Your Worth Was Never Theirs to Take with Lynda Talley

Hello, heroines! This is Alex. Welcome back for our second interview today, and today I have a real treat because I have with me a good friend of mine. So if the conversation kind of goes sideways, don't worry, it's totally normal. Um, but everybody meet Linda Talley. Linda, how are you?

Hi, I'm fine. I'm blessed to be here.

Good. Well, I'm so glad to have you here. So Why don't you— we start just with the basics. Tell us a little bit about what you do.

I am Linda. I'm the owner and creator of Discover Your Radiance. I help women find their voice, understand what their power is, and see how it's been taken from them and how they can ground back into it.

Yeah, and I— it's funny because I just was— the interview before, we're talking about how society tends to put us in boxes, right? And part of that takes our power because it's like, if we don't fit in that box, then we're not worthy, we're not deserving, all of that. So, um, how did you get started doing this?

Kind of what you know, it was lots of years of primarily abuse came into my life. When I did start that healing journey, I started looking at how did this really happen. And a lot of it actually came back to the part of I didn't feel worthy. And when I didn't feel worthy, I didn't know how to really express myself. I was told, like, you know, you just said, I was put in a box. I was too loud, I was too soft. You know, it's funny, I do astrology, and I had so many people tell me, you're not a Leo. And at that time, I was just like— and there was so much in so many people telling me how I should and shouldn't act that when that happened, I didn't even know how I was supposed to react, you know?

Yeah, it's— after a while, it's like You know, I'm gonna liken it to something that happened to me when I was in corporate. I had a boss who was a micromanager, and by the time I left that gig, like, I didn't know, like, how do I move? Do I go left? Do I go right? Do I go forward? Do I go backwards? Because I had been conditioned to take direction from this person.

Exactly.

So how then did you break that? Because it's not an easy thing to do. It takes time. It takes the willingness to be uncomfortable, to do the hard work. So take us through that a little bit.

I did. First, I started learning how to ground, because like you said, you don't know where you're, you're at, what you're supposed to do. So it's like this thing of moving fat this way, that way. And in order to actually start anything, you have to ground, understand what that means, what it looks like, how it benefits you, and then you can actually move on into different areas. I mean, I've been doing this for so long, but part of it was just finding out who I was at a soul level. And that did involve astrology, Human Design, numerology, you know, all these things, but bringing it in at such a rate that I didn't get bogged down into it. I wasn't sitting here trying to find out what my shadow, as they call it, is. I was looking at it from a gift perspective, so I could see how I was supposed to live out this world, what my soul said, this is what you're supposed to do, and really, you know, grasp into that and understand, you know, this is me, and When I did that, I also at the same time understood I'm not supposed to fit into a mold. And I had to really do a lot of conditional training in that because it's scary. Because like you said, the boss— well, how many other people in your life have done the same thing to you? So they're really, you know, if you reach that point and you're saying, you know, we see it all the time, is somebody says, who am I? I don't know who I am. That's pretty much where that comes from.

Yeah. And it's like you said, it's not just the boss, right? Because I know that's something that went through my head after I left my former husband and I was like, Okay, now what? Like, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. But I want to go back to what you said just a little bit earlier. And you use the word grounding, right? You have to learn to ground. So tell us more about that, because that feels very, to me, very out there. How do you bring that into like a, like a ritual that can help to do to, to come back to ourselves?

I always say everybody's different, but, and I say that because some people can actually understand when they start to need to ground. They can feel it. It's usually, you're probably not really going to feel it from your— I do it with chakras, your heart chakra up. If you feel light, airy, you know, just you can't put sentences together, just, um, in, in your head a lot, that's pretty much telling you you need to ground. But in the beginning, you may not understand that, you may not see it. So the biggest thing to do is just walk outside, literally just walk outside and stand. Um, you can do that in the morning, afternoon, whenever. And when you start doing this, you can start seeing the change that you have. I know one place I worked, every time I would just feel like everything was going up, I went outside and I walked. And I had learned this from another boss that I had. He was always, you know, outside.

Sounds like he had a really interesting job.

Well, he was outside because it was like, okay, gotta get away. And I really, you know, zoned into that and I was like, what are you doing? Why do you do it? You know, I've noticed— and this was years before anything really started with me— it's like, it makes me feel better, it clears my head, it— and that's part of grounding. It's just understanding we are a part of the huge, a huge universe. When we get so uptight and everything, it's just us. It's in everything around us is, you know, making us react to it. And that's not— that's why we have to get back to us.

So it's not just reconnecting with your body, it's actually physically reconnecting with first?

Well, it is and it isn't. I say to start doing that because a lot of times that's when you're going to notice it.

Okay.

Sometimes when you tell somebody you need to reconnect with your, your body— and yeah, there's a lot of different things you can do, um, like even just standing up and just shaking. That gets you back into your body. But if you just, you know, start doing that one thing when you notice everything just is just starting to spiral. I know, you know, when I'm working and if I can't think of anything, the best thing for me to do is walk because once I start walking or if I go outside, it's like, because all the clutter starts to go.

So is it just the fact of being outside, or is there a benefit also to like being barefoot?

You know, the best thing to do is like being barefoot on the ground, but sometimes you can't do that. I mean, let's face it. Yeah, I know I could walk out on my grass and who knows what I'm going to run across. So I'm like, eh.

Gotcha. Okay, okay, fair enough.

You know, yeah, but even if you just walk outside and you're barefoot on your patio, anything, you know, if you have to have shoes on, it's not going to really— it's not going to be anybody that's going to say, well, you can't ground because you have tennis shoes on. You walk outside and you have tennis shoes on, you're still grounding. So there's just different perspectives of it, and I don't feel like there's either this way or that way is, you know, the right way. It's just doing it.

Yeah. So I want to go back to something else that you said before, and I wanted to ask this, um, when we talked before about being in a box, right, and society liking to put people in boxes. Do you feel like you had to get to give yourself permission to be yourself? Because otherwise, like, you have to try to fit in everybody's box, and then you're like a freaking Rubik's Cube, right? Like a box within a box, or matryoshka dolls or whatever. So how does one go about giving themselves permission to really be themselves?

That's a good question. A lot of it is starting to love yourself. It's kind of like that grounding thing, because you are putting so much value in yourself that you're understanding, I need to stop all this, stop the noise, stop having everybody telling me what I need to do and how I need to do it.

I had the image of Suzanne Powers or whatever, Stop the Insanity. You remember her with the—

oh yeah, I can't— back then I remember her because I was like, it is so true.

It just took me years to Actually, sometimes between the awareness and the actual doing, it does— those two things don't necessarily come close together.

Well, too, you've got to understand, universe is going to sit there and put things in your way. When you think something has stopped and you're better, universe kind of puts some— that same thing looks a little bit different back in your path, and it helps you each time. Each time you're going to sit there going, I've already been through this. I thought I, I thought I, you know, healed this. There is no actual healing, but it— yeah, I mean, but back to that question, it's, it's a lot of learning how to love yourself, learning how to understand yourself and just say, this is who I am. I mean, I love doing what I call Soul Blue— Soul Blueprints. I cannot say some words today— for, um, people, because it actually brings them back to, oh, that's who I am. It's like, I can't do anything about this. That's me, you know? And once you start looking at these things, then you can start really bringing that love back in because you knew you were cared and loved for when you came in, and you had all these gifts, and this is what you were actually supposed to express. It's not really about a job or career, it's just you, you know.

Do you ever— does it ever happen that you do this Soul Blueprint for someone and they're like 'Well, that's not me.' How does that— how do, how do they then begin to reconcile who they think they are with who they actually are?

I think it's a matter of how you present it. I haven't had anybody do that. I have had them say, 'I'm not— I don't see that,' and I'm like, 'That's fine.' because sometimes we don't see what's right there, and everybody else will see it. It's just a matter of trying these exercises. So, you know, next time you're going to go, oh, because the biggest one is somebody being told you're a natural leader. I was told that for years, and I sat there and I was like And I watched my mom. She had so many areas that said she was a leader and she was given leadership opportunities just like I was. But for her, she flat out was like, no, no, back up. Mm-mm. Whereas I was trying to embrace it, but there was times I just didn't feel it. So That's when you sit there and you go, okay, what is holding me back? Why am I not feeling this? And bigger than anything, what does a leader look like to me? Because sometimes that can be your biggest barrier. You may think a leader is, you know, leading a country or, you know, a CEO. And it's like, is that what you want? No. Okay, then what does it look like? What are you, you know, in your daily life, how would you use that if it's just leading yourself?

You know, sometimes it's just that simple, huh? It's not easy, no, but it is. It can be that simple.

Yeah, because sometimes we just get— because you go back to that thing of the conditioning. And whatever somebody said these words were supposed to mean, we take on either their meaning or we kind of like conjure up our own, and sometimes we make it bigger than it actually needs to be.

Yeah, we have a tendency to, to do that, right? To just like create these stories in our heads that make things so much more complicated and complex than they actually need to be.

And make it, you know, make life— life is not supposed to be hard. It's supposed to be fun, joyous. You know, we're not supposed to be stressed out every day and feeling this urge to even, even work every single minute. Which is a hard thing when you start a business and you've been in corporate for so many years and you're like, got to do this. I can't quit till it's 5 o'clock and that's the earliest I can quit. And it's like, why? You know, nobody makes those rules. Did you get stuff done? Are you going to get burned out if you do anymore? Yeah. Okay, then let's cut it back.

Yeah, going back to what you said about leadership, I think there is a need to redefine what leadership— leadership— leadership— this whole word thing is contagious. Leadership thing, like having our own definition. But I think the other thing, and it's something that I've said to my clients too, is You need your own definition of success because what success is for you is not going to be the same for me because my experience is different. Your experience is different. Therefore, different experiences require different definitions.

Exactly. And that's a big one right there because success is so convoluted in money, power. You know, recognition. I mean, you can just go on and on. And but is that what it means to you? I mean, especially if you're starting your own company, it's like, what does a successful business look like to you? What, what do you want? Even if you know you're applying for a job in corporate, it's more of what do you want? Because especially then, because how many times have you stepped into a role and you were like, I thought it was going to be this, and I wanted it because of all these things, you know? And you get in there and you're like, no, I don't know who I am again.

Yeah, time to go back in and, and revisit that. Um, oh shoot, there was something else I was going to ask you. So when you think about your story and your journey, what have been some of the biggest lessons that you've learned, and particularly from past heartbreaks? Like, what were some of the things that one day you're like, holy cow, that totally makes sense? Let me make sure I don't do that again.

The biggest thing was my marriage, getting out of there. I know at the very end, um, I described a scene where I was standing in the shower and I could see my— how my life was actually supposed to look like. I grew up with a lot of abuse for decades. And so when I got into this marriage, of course, it just— it was full of everything and a lot of abuse. But I sat there in that shower just going, you know, this is not what I want. This is not what I want to be. But in that shower, that's where I wanted to be, because I could feel this sense of release and knowing I was worth more there than I was when I walked out of the bathroom, because that's when the shit started and that's when everything just blew up. So when I left, that's when a series of things, you know, was going on for me to actually work on who I was. I had CPTSD back then from everything that had happened. I remember walking into a therapist's office, and when I was diagnosed, she sat there and said, you know, you're going to have to be in therapy for quite a while. And I was like, what is quite a while? And she was like, well, you know, until you just— we can't put a time limit. And I'm like, 6 months. She was like, you can't do that. And I'm like, you just watch, okay, Miss Higher Achiever? But that's, that's how I was too. So it was all these mixture of things, you know. It took me about a year after that to see, oh, look what you did. Some of it was good, some of it was bad. I was going through a lot, and I really—

it—

this whole journey has been a learning experience, but more than anything, it's brought me back to who I am. And that's why this work is so important to me, because your self-worth cannot be taken from you. Nobody can do that. And that goes along with, you know, understanding and expressing yourself. If you don't feel worthy, you can't express yourself. And, you know, I can look at somebody and see their gifts, their— just who they are and what they're supposed to do here. And when I see that, it just— it just breaks my heart because I know what I went through.

So taking that a step further, How do you work with women to help them to do that? Because I know you've got like so many tools in your arsenal. So what does working with you look like?

I would say intuition is really big with me. And knowing that no two people are the same. You can tell one person over here, you know, these are the things that she needs to do. Um, she needs to work on confidence and everything else and do it in a certain, like, not a box but more of a structure. And then you got somebody over here that's completely— if you tell them to do something in a structure, they just will fight you tooth and nail.

Yeah, they're out.

And so working with me is more like having somebody in your corner that's going to understand, or try to understand, where you're at and where you're coming from and the path that you want to take forward. Because we don't work on those things, then somebody can come in and be literally like Well, I didn't get anything out of this when you did, but you need to have an understanding of all of these pieces that fit in this puzzle and take it from there. I mean, I love starting just with a soul blueprint, as I call it, because It shows you where you could be now, but it also shows you where you're supposed to be, how— what gifts you were given. And then I do Akashic readings to kind of like balance that out and show you how to work with the Akashic records. Okay, and the Akashic Records, for anybody that doesn't know, that's, that's when you communicate with your, your guides, your angels, archangels, your ancestors. It's whoever you want to call in to actually help you understand who you are too, because it's also your higher self, which is you how you're supposed to look, who you're supposed to be.

Very cool. I love it, I love it. All right, any— anything else you think is important for our heroines to know that maybe we haven't touched on yet?

I think the biggest thing is to know your worth. If it even is you standing in a mirror in looking at yourself, looking eye to eye and saying, I, I am worthy. Putting the little Post-it note up there. If you want to keep taking it steps further, I am worthy, you know, I call in, you know, abundance. Abundance is another thing you need to go over that you're meaning with. Your meaning. But, you know, you just keep adding to it. But the first thing to do is I am worthy, because a lot of us, especially as women, you know, our worth is built on marriage, family, home, career, career, kind of, sort of, you know, everything else, not us. Not what we want, not how we want this lifetime to look.

Cool, cool, cool. Thank you for that, Linda. You and I could talk for days. We already talked for days, but I just want to say thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, it's been my pleasure.