we're trauma bonded together and we're on this cycle and it's just this thing. It's we've both done the work and we've healed and we come together because we choose to. And we've walked away from friendships that that weren't serving us, that you know, loved the abandoning part of myself and giving them that empowering them to show them that they can do the same thing. Find somebody that wants to heal and grow with you, find somebody that wants you to be you and they want to be them, and you guys just work together and walk away from from whoever does align with that. Yeah.

Mary: 36:33

Yeah, and not and don't stay in in someone's life, a friendship or whatever, just because it's been X number of years. You know, I've heard that too. Well, my gosh, we've been friends since we were five. It's like, well, maybe that means the friendship has run its course. You know, I think that's the other part about it is you you do, and I'm gonna circle back to the beginning. We do know inside what is right for us. And it is all of that stuff and the fear that gets in the way and creates a barrier to moving through that into what is authentic.

Candice: 37:05

Yep, absolutely. I wish, you know, we remember more when we were little, pre-playing pretend. I want to be president, I'm gonna be the prima ballerina, I'm gonna be the fireman. That was our potential speaking to us, right? And us finding whose life out there matched that. And then we let the world chip away at that. And it it's a remembering. This process has been a remembering for me.

Mary: 37:30

Yeah. And I talk about that with plants because I'm a plant geek. So, you know, if if you're born a sunflower, you cannot make yourself into a tulip. You know, it it doesn't matter what we are born as, we're all beautiful, but we all have our own needs. So one plant is going to need something very different, but that doesn't mean that that plant is wrong. And so I think I call it essential nature, getting back to truly what we need. And you pointed out beautifully that a lot of that returning and recognizing that essential nature starts with monitoring what am I feeling? Does that excite me? Well, then I need to move toward that. If that makes me gives me a pit in my stomach, I need to think about that, figure out what's going on, and potentially move away from that or interact with it in a different way.

Candice: 38:20

Yes, absolutely. I I truly, truly believe that our body is so intelligent, right? Getting in touch with that, it's it's the antenna, right? It's intuitive. And the more we can start practicing, because it is a practice, right? I think in the spiritual and healing community, everybody's looking for that magic button where they're going to be unhealed and healed, right? Right. But it's that it's that messy middle where we're figuring it out, where we're learning what we like, what we don't like, you know, healing what what needs to be healed and moving on from it is where we we learn and grow the most. And so I wish for more people to understand that the awareness, the epiphanies are where the work begins.

Mary: 39:09

Yeah. And I will say that that first chapter that you sent to me, I really loved it. I loved how you laid things out. And again, as a therapist, I recommended a lot of things. I've read a lot of things. And I think for you pulling from your own experience and then defining some of those things like potential and potency, I mean, giving people a way to think about those, to think about code. Because for me, I use a rational belief. And I think anytime a woman hears irrational, it's like, I'm not irrational. It's like, no, no, it doesn't mean that. It means beliefs that don't have a basis in fact. But you are talking about something that I think is really accessible, that word of we've been coded. That's what our amygdala does. So I think you have a lot of really good nuggets and places to start in what I've read. So tell us more about where they can find your book, where they find you, what you offer, all of that good stuff.

Candice: 40:07

Yeah, so I have a website, so landing page, thefrequencylab.to. And there you can um, it takes you to Amazon, the books on Amazon. If you just want to go straight to Amazon, um, get on the wait list for book two, unravel, um, and book three, unleash. They're on their way. Um, I'm dropping a course this week on awaken. And so you can you can get into the course or you can um schedule a disruption session with me where I just let people fill in and give that give that chatter box a voice, and we kind of get down to the core belief under there that's that's running it.

Mary: 40:48

Yeah, and I'll put links for everything in the show notes. One thing to point out, we're recording this on October 14th, and it probably will not air for a month. So you're probably hearing this in November. So I don't know if you'll have the course on autopilot or if you'll have staggered sort of signups, but they can probably still find your course info in there if they Yeah, it'll be there.

Candice: 41:11

It will definitely be there by then.

unknown: 41:12

Okay.

Mary: 41:13

Okay. Well, it was so cool to talk to you today and tease apart some of this. It is one of my favorite topics.

Candice: 41:21

Thank you so much, Rami.

Mary: 41:22

It was a pleasure. You're welcome. And I want to thank everyone who listened. I'm gonna do a little bit something different today. Um, I would love to call on y'all to help me out with something. My first book draft is getting prepped to go to the editor. So if you would like to be a member of my launch team, basically you will get the physical book at cost, no profit to me, six weeks before it's officially in the world. And you'll get to read it so you can write a review, an honest review for me. But I also will have some super secret maybe insights, maybe an audio snippet of the book that I will send you and a couple other freebies. So if you're interested, simply click on the link in the show notes to sign up. It does not obligate you for a thing. You'll only get emails related to the book launch unless you want to opt in for my weekly email. So thanks again for listening. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.