From Burnout to Boundaries: Navigating the Healing Path

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi and welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. I'm excited to bring you Lisa Toomey. I can't even tell you. We've been friends for a long time, and I'm surprised that we haven't gotten together on the Overgivers Anonymous yet, but You are going to love her. Just trust me. She is a Reiki master, an intuitive energy healer. She's a certified Moonologer, which like, I don't even know what that is, but I'm going to get into it with her. And with her expertise as a Human Design reflector and Emotion Code practitioner, Lisa brings a wealth of knowledge and healing to our conversation. Lisa is a gifted individual. As a friend, as somebody who I have in my life, she is an amazing human being to know and to be part of. And she embraces her role as a truth teller. Offering a fresh perspective on the health and wellness of our own environments. And as a reflector, which we're going to talk a little bit more about because there's a whole thing about it, she belongs to the rarest Human Design type comprised of only 1% of the population. Her sensitivity and innate ability to read others allow her to share wisdom with effortless ease, shedding light on the path ahead and uncovering the root causes that may be holding us back. You would be surprised if you spent some time talking to her what comes up. It's, it's Phenomenal. Through her intuitive energy healing practice, Lisa aims to inspire, uplift, educate, and empower others. Drawing upon her diverse skill set as a Talk to the Entities practitioner, Access Bars practitioner and facilitator, and empowerment coach, RSL business coach, she helps individuals heal past traumas and overcome old wounds, paving the way for a more abundant and purposeful life. One of the incredible aspects of Lisa's work is her ability to hold long-distance sessions using platforms like Zoom, FaceTime, and Messenger video chat. And sometimes just knowing what you're going through. This means that regardless of where you are in the world, she can access her transformative healing sessions. Her international clientele serves as a testament to her unique and effective nature in her healing work. So I'm excited and I hope you are excited because she's going to talk to us a little bit about from burnout to boundaries from an energetic perspective. And so she's going to help us dive into this world of energy healing and gain some insights. That you really truly can use to transform your life. So I'm super excited that you're here with us, Lisa. Thank you so much for joining us.

I'm excited too. And you're right. Why haven't we done this sooner? Well, I guess fine timing. I'm thrilled to be here. And this is an amazing topic when we're talking about energetic boundaries and burnout. Burnout is, oh man, been my middle name a few times.

A few times. I love that.

And that's important.

I think that that's something that's really important to understand is that, you know, just because you've got it right today doesn't mean tomorrow you're going to have it right. It could be that things go sideways on you again. And yes, maybe we hit a burnout patch again, but that also doesn't mean to say that it's going to be like that forever, right? We can pick up our girl, big girl panties and try something different and move on.

Yeah, absolutely. And every time I've hit that brick wall and hit burnout, you know what brings me back is back to self-care. You know, self-care is not selfish. It really is any. It's it's an essential part of our day. You know you're the planning expert truly. It really is part of our day that has to be put in just like brushing our teeth, making sure that our energetic boundaries are in place and that we're not burning ourselves out by overgiving. Giving in every direction.

There's— see, we come from this mindset, and this is— and maybe this is— we come from, you know, the older generations. I'm sure the younger generations have a different twist on this than we do. But I know that coming from our generation and even older, it was you overdeliver, underpromise, and overdeliver was sort of the mantra, right? But when women use that mindset, now this more of a feminine energy, let's call it rather than masculine energy. A masculine energy is like, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to fix your car in 2 days, but I get it fixed in a day and a half. A woman goes, I'm going to fix your car in 2 days, but I'm also going to repaint it while I have it with me.

Isn't that the truth? That really, we do tend to take on more. I'm— maybe it's just being the caregivers, right? Or known through history as caregivers, being the goddess and the feminine energy, taking care of things, people, places, things, all of it. And yeah, we tend to take a lot on and then, you know, get ourselves kind of backed into a corner sometimes.

And then we wonder why we can't even manage to get our own selves dressed in the morning. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

I think that's one of the lessons when it comes to, you know, starting our own businesses, running our own businesses, the concept that we don't have to give so much of ourselves that there's nothing left and that we don't need to give so much of ourselves because we're trying to make people like us. I mean, you and I had this brief conversation before we got here, right? The, the concept of how do we show up here? What's the audience like? You know, and, and I said to you very clearly, and I, I say this to all of my clients, show up as who you are, be who you are, and whoever's ready for the message will be there. If the person who's listening right now doesn't wanna be here, they can just move on to a different podcast episode.

Well, and I, I really did appreciate that very much cuz, you know, sometimes we can get a little woo-woo and, you know, when I'm, I'm What I found for myself is that I get very connected into the energies, and what is required, the message that's required to be delivered, is the one that gets delivered. So I always tell my clients when they book sessions with me, you know, come with an intention, but don't come with an expectation, because you're always going to get what you require. It just may not be what you desire, right? And so We can break through those barriers and break through some of what the blocks, what's holding you back from truly having more ease in your day and ease in your life. And maybe not being on that treadmill so much or feeling like a victim. That victim mentality, I think, has some really deep roots into also overgiving. And I'm not sure where you want to, you know, where you want to go with this, but I'm anxious to jump right in. Truly, I think we're going to have a fun conversation today. So I hope everyone, everyone stays, stays tuned in and receives the message.

100%. And those who, those who need it, those who want it will be here and they'll be here for it through the whole process, right? We always get, like you said, we get what we need, maybe not always what we want. And I think that, you know, when we think about that, there's some self-doubt that comes up for people and that self-doubt, the stories that we tell ourselves that keeps us overgiving. I think that was coming out a little bit in what you were talking about.

Yeah. I find in my sessions, you know, as an Emotion Code practitioner, when I'm, when I'm meeting clients, a lot of what comes up in those sessions is not only things that are, you know, the belief systems, the trauma, the trapped emotions that they've experienced in their journey on Earth, you know, as long as they've been here, no matter how old they are, but What they don't realize is they're often carrying the energy of others. And much of it actually is inherited and ancestral. So it can go back, you know, multiple generations. And, you know, when you have something floating around in your energy field, so let's talk law of attraction for a second, a big buzzword. You know, we hear it everywhere we go. You're trying to manifest, manifest, manifest. We're putting all these intentions out there and you seem to be hitting the same brick wall all the time. Part of that could have nothing to do with you. It might have something to do with great-great-great-grandpa, you know, that something is locked in the DNA. And I always say I'm like a Pac-Man. I come in and what I do truly is gobble up all the negative energies. I just come in and I do a little house cleaning, an energetic house cleaning, clearing all those things that you really don't require. In your path and on your journey, but it's kind of like the ancestral trunks, right? The baggage, the trunks, you know, think about the, the pioneers going across the prairie with the big covered wagon and those great big steamer trunks, right? I mean, you don't need to carry that trunk anymore. That you don't require their stuff being carried along with you. And so a lot of our overgiving, guess what? Might not even belong to us. Yes.

Well, and I know that like in specifically you and I are both in Canada and I know that not all of our listeners are here in Canada, but there's been a lot of conversation in our Canadian language about intergenerational trauma. And I can tell you that there's a lot of people who think, oh, that's just a bunch of bullshit. I can guarantee you as that it is not. I can trace our intergenerational trauma back using my family lines of trees, even not even looking from an energetic perspective, but looking at it just from a, like, historical— here's what happened in the family. Oh, we can tie this back to this particular thing. My great-grandfather came across as a British Home Child. If you don't know what the British Home Child is, you just have to search it out. It's very easy to find. But essentially, children were saved— were sold into slavery for Canadian farmers. And so you go back to that pinnacle moment in time and you can see where that generational trauma occurred inside our family. You can see the physical abuse, the mental abuse that happened through those generations. And it's taken until my generation since we've started to reverse it. And it's still not great. There's still a lot of crap in this generation. But so now Lisa's talking about the energetic side of that, right?

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And I guess for Canadians and, you know, around the world, not just for Canadians, but it's been a conversation here as awareness has, you know, expanded. But residential schools would be an area that many people could relate to in the generational ancestral trauma, you know, how it carries generation after generation.

100%.

And even though you're not intending on, you know, examining that, but it's there. And until we kind of clean it, clear it, clear that— those energies, you're going to carry those with you. And so Yeah, it's a very interesting topic. You know, in the topic of burnout itself, some of that can be driving us. When you think about your, I think you said your grandfather coming, right? Great-grandfather, was it? Coming here.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, sold into slavery. So think about the demands that was put on him. He was in a foreign country, maybe, you know, put into situations where working for farmers, he may or may not have seen spoken the language of the farmer who could have been an immigrant as well. So there could have been language communication issues. You know, all sorts of things could have been going on. All those trapped traumas and emotions. Yeah, they're, they're there. And many of my clients are very, very surprised how they not only identifying those, those things, but how they feel when I clear it. That I think is even more important. I had a client this morning and we did tap into something You know, very ancestral. And she said, as I cleared it, she said she felt this sort of like tingling sensation. And then there was just this calmness, this peace, and this sense of light energy all of a sudden. And I felt, I felt it as well, you know.

That's awesome. You know, I think that when, when we're running businesses and when we put our business hat on, there's a whole lot of What are our goals? Like, and you know that I mean all about planning and goals and that kind of thing. But there's more to it than just the actual. Did I make this much money? Did I acquire this many clients? Did I da da da da da da? There's the energetic side to it. And I always say to people, to me, money is energy. Okay.

Yes.

So to me, energy money is an expression of energy. And so people will say, oh, how much should I charge for this? Or did I charge enough for this? Or am I spending the right kind of money? And that kind of thing. I always encourage people to think back to how they're feeling. So when you provided that service to that person and they gave you the money in exchange, did it feel good or did it not feel good? Did you feel like you felt cheated? Did you feel like you cheated them? Do you— what does that feel like in terms of the energy exchange? Now I'm assuming that's where you're going with the boundaries and how we could use energy for boundaries, right?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we could have a whole other conversation about business being an entity and having its own energetic forces and how to set services and, you know, and add services to your menu. That can all be done on an energetic perspective. I actually have a lot of businesses who do that. I have a restaurateur who, you know, asks me to sit and go through the menu and see what will contribute most to the, not only to the restaurant financially, but to the clients, to the patrons who are coming in, what's going to do well and what's not going to do well. So yeah, it's from an energetic perspective. But what I really wanted to talk a little bit more in the direction of today is talking about the energetic boundaries and how we don't understand that. I mean, there's 7 areas, 7 energetic boundaries. And when we are looking at those from a perspective of eye muscle tests, so it's a form of kinesiology, from actually testing them to see where they're at. Yeah. From zero to 100%, finding out that maybe your physical, your mental, your emotional, spiritual, energetic, or dimensional, or relational boundary is not 100%. Maybe it's only 50% or even lower. So when you have, let's say, a relational boundary that's low, how do you think that affects your relationships around you?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

who participate in that relationship and how you feel about the relationships. If your boundary is set 10%, and it should be at 100%, meaning you have a healthy boundary at 100%, it's only 10%. Yeah, you, you might need to do a little clearing, a little work around that to bring that up to 100%. Now, what's interesting about this is, you know, you alluded to the fact that I'm a Human Design reflector. And I found out only a Few years ago, let me tell you, it was absolutely mind-blowing when I ran my free birth chart. My girlfriend actually did it for me, and what's interesting was she said to me clearly, I remember this this day like it was like yesterday. She said, "Oh, I think you're just like me. You're just like me." These are the key words. She ran my chart, and we found out I'm a reflector, which means whoever I'm with, I'm reflecting. Just like you. Oh, I'm just like— you're just like me. So being a Human Design reflector, I think, gives me— well, at first I kind of thought, oh, that's kind of like weird because everywhere I go, I'm this chameleon. I'm the canary in the cave, right? Where I can be, you know, the warning, the town crier. I mean, literally, anybody who knows me, the town crier. Literally, I am the crier, right? I feel the energy and it's like— a wave of emotion. And often, you know, it comes forth in, in the energy of actual emotion, of tears or sadness. Yeah. So being a Human Design reflector, what's super interesting is that we are wide open. We have zero boundaries. So here I am today talking to you about energetic boundaries when I have literally all my boundaries in all areas are 0%. But that's how I'm to function. So I kind of think there's an irony in all of that. And I got interested in testing my own when I started testing my clients and seeing, you know, they were having trouble with money, right? Money or relationships or in their career or, you know, maybe family problems, health issues. And that's when we began to see, oh, you having physical, physical issues. And your boundary is not 100% here. Your boundary is only 23%. And so then tapping in and figuring that out. Now, sometimes there's things preventing us from moving that number from 23% to 100%. And that's kind of where I come in to be able to do some form of clearing, investigating. I always like to say I'm like a private eye. I mean, anybody who's ever worked with me is quite— well, for one, I always say they're going to be entertained. Truly. Be entertained because I never know what's going to show up. And when I connect with your guides and your higher self, the one thing I will tell you is there's always a sense of humor. So sometimes the things that come through— I wouldn't consider myself a traditional medium, but I do carry all the clairs. So if you're familiar with all the clairs, the clairaudience, clairvoyancy, etc., I carry all the clairs. And after a heightened Awakening, a very, very heightened extreme awakening. It was like they went from zero to 100% in into overdrive, and that's when I realized how I was overgiving in every direction of my life and had to really step back. It was it's really a kind of unfortunate because sometimes when you step back a little bit and you do that daily mental fitness, right? You do your spiritual fitness. Just like you're brushing your teeth, you're taking that time every morning or every evening. When you start to reclaim that time back for yourself, not everyone around you appreciates that, especially for those you have been overgiving and have no boundaries with. Suddenly they, you know, when they're taking, taking, taking, taking, and you're giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, when you all of a sudden go, whoa, hold on a minute, where do I fit in in this equation? And you put the brakes on, and you start that self-care process again. Yeah. So what I'm trying to say is, yeah, through that spiritual awakening, I did find a falling away. But my mentor always told me things happen for us, not to us. And that has been a mantra of mine for decades now. I hear her voice in my head all the time. And when that began to happen, when people began to fall away, relationships began to change, I realized. Oh, this is happening for me, not to me. And it wasn't until I kind of got as a reflector, was able to back up enough, I could see then where I was overgiving with certain individuals.

And I think it's interesting to say that, you know, that the concept of there's that fall away, right? The relationships are going to change, and it can be fearful. There's a lot of fear inside when all of a sudden the people we thought were friends or the people we thought were our mentors, or the people we thought we were aligned with aren't really jiving with the fact that we're trying to look after ourselves more. And the concept of it happening for us rather than to us is, is poignant. I mean, it's a really great way of looking at it. Because when I talk about boundaries, regardless of whether we're talking like a physical boundary, like, no, you can't just walk into my house, you have to knock on my door, or is it an energetic boundary of somebody saying, I need more of your time even though you have none to give? Whatever boundary it is, as soon as we've decided as human beings, oh, I have a boundary, whatever that boundary is, it's our job to enforce it. It's their job to listen to us, but it's our job to remind them that, hey, no, you might have stepped across that boundary 2 years ago, but right now, no, nope, that's over here now.

Right, right. Yeah, it's important to be steadfast, I think, with it. And I can only go from my own experience and from my clients' experiences where when I've overgiven and I see that somebody is getting really, really uncomfortable with that, I remind myself that there's something, you know, not quite right here because anyone who is supporting you, anyone who truly is a friend, a family member who is supporting you in whatever the journey is that you're choosing would not necessarily be that uncomfortable with it. They'll be there to support the journey. And so, you know, you were asking a little bit there about the Moonology in the introductory introduction that you mentioned. And so the Moonology really is the practice of the moon. It's a combination of astrology and the lunation cycles. And so Human Design reflectors are actually quite driven energetically by the ebb and the flow of the 28 days of the moon cycles. And so this was kind of like news to me, but wasn't because I did realize there was this flow going on in my life, you know, feeling a little scattered or stressed or anxious on the full moon, not being able to sleep, but never really put the patterns together till I chose to take the certification. And I honestly would not have signed up for it if I had understood how intensely based astrology-based it was. And anyone that knows me knows me really well knows I'm not great with numbers. I have that form of number dyslexia. And so I don't really, you know, I don't like numbers that much. I'm learning to more, but it was a very intense course and it actually took me many, many months to complete. And that was when I had to set a boundary with a very good friend and say, You know, I'm studying my I'm watching my webinars, studying and doing taking my notes from 7 a.m. till 9 a.m. And no, I can't take your phone call when you're driving to work anymore at 8 a.m. to listen to you complain about whatever's going on. And I get you know I was a good sounding board and I am a supportive friend and I do want to help you with your challenges. But every day I just I just found, okay, I have to put this in my cup right now and take that out. And there was, there definitely was, there was no understanding around that, establishing that boundary. I look at it now that I've had a chance to test my boundaries and now I understand, okay, why that happened, because my, all my boundaries are zero. But if I was to test your boundaries right now, Angela, we might find that, you know, out of the 7 different areas, you might be very, very healthy in your boundaries. Out of six out of seven, you might only have one area that might be needing a little tweaking. When we go in to figure what that is, that tweaking, that's when we can kind of discover. Okay, so you had a family member who was sold into slavery. There is going to be a lot of old styles and contracts around that. You know, he somebody sold him, meaning a contract exchange, money exchange. If you worked in a situation where you were slave, then you would not see value in the dollar, meaning you probably weren't paid very much if you were paid at all. And so there would be some of these things in your life today that you'd think, oh, how does that affect me? How does that affect me with my life? Well, if you're carrying that energy trapped in the DNA, trapped in your lineage, right? So it's the same thing as We look at it as if you were to test for the genetic markers for certain illnesses, right? Let's say diabetes. Oh, I have that genetic marker. Well, you might also have the genetic marker that means that you can't say no to anybody because your great-great-grandfather was a slave.

Yeah.

So therefore, you can't— genetic marker to always do as you've always been told by everyone of authority above you. So when you get into a work situation and you have, you know, a really strong dominant energy of a boss, well, how do you think— oh, you're going to stay late at work. You're going to find it really difficult to say no to taking on that extra project. Or when somebody's, you know, on maternity leave or sick, oh yeah, I'll just cover their phones or take their work for them, right?

Right.

It's gonna be really, really hard, no matter how hard, no matter how much coaching you've had, no matter how much therapy you've had, you still have that trapped there in your energy field. It's like a beacon going off. So I always like to say to my clients, how it kind of works is, you know, I'm, I'm happy little Earth with a little, you know, picture me just this little round ball with a happy face on, right? And I'm just minding my own business. I'm cruising around the sun. Life is good, right? But the Earth isn't the only thing that's orbiting out there, right? In space, you got Earth going around the sun. You might be minding your own business, have a smile on your face, but guess what? You have the moon orbiting around you, affecting the ebb and flow of the energy, right, of what's going on in the Earth. But it's not just the moon; there's a lot of space debris up there. And so that's where energetically, when we come in. And we can clean up all that space debris, then what we're doing is that beacon that's like beep, beep, beep going off, right? Like a little radar. Here it is, here it is, matching the energy frequency, right? So you can see where even though your intentions every day, your affirmations every day are setting you in a certain direction of not to be taken advantage of or overgive. Or burned out, you can have the best laid intentions in the world. But if that beacon is going off with a specific energy frequency, everything that's out there that matches that frequency is suddenly going to be attracted to you.

That's awesome. And so here's a question for you. I, I love the way that you put that whole concept of, like, the Earth and the space debris and all those kinds of things, like, impacting how that, that works. I think it's a great visual. But as a human being living in a physical body on this planet Earth, who's trying to make their way in the world and go in this direction that they've decided to go in, when do I notice, or how do I notice that maybe my boundaries are being impacted by an energetic thing? Or how do I realize that it's not just a physical boundary that I need to create, there's some kind of energy boundary I need to pay attention to?

Oh, that is a great question. That is really a great question. You know, I think the answer to that, my awareness is it's when you do not feel like you're being you truly. And we all have that moment where we sort of feel like we're being pulled in 10 different directions, really scattered. When we suddenly start to have maybe anxiety, anxiety is a big one. Anxiety is, from an energetic perspective, is massive amounts of information coming in, usually into your energy centers, right? And so when you have that amount of information coming in and you are not being you, you're going to find you're going to struggle with certain areas. I mean, I have a lot of clients who come who get very connected into the mass collective consciousness. And so we talk about the collective, the collective, the collective. It's an overused word.

Yeah.

But trust me on this, the mass collective consciousness is a very low vibration. It's where everybody's energy is. You know, we have a very— in our world today, we have a lot of political unrest. There's wars going on. There's a lot of natural disasters happening. We have a lot of sickness in the world. That's where a lot of that lower dense vibration resides. Now, If you are a highly sensitive person like I am, and I would even go as far to say a healer, a starseed, a lightworker, you're going to find yourself very drawn into that energy. Kind of like, you know, if you have a bug zapper, if you've ever seen those little bug zappers where they light up and the, you know, the bugs just fly into it, they cannot not fly into the lights, right? That's kind of what we're doing. We're just flying in there to save everything and everybody, and we don't realize we're not being ourselves at that time. We're picking up the energy frequency of others. So in my work, when I work with someone, I would use a technique that we call proxying. And when I proxy to you, I do that with your permission. So it is, you know, you're giving me authority for me to connect in or tap into your energy source, into your energy, your higher self, your body, and to be able to do sort of a little snapshot of all of that. Well, guess what?

Yeah.

When you have no boundaries, you're auto-proxying, which means you're unconsciously proxying. So you're tapping into these energy frequencies, and it can be people, it can be places, it could even be the earth, believe it or not. The earth can, you know, when we're embodied, we're like walking around like antennas. We're radio receivers walking on the Earth. And so if, if Mother Gaia, if Mother, you know, Mother Earth requires some additional energy, that energy frequency will go out and a demand will be made of us. And so when we don't answer that demand, then all of a sudden the aches, the pains, the exhaustion starts. It's again, it's another form of not having a boundary.

Yeah.

Making sure we're giving what we require, what's required, and no more of ourselves. The auto-proxying piece, though, is fascinating to me because when I began to have my awakening, you know, almost close to a decade ago now, I did not understand what was really happening to me. There was no resources, or it felt like there was no resources, and all the mentors I had were all more business-related mentors than spiritual mentors. And, you know, I found myself really struggling for, for several years. And at some points, I was feeling like I was like curled up in the corner in a fetal position because there was just too much energy, there was too much noise, we'll say, happening all at once. And I found myself unable to, you know, visit large places like places like stadiums, hospitals, go to like meetings, right? A meeting or a convention. Traveling became difficult. Hotels became difficult because I, again, I had no boundaries. But even worse, I began auto-proxying to everyone. And I didn't understand what that meant initially. It's taken me almost a decade to fully understand it. And I feel like this light bulb went off not that long ago in how I could share with others on this topic because We talk about sometimes when when our energy gets very drained from us, and we go, oh, there's no boundary there. Oh, they're an energy vampire. And we you know we we smudge, we sage, we have essential oils going. We're going to clean the energies, right? We might have you know twenty pounds of different varieties of crystals walking around in our pockets or our bras because we think all these. External things are going to protect us, right? We're cloaking, we're putting up protection every day. But here's the irony in all of it is they're not sucking our energy out of us. We're automatically connecting where we're really— we're the ones that have no boundary and we're overstepping, but we've never looked at—

We're opening ourselves to them, basically. It's like Oh, I'm a flower. Come take all the nectar you'd like.

Right. Well, and it's our attempt to help heal and protect them, right? We have this desire to maybe heal others, and there could be an oath, vow, or contract as a surrogate healer in a past life that maybe you took a vow, you know, along your journey somewhere that, you know, for, for all eternity, I'm going to heal you no matter what illness you ever come up with in every lifetime. We ever are, you know, embodied. I'm going to always take that illness from you. Yeah. And so find yourself with these mystery illnesses or pakes and aches and pains. Probably the one that I found the most difficult was a few years ago. I had I'd still been business. I was still business traveling, and I I traveled to Montreal, and I stayed in in an older hotel there. And during my couple days that I was there, I met with a friend, a good friend. And she asked if I would meet— she wanted to introduce me to somebody she knew, but she didn't tell me that the individual was a recent widow. And, you know, we had lunch or brunch together. It was lovely. I really enjoyed meeting this woman. We spent quite a few hours talking and there was a lot of healing going on. I had only just begun practicing. I was still studying, I think, with Emotion Code. And so any opportunity I had to work on somebody, I certainly chose to do that. to practice and hone my skills, not realizing that working on her and this deep wound she had, because it had only been a couple of weeks that her husband had passed after a very lengthy couple of years of being sick. I actually found myself feeling very depressed and in great despair and crying and not being able to sleep. And I could not figure out what was going on. And then I, I don't know, I just sort of connected. Well, I'm not being me. Well, if I'm not being me, well, then the question is, who am I being? Right?

It's not mine. It's somebody else's. Right?

Exactly. It didn't— none of it belonged to me. None of it was mine. So when I kind of connected into the energy and started working on myself, I realized Oh, it's the widows. Okay, so I clear it, send her some love and light, and you know, and do the practice of what I do. Two hours later, it's back, and I keep doing this day after day after day after day after day, and I'm like, why is it? Oh, I get it. I don't have a boundary. She's completely in it. You know, another province, two provinces away from me, but every day I'm still trying to. Heal this person, and it's me not having a boundary. So I hope whoever is listening is really understanding that sometimes when we get to the point of exhaustion and we burn out, it's because not only are we overgiving, we're auto-proxying and overgiving. We are tapping into other people to protect them, to heal them, to help them. I mean, probably the most obvious one is any mother who's listening to this who has children at any stage of life. Whether they're little infants or whether they're adult children, you know, your kids are always on your mind to some degree. You're always, like, tapping in, checking in energetically to them. Like the saying, mom, do you have eyes in the back of your head? Like, we have this innate wisdom and ability to kind of know when something's wrong, even if they don't tell us something's wrong. So that's kind of us autoproxying, checking in. Right. But if we're not—

I think it's interesting that you're using this word autoproxy because this This is a new word for me, and maybe it's new for people here that are listening as well, because I am an empath as well. You know that. And I know lots of people here that listen know it too, because we talk about it. And 2020, I mean, that was a year from hell. Let's just be honest. I, I could not detach myself. My energetic piece was so connected to everything that was happening around me. There's a lot of things that tie back to this, the concept. I know that all of you've heard this at least one time in your life. You are the sum of the 5 people you spend time with. You're the sum of the 5 people you share energy with. Let's be honest, because I can spend time with people and not take on their energy. I can spend time with people and not allow them to have a part of my energy. But when I truly embody people, and time is my number one love language, if I spend time with you, I love you. That's— I really am I embody that from a daily basis, right? So for me, energetically, the news, all this stuff coming at me from the news, the stuff that was happening on Facebook, the social media stuff, it felt like I was under fire all the time. I was able to see that through reflection by taking the time. So like Lisa said, if you don't feel like yourself, if you're like, what's, what's— and we might start out by saying, what's wrong with me? But it's not this, what's wrong with me? What different about what I'm feeling right now? What's different about me right now than what I thought I would be? And for me, my answer was to, instead of spending time on social media, instead of being on the news, I said to myself, you know, anytime that I would normally be on my phone and scrolling through social media or looking at the news, I'm going to read a book instead. That to me, I have— I then can take ownership, call it control, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah.

I can take ownership of the energy in which I bring in. The type of books I read, the energy I get from those books, the way I feel as I read them. I might be in the middle of reading a series of books and they're great, they're great, they're great. And then all of a sudden it's like, I don't feel good anymore. I don't feel— I like the way you put it. I don't like— I don't feel like me. I need to change the type of book I'm reading. You have way more control over that than this news. I couldn't control the news and it was just so draining on me and I just felt so awful.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and that's how I felt as well. I mean, I haven't been a news watcher probably for 15— well, I would say since 9/11.

I've really never been a news person, but it was so unavoidable.

Oh, for me it was, you know, the Twin Towers with that, with the terrorism, the 9/11. That's when I stopped watching all news because I couldn't get away from it like you're saying. And so many, many people will relate to what you've just said. You have to turn off the noise, turn it all down. You know, sort of my saving grace in some of that is when I start— when I begin to feel like everything is chaotic and I'm— and everything's out of control. Let's use that word, out of control. Everything's out of control. What I like to do is look out my window and go, is that really true? Because when you look into your own backyard, what do you see? Like, is what's happening on the news halfway around the planet, is that really occurring in your backyard? You know, so again, that's us auto-proxying into what's going on in a war halfway around the world, a natural disaster halfway around the world. You know, when my awakening first happened, I had this really amazing experience. Well, it's amazing now. At the time, I didn't think it was amazing, but I got tapped into an actual tornado. I was sleeping I all of a sudden had this nightmare happening where the roof of my house was being ripped off, and when it ripped off, I could see like 5 great big tornadoes hovering over my house. And it was like it took my breath away. It woke me up with a startle. But when I woke up, I couldn't walk. I was so dizzy and so disoriented. I tried to get up and, you know, go to the washroom and get a drink of water and just collect myself to be able to go back to sleep. And I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't walk. I literally was holding the wall, trying to navigate the room. I only found out 2 days later, I think it was, that somebody said there was a massive tornado that had gone through North Carolina. I don't even know anybody in North Carolina. Yeah, but I did to it. So when we talk about autoproxying, it's Unconscious connecting. It's unconscious proxying. It's un—we're—we're not conscious we're doing it. So here's what my advice is: when you feel that you're not being yourself, or somebody else is saying to you, Angela, you're okay. You're just not yourself today. Ding ding ding! Big clue right there, right? You don't look like yourself, or you're looking in the mirror and you're like. I don't look or feel like me today. You know that moment when you have that clarity? Like, you look in the mirror and you're like, hey, you got it going on today, girlfriend. Yeah, I like what I see. Great hair day. Or you look in the mirror and you're like, I don't recognize any of this anymore, right? So when you have that sort of sensation that you're not really feeling like yourself, chances are you've auto-proxied or connected to somebody else's energy. Now, the way to sort of fix all of that, I mean, You, you know, one of the things in my sessions is I like to mentor people. I felt when I had my awakening and my boundaries were like there wasn't anything, and I went from sort of this world of normal world, we'll say, to this world all of a sudden that I don't even know how to describe it. But the person who's listening to this will know what I'm what I'm trying to describe energetically. Energy is our first language, by the way. We're all bilingual. So even if I can't put it into words energetically, I know you're getting what I'm trying to say. You know, there, there was this period where I did not feel like myself, and I— and it was part of the cocoon. It was part of the, the butterfly in the cocoon, right? So you become the little caterpillar, you become the cocoon, and it was that evolution that I required to go through. So the peeling away of the past. But I didn't feel like myself. There were many days I did not feel like myself. Now I understand part of my energetic daily hygiene would be to repeat this same mantra. And I tell my clients, because I coach them into certain tools, here, use this tool, put this tool in your toolbox, write that down, use this, practice it, because you'll be able to master it over time. And I went from being non-functioning as an empath or a highly sensitive person to functioning, meaning that I can navigate the mall again. I can navigate going to a concert or a, you know, a hall or a hospital even. I can navigate these things now with this heightened energy that's there where there literally is no boundaries in some of these places or potential of no boundaries. And now I can navigate it that way. But one of the things that I do every day is I repeat a simple mantra, and I invite your guests who are listening to this today, your audience, to try this. And it is, when you're not feeling yourself, just stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, really grounding yourself as your physical body to the floor or to the ground, and repeat, my name is. So you would repeat, my name is Angela. I repeat, my name is Lisa. And I would say my whole name. Your whole name energetically is dialing in like you're Right? So if you have a cell phone number, right, I don't dial somebody— I don't dial Bob's cell phone number to get Angela. I dial Angela's number. So that's what we're trying to do is dial in the frequency back to ourselves. So I would say my full name over and over again about 3 or 4 times until you'll feel a shift of energy all of a sudden if you're not being yourself and you've auto-proxied to someone else.

That's a fantastic tool. I appreciate that so much. I know that people listening, I, I can guarantee you that you will feel a shift because even while you were talking it, I was just thinking it and I felt differently. So I think that it'd be a fantastic thing for people to try, right? And of course, as always, you know, I actually had to tattoo breathe on my wrist because I need to learn, I need to remember to breathe deeply. And breathing is so important, especially when we're embodying things like that. Take really deep breaths, right?

Yeah. And make sure that we're breathing through the belly and not shallow breathing. You know, that's another area. But yeah, when, when our boundaries are— when we're not sitting with healthy boundaries, when the boundaries are weak, we're going to find ourselves feeling very stressed and very anxious. And that's when the shallow breathing is going to take place. So definitely You know, breathing in slowly through the belly. A count of 5 often is a suggestion I make. Hold for a count of 5 and then release for a count of 5 to 7. The longer release actually helps calm the body a little bit more, all while repeating, my name is, my name is, my name is. And usually by the time you do it the third time, you'll be very, very surprised how different you feel. I don't— and I'm like, oh, there you go. You're back. Yay.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, you know, if you are somebody who, like me, struggle with the breath, right, struggle with holding, struggle with doing these deep breathings, even if 3, even if you can get to 3, do 3 till you're comfortable, then try 4. Once you're comfortable, try 5, right? It's great to do it for a long period of time, but if you're unpracticed, Right? We, we play the way we practice. So if you're unpracticed with it, just do what you can, do the best you can with what you have. And if today's a 2, today's a 2. Tomorrow's a 5, tomorrow's a 5. But stop shitting all over yourself and just allow yourself to be.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, I don't know how much time we have, but I, I, I would love to share my great, my biggest, I would say, story of boundaries. Which is the story about the girl in the coma. And I don't know if I've shared this story with you personally, Angela, or not, but I would love to take a moment and share it because I think it's really important as you're on your path. Sometimes things happen again for us, not to us. And I received a phone call from an acquaintance who was a client of mine for my skincare business. She was calling to ask me to make some adjustments on her orders, and I always You know, gave exceptional customer service. So, even though it was Christmas Eve, when I saw her name on my phone, I answered it, right? I mean, that's boundary setting right there, right? I was like, oh no, I don't care. We're sitting in the middle, appetizers, entertaining right now. I have to take this phone call. So, I took the call and it turned out that she was calling to explain a personal situation to me. And I realized very quickly that there was something more to this phone call. It wasn't just about her order. Because I became very aware of her daughter all of a sudden. And it was one of the first experiences I had of my, my form of mediumship where I do connect in with people. Her daughter had been in a car accident, you know, about 3 weeks prior to that. It was actually in a coma. And I became connected to the girl in the coma. And so I, you know, I just said to her, I've never done anything like this before. I But I can really feel your daughter's here. And she started asking me questions, and the more questions she started asking me, the more information that was starting to come through. And I passed on that information and thought nothing of it. You know, half an hour later, I hung up the phone and went on with our family activities for Christmas Eve. Well, 10 days later, I was laying in bed and I couldn't get out. I could not get out of bed. I was riddled with pain from head to toe, crying because I Didn't know why I was in such extreme pain, and my husband was taking care of me. And I remember him coming in, and and you know I was in bed, and I just had a very lengthy long salt bath. But I was I was distressed, and I was really really in agony. And I called out to him, and I said, "If I didn't know better, I'd swear that I got hit by a truck." And it was those words that he had the awareness looked at me and went, "Isn't that what happened to your?" client's daughter. And I went, oh. And as soon as I had the awareness that that's what happened to her, it didn't happen to me, then the process of releasing some of that, of auto-proxying to her, began. And she taught me. I'm very grateful for that experience because it, it was 2 years of me learning that The gift I have is actually a gift, not a curse. You know, after 10 days of being riddled in pain, being bedridden, you'd think, oh, that's terrible. But what I took away from that was I became the girl in the coma's voice. I was the only one she could communicate with. And so I spent 2 years communicating back and forth with her mom, with her doctors. I have text messages that I could read to you today that I would never know how Any of those things were occurring in her hospital room at the time they were occurring. But anytime she required something, I would get, you know, something, another situation occurring where I was autoproxying. And so if you're an empath and you're listening to this, guess what? You may be autoproxying as well. And it's learning the healthy boundary of going that will take you from being non-functioning to functioning with the gifts that you do have.

And I think that's, that's the key here is it's not about changing who we are. It's not about changing how, how we inter— we do change how, but we don't want to change us as a whole, as a core of our being. Instead, how do we live with what we have and the gifts that we've been given? How do we find ways to be in this world and still maintain our own energy fields. Because at the end of the day, whether you want to call them energy vampires or you just want to say, yes, I've opened myself up to other people, however you want to look at it, as somebody who's an empath, it's very easy for us to be drained. It's very easy for us to allow others to take hold of our own energy, whether we call it in the name of us wanting to make everybody feel better, Whether we call it, you know, wanting to be loved by everyone, however you see the message in your own brain. Because we are empaths, yes, you can walk into a room and feel what somebody's going through, but at the same point, you could be leeching your own energy out, right? And that's detrimental. So it's good to find ways for us to look after ourselves, heal ourselves, and to fill our own cups.

Absolutely, absolutely. And along the way, embrace us, who we are, who we truly are, who we be, embrace those gifts. And my, my new mentor, her, her wise words to me were, you know, as soon as you embrace this, meaning accept it, didn't mean I had to step into it and do it full-time or whatever. I mean, I just didn't see myself being a medium. you know, like, like traditional mediums that we see out there. I knew that that was not my path. But when she said to me, when you embrace this, the possibilities of this, there will be more ease. And she was right. She was right.

Yes.

I had to get to a level of acceptance of understanding who I am. And it wasn't really about me changing so much as me actually stepping into who I really was. You know, the person that I was kind of running and hiding from, which again is a bit of a boundary because if you're hiding from yourself, right?

Yes.

You're not being authentic. You're not stepping into your true essence. You're hiding from that. There can be a lot of, like, how do I put this? You're living sometimes in the fake or the false.

Yes.

Right? There's a lot of pretending, and you're putting up smokescreens, and you're, you're trying to be something that you're not in the sake of everyone else around you accepting who you are, which again also steps around the boundary issues. Because if you're tippy-toeing around people, then you're not going to be able to step fully into who you are and establish healthy boundaries with everyone else if you don't even know what the parameters are. Truly.

Yes. And we talk about working from your circle of brilliance a lot. You can't get to your circle of brilliance if you're hiding from yourself. You can't get to your circle of brilliance if you're trying to dim pieces of yourself so that you can be more acceptable to other people. That circle of brilliance comes from being authentically you. And when you're not feeling you— I love the way that you said that, Lisa— when you're not feeling you, it's important for you to really do some check-in and to see what's going on. I love this conversation. We could go all day. Lisa and I have had plenty of times when we've just sat and talked for hours and hours. But in, in, you know, with what we covered today, I think it's so amazing. People are going to get a lot out of your, of what you've shared with us today. Some more understanding about energy and the way that it impacts our boundaries, the way that it, you know, our energetic boundaries as well. And I know that in their show notes, you're gonna, there's gonna be some ways that you can connect with Lisa as well. So. You'll be able to connect with her on social or email and that kind of thing. And we will find a way for you guys to connect with each other.

That sounds wonderful. And I'm very grateful, you know, for the invite to join you today and to have this little chat. And yeah, it's, it's, it's a good exercise for me as well to be stepping into more of who I be and to show up a little bit more for the world. So thank you for the invitation. And I'm thrilled that we were able to have this really important conversation around boundaries and burnout.

Yes, yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate you being part of the show. I hope you have a fantastic day and we'll talk to you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy the podcast in general, Why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group, where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.