Work, identity, and mindfulness with Judith Richey

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0:00 Are you tired of feeling hopeless, or do you feel as though you carry around an invisible ball and chain? If so, you are in the right place. It's time now for Awaken Hope with Kandiee Campbell. Kandiee is a therapist and grief counselor that works with women to help them process and heal from emotional events that can keep them feeling stuck. Let's take this journey together. And now, here's your host, Kandiee Campbell. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Awaken Hope. I am so super grateful that you are tuning in. I have the privilege of a wonderful guest to introduce you to. But before we get into that introduction, I just want to do one small housekeeping thing.

0:47 As many of you know, I'm coming to you from the beautiful state of Hawaii. That being said, my location happens to be under the flight line to the Honolulu Airport, as well as near a fire station. So you may not hear a jet, a plane, or a siren go by. If you do, we will take a momentary pause because we cannot compete with those sounds. I've tried. It doesn't work. So without further ado, let me introduce you to our guest. Today, I am excited to introduce Judith, a remarkable figure whose journey from a financial advisor to a transformative leader embodies the essence of mindfulness and personal growth.

1:35 Judith's life is a testament to practicing what she preaches. Her transition from the financial world to embracing her true calling illustrates a profound alignment with her soul's purpose. Judith is not only a testament to change, but also a beacon of knowledge and empowerment. As a certified practitioner in a multitude of healing modalities, her expertise goes beyond financial prosperity, focusing on cultivating a stress-free and abundant life. In her teachings, Judith emphasizes the balance between achieving success and staying true to oneself. She guides women on how to enhance their professional well-being while ensuring that their actions resonate with their inner purpose. Through her tailored techniques, lessons, and healings, and practices, Judith aids in aligning one's career and personal journey with their soul's purpose.

2:42 Today, Judith will share how we can navigate the complexities of the corporate world with mindfulness, ensuring that our professional endeavors not only generate revenue and build our businesses, but also resonate with our core identity and legacy in this lifetime. Let's welcome Judith to inspire and guide us on this journey of mindful living and working. Welcome Judith. I am so grateful that you are choosing to be on Awaken Hope. Thank you, Kandiee. It's just an exciting thrill to be here with you today. Thank you. Well, you have quite the introduction and bio. Would you care to share more with listeners? Well I have to tell you, I cheated on that intro and bio because I was doing a class for an organization and that was actually the bio, I mean that was actually the introduction that the facilitator gave me and I thought it's really good, I'm just going to grab that and I didn't use it every time.

3:52 There's nothing wrong with that. Beautiful things. I was like, can you just go with me and introduce me every time? And so I thought, oh well that's the next best thing I'll just talk about. So yes, my journey has been one of change and transformation for the better and one of the things I realized about myself, back in 2008, it was a very pivotal, 2008, 2009 were very pivotal years for me. I realized that I wasn't a people pleaser, but I was the kind of person who said yes to what everyone else wanted me to do in my life and as a result of that, it took me down lots of different paths that weren't necessarily my dream and I lost what my dream for my life was and I don't even know if I had a dream for what my life was because it had been mapped out for me by my parents and by spouses and by influential people in my life and so I really hit a wall when I realized I wasn't doing what I really wanted to be doing with my life.

5:03 Wow. Yeah, well at least you came to that realization. But my question, I just, when you were saying you weren't, it wasn't people pleasing but doesn't that kind of go along those lines when you don't say no to people? I'm just curious. Yeah, and you know, I've really sat and dissected that and it wasn't that I had this, oh, I'm not going to get approval or I'm trying to curry favor from them. It was a, oh, the people who are influential in your life are the ones that mentor, guide and direct you. Got it. And it didn't have the concept that we get to decide what we're going to do with our lives and we have a soul's purpose and a journey that we're here for.

5:52 I understand what you're saying, yeah, there is a distinction but, and it's true, I mean if you align with your soul's purpose, this is what I believe, if you align with your soul's purpose, amazing things can happen but way too many of us and I'm speaking to the choir here, do not do that. You know, we do go with what everybody else wants for us, we do say, and align with other people's beliefs and not necessarily beliefs that are ours and it took me a long time before I started aligning with what I was meant to do, not what everybody else told me I should.

6:36 So I understand that wholeheartedly. Right, you know, Dom Miguel Ruiz talks about it in the Four Agreements and if you've ever read Pachelo's The Alchemist, you know, it addresses it there, different writings will talk about this sort of thing. We as a Western culture don't talk about following our soul's purpose, we talk about the logical, practical, corporate type things that we're supposed to do in our lives. And we've had an awakening, I want to say over the last 20-ish years, that there's a different way to "do life" than what we've been doing so far and that that's really mean tapping into our soul's purpose, our soul's alignment.

7:27 And one of the big things we see right now that I see, and I know you probably see it too, I'm not going to make any assumptions, is you've got parents who are in their 70s, mid to late 70s, right? And then you've got their children who are in the 50s and 40s and sometimes late 30s, the disconnect between them, because these children are "I'm going to create my life," whereas the parents in that generation were like "here's the slot for you, you need to go in this slot, and here's the slot for you, you need to go in the slot slot." And it's "okay, we've always been this in our family, so you need to be at this too, a doctor, a lawyer, engineer, a teacher, a nurse," whatever it was, right?

8:14 So the concept of creating our own dream life is really something that just came about in the last couple of decades, and it's been very confusing and causing a lot of friction between generations, because they don't get the fact that "oh, you're going to change jobs again, you've already tried five or six different things, what are you doing?" And so there's that disconnect between the older generation and their children or maybe their grandchildren, but it's kind of fun to watch and see, and when I can help the younger generations, the children and their grandchildren, understand that is a completely foreign concept to your parents and grandparents, they can move into a place of empathy and compassion for them, that they never got that option in their lives, that it was that "here's the track, here's what you're going to run on, and there are no options," but you're going to go in this box, and you're going to do this, and that's all you're going to do.

9:13 Yeah. So if someone wanted to work with you and wanted to learn what their soul's purpose is, or even how to find it, you know, how can they get in touch with you? How can they begin to work with you? Thank you for asking. My website is currently being redone, so I'm not going to give you my website, because it's all under your reconstruction right now, but the easiest way is to just reach out to me by email, and that's just [email address unclear], and Richie is R-I-C-H-E-Y, so [email address unclear], and it's so funny you ask that, because I have a specific one-hour session that I would do with people to help them discover their soul's purpose.

9:57 Wow. I do think what you do is important, because we are in this earthly body, on our earthly bodies, we do have purposes. Many of us don't realize it. I mean, it took me, I would say, 40 plus years before I woke up and said, "Yeah, okay, I have a purpose here. I'm not just free floating everywhere, I'm just trying to navigate nothing." When I discovered what my purpose is and why I do what I do, it was like a big eye-opener. It was like, "Oh, that's why I've gone through all the stuff I've gone through." I'm curious, how did you get there? How did you discover what your purpose was?

10:45 Well, I think my purpose has always been shown to me, even when I was a kid. Unfortunately, many have heard, when I was younger, when I was three, I became a sounding boy for my mother. I took on her adult problems. I was always listening, and unfortunately, that did impact me. Even throughout my life with friends, with people, they were always drawn to me to share their concerns, share their problems. I don't know. I'm not really sure why, but I guess I made them feel safe. As I got older, even that occurred when I was married. People would gravitate towards me and feel free to just share conversations in deep conversations, which truth be told, I was like, "I'm not sure how to navigate this," but I listened.

11:50 When I began my healing process, I had a mentor, and she basically took me back to a point where I began to heal the three-year-old self of me. Once that began to happen, I started realizing, seeing throughout my life, that I was always able to be there for someone else. I found joy in being there to help someone figure out their life, not to fix it, but to give them some tools and strategies to go forward. Once I started to heal, that's when that realization came in, that I was here. My big why in this world is to make a difference. The way I go about doing sometimes, doing that, is to challenge the status quo.

12:54 I used to see that when I was a kid, because growing up in the church, when I was going to church, the Mother Superior would say, "You've got to go to confession." I'd look at her and go, "Why do I have to? Why can't I just talk to God? Can't I just have a conversation with God?" Well, no, this is the way it's supposed to be, but that doesn't make sense. I did that with my family, and I always got put back in that box, because I would challenge things left and right, but little did I know that that was just who I was. I just didn't know it, just took me 40 plus years to figure that out.

13:32 Yeah, I'm right there with you. It took me until I was close to 50 to figure it out, and it took hitting that wall of where I was in my life. I was in a very successful career making lots of money, and I was physically, emotionally, and mentally ill from the stress of my career, and all of the pressures from that, and that impacted my marriage, and my marriage tanked, and we were on the brink of divorce. It took hitting that wall and stepping out of all of that. I basically physically separated myself from my husband for six months, and we lived on opposite sides of the house, and we didn't have very much to do each other.

14:19 We were not even at a roommate level. We just lived in the same space. And then I left my career as a financial advisor, and I literally just sat on the couch, just me and God, for six months, and I just prayed, and I cried, and I read some things, and I just did all this self-directed healing, and I wasn't even cognizant at the time of what was going on. And then one day I woke up, and it was like the film peeled back, kind of like on the Claritin commercial, and the switch got turned back on. I literally felt the switch turn on on my arm, and I now know what that is.

15:07 That's my God switch. My God switch got turned back on again, because when we go through trauma, we have a tendency to disconnect from the divine, and the divine is always there for us, but we're the ones who disconnect, so we can go back and recreate the connection again, right? But like you said, you know, you went back and healed that three-year-old. I do something now in the work that I do called timeline therapy, where we actually do go back, and we find that pivotal event that caused all that trauma, and I say that trauma, that particular trauma, we have several traumas, lots of traumas, right?

15:45 That we have an opportunity to heal, you know, so that's one of the ways we can do that. You can do it through somatic breathwork, and you can do it through Haikomi, which is another way of working with your inner child. There's lots of different methods of being able to go back and help heal that unhealed part of you, which is basically all the inner child is, is the unhealed part of you. And healing is so key, and that's why I, you know, when I went through my journey, and I discovered this world of healing, it's such a privilege and an honor to be able to bring the methodologies that I use to people to help them heal, so that they can truly step into their life purpose.

16:26 Yeah, wow. So we're going to take a small break. Stay tuned, and we're going to come back with Judith and learn more, because there is so much more to healing, and if you begin to heal, things can change. Hello, hello, hello. This is Kandiee Campbell from the Awaken Hope Radio Show, and I've got something special for you. As a licensed therapist who focuses on [therapy term unclear], I've teamed up with a writing coach to bring you a series of journals to help you process your feelings and emotions, hopefully gaining clarity and understanding along the way. If you're ready to embark on a journey of healing, then I've got just the right thing for you, the Hope and Healing 90 Day Journal.

17:19 Imagine, if you will, having your own compassionate companion guiding you through the ups and downs, twists and turns of life. That's what our journals are all about. Each page offers you prompts and nurturing guidance to help you reflect, explore, and grow. Whether you're facing grief, heartache, or just need a little extra support, the Hope and Healing 90 Day Journal is your safe space to let it all out and find your way back to hope. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. I am so grateful, and I want to remind you that no matter how dark it may seem, there's always hope, so take the first step, and let's Awaken Hope together.

18:13 Head over to the journalingcollective.com to get your journal now. This will change your life. Thank you. Welcome back to Awaken Hope. I am so privileged to have Judith Richey here. We're talking about healing and healing the inner child. We've talked about over the break how if you begin to heal, and I know for many people people think, "Oh, I don't need to heal. I'm okay." But I will tell you from my experience, I used to say that, "No, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm okay." I kept hitting like you were talking about that wall. I kept going up against that wall and seeing the same thing, going, "Okay, I've been here before.

19:11 Why am I seeing the same view, the same thoughts?" And until I finally just woke up one day, and I didn't literally wake up, but I just got tired of running up against the same wall, I was like, "Something's got to change because without it, we can't move forward." It's like I'm a hamster wheel. Thoughts? Lots of thoughts. Yes, and yes, and yes. You know, it's fascinating because for me, I didn't even know what the healing world was about. When I went through my divorce, '97, '98, I went to bookstores and I looked for books on how to navigate divorce, because this was not a divorce I wanted, and every book was about how to be a better spouse, how to be a loving wife, how to have a happy marriage.

20:14 Nobody addressed divorce, nowhere. Now there's all kinds of divorce recovery groups, there's divorce coaches, there's divorce groups, all different kinds of things on divorce, but 30 years ago, there wasn't anything out there. We didn't talk about that stuff. And the personal development world wasn't hitting it either. It was, "Stand in the mirror and smile at yourself and say the affirmations." And we're only just going to focus on the positive, we're going to just push through, we're going to make all these things happen, we're going to force this stuff to happen for ourselves. And when you enter that healing space, you look at the dirty and the nasty and the ugly that you want to keep hidden under the blanket tube, as well as creating what's coming forward.

21:01 So for me, it took from '97, '98 all the way up to '08, '09, 20, what, 10 years later? And I did hit that wall, and what I finally realized is that I was carrying immense grief and heightened stress from being a single mother of five for several years and remarrying and introducing a new husband into this very tight, closed-knit, the wagons had circled Fay Emily, you know, who'd gone through this trauma together, and I had done a very poor job of it because I had no guidance whatsoever. And I was introduced into holistic methods to help with physical things that had a tangential effect of helping with emotional issues, right, and soul issues.

21:53 And the more training I got, I became a holistic health coach, and then I discovered a modality that helped you release trapped emotions, and then I discovered, you know, mindset work, and I became a coach with an organization. So every step led me further down the path of my own personal healing, but also creating this foundation and bringing this work to other people. And it, you know, one of the things I've learned in all of my trainings is we come with stuff, right? We come with ancestral patterns, we come with familial patterns, you know, from our family that we choose to come and be with in this earth school that we call it, right?

22:38 We bring past life issues forward that haven't healed, you know, sometimes something will come up, and it's manifesting in one of my clients' lives, but it came from 12 lifetimes ago that didn't have a chance to ever even get acknowledged or addressed, and the wounds of that are still being carried at the soul level. So when we come into that place of awareness, we're able to address them. So it's fascinating being in this space of helping people heal and finding the origins and then using the techniques to help them heal so they can move into that transformative state that we're looking for. Yeah, you're right.

23:20 I mean, I know for me, I, you were talking about having a lot of grief. When I started my journey, I realized, oh my gosh, there were, you know, 40 plus years of grief that I had not acknowledged, and it was just like a ball of chain. And it was heavy. It impacted everything in my life. I just didn't realize it, like you said, they didn't exactly have, although though when I started my journey of healing, they did have more books out on it, but it was still just, I hadn't been exposed to it. So I was kind of like wandering around, like, lost in the woods. But when I started to sit with what I had gone through, and when I say sit, it was uncomfortable because those feelings were coming up, that anger that had started bubbling up when I was truly when I was 16, it started rearing its head. And it was little did I know that that point in my life, it was telling me, you need to change, you need, I just didn't, I didn't hear it. I didn't see it. I just knew, you know, I was walking as I refer to my tell my clients, I was walking talking volcano.

24:45 Yeah, it's it's just fascinating the effects that it has on us. And we don't realize that we had talked about seeing the cycles, seeing the patterns repeat over and over. That's one of the biggest flags that are waving. Hey, there's something going on here. Let's pay attention to this. You know, my grief was over losing my marriage. But I, I was raised in a family culture that you didn't get divorced. I remember my parents was about my aunt, who had married my dad's brother, because my God, she had been married before, and she was divorced, and tainted woman, right? You know, and, and so I couldn't even tell my parents, my husband had left me, I called my sister and made her tell them because I was so full of shame, right? And in all of that, I took him back twice, and I got pregnant, which was not planned.

25:42 That was. And so I had a newborn infant, and four kids from eight to 13. And I stepped it immediately into Superwoman role, because I had to keep these children alive, and make sure that they still did what they needed to do with their lives. And, you know, that they didn't have bad things happen to them, you know, and that included in my book, unwanted pregnancies, drugs, alcohol, jail, you know, those types of things. At was, you're going to graduate high school, and you're going to go to college, you know, so I had to keep those kids going, right? I had no clue that simmering, unhealed grief, and that it was sitting there, weighing on me. And then I got married, you know, almost five years later.

26:30 Well, that grief kept going. And, you know, so it just kept growing and growing. And it's almost like a starter for sourdough bread. It just kept growing. And and that was the biggest the biggest thing behind me hitting the wall was the unrecognized and unhealed grief. What was fascinating was, I realized that some point that there was a forgiveness component to this, right? To my ancestors. But, you know, I would be damned if I was going to forgive him. No way was I going to forgive him. He committed adultery. He broke vows. He betrayed me. He did all the bad things. He terminated his rights on our children.

27:15 I mean, he just did a lot of bad things, right? So I did something just intuitively. And I just ask spirit to come in and stand in that place of forgiveness for me. I said, I'm not here. I know I need to get there for me, not for him, but for me. So I just asked spirit to stand in that place and spirit did. Spirit stood in that place for me. And it was several years later that I was able to finally get to a place of forgiveness. But here is a funny thing about the forgiveness. And this is part of that healing transformative journey, right?

27:50 It's not a one and done. You know, there have been layers of forgiveness that I had to go through for that ex-husband. And I can truly say, you know, I get a whole lot of stuff that happened. He had his journey. He made his choices. He gets to enjoy or, you know, the consequences or not enjoy the consequences of his behavior, too. That's his thing, his thing over there. It's always important to have somebody that you can call or you can send an email to and say, you know, I'm struggling right now. And you don't have to be alone with it. You're not by yourself in this world, in this journey. We all need someone else to hold our hand, hold space for us and say, you know what? I've been in a similar situation.

28:41 Maybe it's different, but I've been there kind of in your shoes and I know and I can promise you this. Just keep on walking. You will get through it one day at a time, one itty bitty baby step at a time. I want to enjoy the journey, not be miserable the rest of my life, however long I'm in here in this world. And what a beautiful thing that you did, because look at the impact that you're having because of your healing journey and you stepping into what your purpose is. That's just gorgeous. Thank you, Judith. I am so grateful that you came to share with the listeners and I hope it is my true sincere hope you will come back and share more. So stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen, tune in and thank you so much for choosing to listen to Awaken Hope.

29:37 Thanks for listening to Awaken Hope with Kandiee Campbell. If you find yourself struggling, please know there is help. Please take the first step and contact Kandiee. To learn more, go to [website address unclear]. If you like our show, please tell your friends and family to listen. Join us again next time for Awaken Hope with Kandiee Campbell.