Are you ready to break free from the identity of an alienated parent and start creating a new reality for yourself? This episode is your guide to reclaiming your power, shifting your mindset, and taking your biggest strides toward living freely.

 

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Main Talking Points

• The emotional impact of year-end reflections for alienated parents.
• How identity, shaped by past experiences and external labels, influences healing and progress.
• The importance of self-awareness
• Exercises for self-reflection: journaling, listing outcomes, & identifying the thoughts behind them.
• The necessity of letting go of old identities to create new, empowered versions of oneself.
• The difference between living in a mindset of lack versus abundance.
• The role of playfulness & self-compassion in personal growth.
• Encouragement to seek support and take small, consistent steps toward change.

Key Takeaways

• Your current identity is shaped by past experiences, but it doesn’t have to dictate your future.
• Self-reflection and honest assessment of your beliefs and emotions are crucial for healing.
• Letting go of limiting beliefs & adopting new empowering ones is essential for transformation.
• Taking responsibility for your life—without self-blame—opens the door to new possibilities.
• Consistent, small steps and a playful, compassionate approach can accelerate your growth.
• Support & guidance (like coaching) can help with implementation and accountability.

 

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Episode Transcript

Welcome & Introduction

You are listening to the Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 170. Stay tuned.

 Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.

Stay tuned. 

Hello everybody. How we doing? It's almost 2026. Can you believe it? Some of you were probably looking forward to a new start, a new year. Um, others of you, I knew for me, like each end of the year when I was going through it, through it, you know, back in the day back in Texas and I was waiting for court dates and all the things I didn't like ends like time period ends because it reminded me that another year gone by and I know I've, you've been listening for a while, you've heard me talk about this, but if you haven't, if you're new, we have a lot of new listeners, new subscribers.

The Weight of Time & Stalled Progress

So I wanna just share with you like where I know my head was back then, and maybe it'll a little bit resonate for you with you. I just, I remember that every week, every day, every week, sometimes by the hour, but every month and then the years they were just reminders for me that that much time had gone by without any action on my case or any real advancement in the situation. Um, improvement, you know? So if you're there right now, and of, you're listening to this smack at the end of 2025.

just my heart goes out to you. I feel you. I get you. Um, maybe this episode today can help you too,, to get focused and address face the things in you that are not helping to get you the results that you want. Okay? And this is the work that really, really took, like, took me off of that have had me take off in all the areas, right?

This is really what started to change my life. And so, um, anyway, I hope you enjoy it.  before actually I even got get into it, you guys, I normally don't share with you my, thoughts on like things that I'm watching or like, you know, my social life or whatever.

But I watched by, kind of by accident, two different really great movies. Um, I think, anyway, they took me by surprise because it was like I just turned on Netflix or turned on Amazon Prime, whatever it was for each of the movies and it was just what popped up for me, like, you know, suggested for you. 

The first one was out of character for what this guy normally plays. And so, and I've never heard of the movie because I live under a rock when it comes to stuff like that. I'm like, I'm working with my clients, my business and the podcast. And that's pretty much it. Like, I don't otherwise have much of a social life.

I mean, yeah. Anyway, so I, I had no clue what this movie was about, but it was Roof Man.  what I saw come up on the suggestions was

Movie Reflections & Emotional Triggers

Channing Tatum, right? And I was like, mm. Always good.  And then, after seeing him up, it was seemed pretty funny, especially because of the way that they, uh, marketed. But it was really sad. And in the beginning it was, I wanna warn you guys right now, that's really why I wanted to tell you about it.

If you do go watch it, 'cause I know it's kind of like trending right now. Um, in the beginning it could be quote unquote triggering or feel really activating for you. Um, possibly if you were ever falsely accused or, um, you know, incarcerated, which I was. And I kind of felt for him I was actually in tears be when he was on the phone with his daughter.

I won't go into all the detail, but it was, there was definitely a lot more sentiment and. Serious parts to a comedy movie featuring Channing Tatum. It just didn't, it seemed out of character, for what he normally plays. Anyway, it's still a great movie. I would recommend it. And then the other one was a little slower.

, it was Goodbye June and also had me in tears at the end. But it was still, if you're looking for it could be a little activating that one too because it really taught, like the whole message is about why family is important and of course we're going through what we're going through.

So it might be, depending on where you are and your healing it, it's a great movie, but just know going into it that it could cause some emotions for you. Okay, that's all from the Shelby and Ebert film review. And now I'm gonna keep going. Okay, so last two episodes. Let me pull my notes up. We spoke about, I'm just gonna give you a brief overview if you haven't.  

Recap: Energy Series & Healing Themes

We're doing sort of an inner, I calling it the Energy series, two episodes ago we spoke about : shifting your energy to one that feels more aligned with where you're headed, right? We talked about separating yourself from your unconscious self.

The one who chose, the person who would alienate your kids from you, you know, and the one who lived life unconsciously, uh, before today, right? And then, or before, two weeks ago, whatever. We spoke about too, what it takes to achieve your dreams, like the kind of beliefs that you might need to adopt, that you do need to adopt if you want to shift from unconscious to conscious living and get your goals live, your true desires.

and then we briefly talked about healing, childhood trauma, shadow work, and what have you. Okay. That was two episodes ago.   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 And then in the last episode we talked about the idea of connectedness, no matter how it looks on the surface, right? Like the illusion of separation and then the true connectedness that we all do have share.

And I backed that with some science. Then we talked about. the real meaning of frequency, vibration, and resonance. Um, we talked about, of course, then raising your frequency, how changing your internal stake can transform your experience as an alienated parent. And then I gave you practical steps in either, both episodes I gave you practical steps for all of the above.

Right?   📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 Today I wanna go back and draw a little more awareness around the current you. Okay? Because, well, first off, if you're feeling a little resistance right now, or a lot of resistance right now, and you dislike the results that you do have in your life, like if you look around you and or think about, I, I was talking about in many of the recent episodes, the top three emotions that you feel.

On the day to day. Right.

Facing Your Current Self & Emotional Inventory

Um, and if you can get a grasp, like just know in your mind, what is it that you're mostly leaning into,  maybe not trying to lean into it, but it feels like, , that your experiences, the predicaments, the circumstances are causing you to feel, however you're seeing it right now, what are those top three emotions,  

And then if you dislike that, it's gonna be extremely useful to face this version of you,   📍 📍 like, and really explore who you're showing up as on the day to day right now, currently. Okay. Going into 2026, my intention here is to have you see it all clearly so that you can understand, um, like where you're headed. 

As opposed to just living like I used to say about myself,  like a pong ball, ping pong, I can't even talk like a pinball  or like a little butterfly floating around and letting the wind take you wherever. That's how I was. if there's goals that you wanna get or you're not even aware of what those are, maybe go back to the last two episodes.

But I'm gonna talk about it a lot here too because I feel like I missed a part of this. when I was thinking about this the other day, I was like, where do we wanna go from here with as far as the energy's concerned? 'cause I had a couple different directions and I was like, you know, I really never spoke about  you.

Like, what's going on with you? I talked about  separating yourself from the current version of you, right? And meditation and getting quiet with yourself and seeing yourself separate from the old thoughts, the old beliefs, the old whatever. But we didn't really get into.  Seeing what those old thoughts and beliefs are face to face. 

Okay? We don't have to spend a lot of time here, but it's really, really helpful to understand, like confront, maybe it's more of, it's too aggressive of a word, but acknowledge what has gotten you here right now. Okay? And so  just know that if you're new here, I'm not blaming you for alienation at all, but you know that we all have, um, if you've been listening for a while, you know that we all have a role. We've played a role throughout our life and make different roles, you know, but they're all sort of familiar to us, usually from childhood. And so that role you played,  with the person that is alienating your child from you is part of the reason why we're here, right?  Um, so in fact.

The Role of Identity in Alienation

Major reason why we're here,  so back to where I was.

If you have listened to the last couple of episodes and you felt maybe a little frustrated or at a loss, blank, sort of blanked out, because you either one couldn't envision or can't envision where you wanna be or what that would look like for you. Um,  aside from getting your kids back and making things go back to how they were, because we know that they are never gonna go  back to how they were, nothing really can ever go back no matter what we're talking about, right?

We have to be instead of living at the effect of, we don't have to be, but if you wanna live, uh, quote unquote, happier life. And get better results in your life,   📍 📍 you've gotta be the one that's creating your life as opposed to being created.  Right? And so if you felt frustrated, 'cause you couldn't envision where you wanna be, or you do know what you want, but the gap feels so big that it almost feels unattainable.

So you just shut, wanna just shut down.  I really wanna help you to understand the why.  Once we've done that, then we'll move on.

So I have been dancing around ways to explain this to you for, I don't know, the last four or five days, And yesterday it was like the universe just said, here. Here you go, honey. And handed me. Um, a couple ways, that I could explain this to you.  

I was organizing my office area. You know, I've been remodeling it, pulling down these built-ins that I put in a while back and redoing those, putting cabinets up and whatever. And so I was organizing and going through each and every notebook. An old program I did for my own work right back in 20 19, 20 20.

I found this one program that I did on achieving goals and it was, this one was done back in 2019. And lemme tell you first off, coincidentally, I just so happened to be writing a program, recreating a version of this program that I actually forgot that I did back then,

but I've been writing for the last three or four weeks, a such a similar program and not even realizing that I have all the, the stuff on it. That I could recreate. Anyway. 

So in that program, I was supposed to list off a bunch of impossible goals of 15 or 20 impossible goals. Um, and then I was, the next question is to narrow it down to one, pick one of those goals. And so I did that, and the next question after that is to write down all the reasons you believe it's impossible.

Like  what are the barriers in between you and this goal? Okay? And this is what I want to read to you.  Oh, look, I guess I should tell you what my, impossible goal was. So I'm gonna tell you in the, my writing back then, so I wrote down, a lot. I filled up almost two pages of different goals that I could do, but I picked the first one, which was the one that, I really, truly wanted back then, which was to become a coach with 20 active clients. Okay? And so it's funny that I thought that that was impossible back then, but I really, truly did. Then it asks me to fill out some other stuff with the part that I really want you to hear is all the reasons why I thought that this was a crazy, ridiculous goal that wasn't gonna be achievable.

there's only like 12 or 13 entries here, but so the first couple are money oriented, and you'll see why in a second. But, so I have zero to my name right now and zero money to my name right now. I settle very easily, and if I have even a hundred dollars in my bank account, I feel safe. I don't have money to make money is the next thing.

And that's why the. Top two were that I felt like in order to make money, I had to have money. I had to invest money into my coaching business in order to get back, building a website, doing all the other stuff. I don't have a platform. And then I put the names,  of my ex and then the stepmom.

Okay. Just put them as barriers. They're the reasons, not what they do. Not anything. Just them.  And then I put, I don't know the right people. I don't have the energy or the drive. I don't know where to start. I don't have the focus, no knowledge, need a man to do it. And I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to talk to people in the new way.

I'm sure that there were more. In fact, I know going back to that version of me, that there were a significant amount more, but that's fine for now. And I think the reason why I probably didn't write them all down is because I didn't want to face them. I didn't want to, uh, I wanted to stay, but it's neither here nor there right now. 

 

So all of these reasons that I wrote down back in 2019, it makes sense that I never got my goal in that next, you know, year, 12 months time by 2020, because  was still seeing my goal from the mind of the person that I was back then. You know, I was still seeing all the obstacles from a place of scarcity and not knowing, right?

Scarcity Mindset & Reclaiming Energy

Just like I said here, I don't know how, no knowledge, I don't have the focus. Uh, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know the right people.   📍 📍 All of these things that I was saying was all coming from a place of lack. and I really focused on those things.

When I saw my goal, the goal felt so unachievable because in front of the goal were all of these objections about who I was and who I was, felt so impossible itself to move from. So the goal became very blurry. I became very frustrated, exhausted, and I just petered out and said, forget it, you know? Does that make sense?

 So my identity back then was an alienated parent who had been victimized and wronged. And I was, at that time I was looking at my identity. With limitations that were put on me from those around me, from the experiences that I had had, from the predicaments I'd been in, from the grades I got, and the other limitations that people put on me from my childhood. 

for instance, my mom had told me from a very early age, no blame to her, it's fine. But she told me that I was an extrovert and she said it sort of in contrast to who she believed she was, right, which is an introvert. And she sort of suggested that, again, nothing wrong with how she was doing it, but she made an observation of probably her as an adult compared to me as a kid. 

the actions of a child as opposed to actions of an adult. She'd always say, yeah, you know, you walk into a room and you go to the center where I go to the corners you're just an extrovert. That seemingly, benign sort of observation or claim she had about who I was actually caused a lot of friction for me and a lot of suffering throughout my life.

A lot of confusion about who I was.  Now I truly know only up recently in the last couple years did I look inward, ask myself for the answers,

and I know I'm an introvert. I can be extroverted. I'm probably a little bit of a mix, but I really, truly enjoy my time and I get drained  you know, out in public for long periods of time. So anyway, it, it's neither here nor there. It's just a label, right? But it, did cause a lot of confusion for me about who I was and what I should like, because I remember telling myself, well, you should wanna be out there around among people.

And so then I would sort of haze or like, um, bully myself around not wanting to be amongst people. It just caused me to,

Self-Reflection: Are You Ready for a Shift?

waffle, if you will, as, as far as what I should want, what I do want, what have you, you know?  it would be helpful if you could look at, and we talked about this, we addressed this. Way early on in like the first 10 episodes, the My Identity episode, I did speak about this. Like   📍 📍 what are the labels or the ideas or, um, beliefs that were put on you from an early age.

It might be really helpful for you to go back and look at those, especially if those are the things that are holding you back from creating the life of your dreams, even after alienation. Okay?

 All right, so quickly, let's go back to my responses on the old course that I was talking about, the impossible goal. I wanted to point out that in my barriers where I listed all the reasons that I thought the goal was impossible of getting 20 paying clients.

Um, I was looking at my coach back then and saying, well, it's easy for her to do it because she knows how she was brought up, differently than I was. Right. But I was focused on what I didn't have, and that's really all I was focused on,

and so no matter which actions I took, nothing really changed because. My energy hadn't shifted, right? I was still identifying as the same version of me with all of the same roadblocks. So it makes sense. Of course, I didn't reach my goal within that year, you know, of course I didn't.

I didn't even, I don't believe that 2019 to 2020 I even came close. I think maybe I had a couple of free clients, you know, that I was offering services to, and that was it. Um, which was great for me back then, and that's exactly where I needed to be. But there was definitely still a massive gap there. And that is because I didn't want to, it was too uncomfortable back then for me to look at myself.

That's what I was telling myself anyway, or that it wasn't that important and that I could just jump up and be like other people.

 

Badges of Victimhood

 

But that  wasn't happening because my whole, my default system, I was running, my operating system, if you will, was this wronged. Victimized mom who was living without her daughter and was being tormented and harassed by my ex and the stepmom. And not to say those things weren't true, but that's what my identity was.  everything that happened. In my life, I sort of stuck on me, like, if you're wearing one of those fishing vests or something, or like a Girl Scout thingy,  they were the badges that I permanently sewed onto me, you know?  all right, so now we're getting into the next section call. You talked about how unacknowledged inner situations manifest as external fate. Basically saying if you live in internal conflict, then you will attract external conflict because as is within so is without  it's a mirror reflection.

Whatever is going on with you on the inside, if you're rejecting yourself, then you will experience, chances are you will experience rejection in your life.   📍 Also the Bible scripture and other religions too. And also law of attraction.   📍

The Influence of Negative Beliefs on Outcomes

There's this idea that talks about being, proceeds doing, and then the having will follow. Okay? So you must be on the inside before you do. In order to have what it is that you want, which is the easiest way to say that. Okay? This rule can go both in the negative and the positive ways. 

Okay? So I'm gonna spell it out for you. of course, I'm gonna give you an example of my life. You can either relate or insert your experience here, you know with what I'm saying. So for me,  I felt unloved, unworthy, unsupported among a lot of other things. But let's just go with the top three, okay?

I felt unloved, unworthy. Unsupported. That's who I was being.  That's who, how I saw myself, my doing was that I chose partners who matched my level, They were glad to devalue me and be unsupportive. I felt unsupported. They also did not support. They weren't the people that were going to be supportive.

Maybe they weren't even supporting their selves. I don't know. It's not really important. I also live my life unaware and reactionary, that was my doing. So the result of that, the having part, is that I couldn't support myself. I ended up broke without my kid and unable or un at that time, do I wanna say unwilling?

Uh, yeah. Kind of unwilling to take the steps to get to something new. I was in resistance to, Stepping out of my skin, if you will, stepping out of the current, the identity back then and into something new because it felt scary,   📍 📍 📍 📍 even though I knew there was nothing truly to fear. Just the whole idea of becoming someone new felt back then, it just felt so unfamiliar and uncomfortable, right?

Like, why do I need to be somebody new?  But let me just tell you right now that every time that I'm getting my today, in my today world, every time I'm getting ready to like sort of level up and create something new for myself, which it's time, like I was talking about last week, I'm getting ready to do that for myself.

I do this same process where I sort of shed my identity, my current identity, and step into new because this version of me that I am right now isn't going to be able to create the things that I want to do for myself moving forward. I have to become somebody new level up in order to get there. And I'm seeing level up and I mean, it's, it's just a shift.

You know? It doesn't have to be better or worse. I don't want you to see it that way. You know, it's not like the old versions of me were worse or bad or wrong. It's just the, the natural evolution. Natural. Yeah. It's natural I guess. But it's, it was intentional evolution on my part. So I just wanna back to where I was, is that I was fearing letting go of this, the, the identity back then,

but really there was nothing to fear. What was the  biggest thing to be feared was staying in that identity, because that identity was creating a life over and over and over and over again for me that

Breaking Patterns & Choosing a New Identity

I could not deal with. It wasn't okay for me. And it kept getting worse, you know? Like just relationship after relationship.

You know, starting from the time I was 18 forward  because of what I was thinking about myself,  what I was believing that I wasn't, didn't want to come face to face with 

I hated my results back then. I felt a victim to what had been going on in my life, which  of course, only kept those results active for as long as I thought them and did not take responsibility.  But it's important to point out

that  It was my state of being and who I believed that I was back then that informed every choice that I make,, made or didn't make.  I didn't have to go to school to learn how to behave in order to have the results that I had back then.

Right.  I instinctively knew, I knew how to attract and be with the person that would alienate my child. Now, of course, I didn't think that on the forefront, but I do know that I was, I did not feel enough as a person, and I thought that somebody else needed to fix me, right? And so then of course, because I'm coming from not enough then I invite more lack into my life. 

So I knew how to recreate that for myself., Just by default. I didn't have to try. And it sounds like I'm stating the obvious here, Probably too, because many of you guys understand it. But  not everyone instinctively knows how to attract and be comfortable around the person who would alienate their kids from them. Think about this.  I'm not saying, I'm not trying to beat up on us, but let's be real about this.

Let's make it even more basic. Say the person that doesn't support them. You know, most people, most people, many people out there wouldn't know how to be with somebody that was not supportive.  I mean even my neighbors back at the house that I sold my, The house I loved. I had five neighbors. It was a private drive . And my neighbors even were like,  Shelby, what are you doing to yourself? Why do you keep going back to this guy, the other guy? Right? Why do you keep doing it? Even the cops were like,  why are you gonna not press charges? They would read me the, you know, you know the statistics of a guy who does blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It's not gonna be a good ending for you. But I kept doing it and people thought I was crazy because they guaranteed they wouldn't even know where to start with, how to be with somebody, how to select somebody that did not support them and was, abusive to them.

You know what I'm saying?  But I knew it, it was like putting on an own glove.  Okay, so. Even though you think that you just maybe sort of fell into the situation or the predicament that you're in right now? I mean, I'm not saying that it didn't happen. I think that there are those cases where it's been, was like one off bad relationship and things just go down and you never were aware and this is the only relationship that's ever been like that for you.

It, it could be. So I'm not saying that this is has to be true for you but  for the most part, I'm going to say that you likely played a role early, from early on in life, and you had ideas about who you were and where your limitations were and you chose that, all of that. Your limitations informed your decisions.

You chose accordingly.  you never had to think about how to do it, it was instinctive because of who your identity was,

The Influence of Positive Beliefs on Outcomes

how you identify. Okay, so we're gonna go now, now that I've beaten that in, we're gonna go to the positive outcome, and I'll show you how it can be the same thing.

So let's say you wanna become one of the most successful, prolific songwriters ever in history, From this current version of you. If you had never, ever written a song before, or you didn't know the mechanics of writing a song and you weren't in the music of business already, it's probably going to be a frustrating experience from you, and you'd probably shut down and quit before even getting to your goal of being, you know, the most successful, prolific songwriter, Because you're not sure how to do it. You have, you'd be like me, you would write down all of your, Barriers and things that would stop you. And it would be like, I don't know the right people. I don't have the money, I don't have the training. 

But if you installed the operating system of Dolly Parton,  you'd instinctively know how to do it, right? The program that she's running on actually shapes how she sees her world,  Which opportunities she should seize. Which life experiences she could potentially use in her upcoming, songs,

or shows if she's on the road, right? Let's say she even got dropped down in the Amazon rainforest. She'd utilize a completely different set of skills and knowledge than you or I, She likely Have the makings for writing. I don't know who knows how many songs after that experience in the forest where you ride would behave entirely differently, take different meaning from being dropped down in the scary Amazon forest, right? Rainforest. So let's say that going back to her operating system, let's say her being who she is, her identity is confident, capable, full of knowledge, self-trust, lightheartedness, right?

It's Dolly. She's definitely a lighthearted. That is who she is at her core. Her doing is that she sees the world as one big opportunity, right? And instinctively knows who to call for which project. If she's not singing the song that she's writing, she knows who to call and who how to make it happen so that it's in the hands of the right.

Artist, right? She knows where to find angel investors, and she knows which causes she wants to stand behind. She approaches each interaction and writing session with playful, which by the way, we're gonna be talking about in an upcoming episode with the importance of playfulness in your life. Anyway, so her having, so we've talked about her being her, doing her having, she writes over 3000 successful songs,

I just did a quick Google search right before starting this episode 25, number one hits. She's the only artist to hit the top twenties from 1960, every decade from 1960s into 2000 tens. Okay? She's got Dollywood. She's a successful actress. I don't know how many movies she's been in. She's a philanthropist.

She's got that book, the reading thingy, and I think another one too. The list goes on. Right. She has so much,  she's created so much because of who she believes she is and the way that she shows up as a result of that.  So it goes both ways. It's you're being who you are, proceeds the doing. So if you believe that you're incapable and you don't know how to do it and you can't, you don't know the mechanics of a song and blah, blah, blah, blah. 

Doing is going to be a grind for you. Let's go back to me as an alienated parent and here me going and trying to find all the clients, the 20 clients, and then be a coach to them.  Coming from the I am incapable, don't know enough people don't have the money, don't have the focus, I don't have the knowledge, meet a man, don't know what I'm doing, don't know how to talk to people in the new way.

Coming from that, I'm clearly either if I get on the phone with somebody back then or on a Zoom call with them, and if I think, believe that I can't talk to them in the new way, whatever that means, then I'm gonna come off creepy. It's gonna be weird. And the same for you with whatever goal that you have being has to come first,

So what we've established here, obviously is being perceived doing and the having always follows.  If you're standing in an identity that's been programmed by your past, it's not the identity that's going to align you with your desired reality. Okay? Whatever you've been programmed from early on until today,  these beliefs are not gonna get you where you'd wanna go.. 

Just keep reminding yourself of that.

Mindset of Abundance vs. Lack

And so the last thing, which we did talk around a little bit, but I didn't really bring it home.   📍 📍 Is that a mindset of abundance is going to create inspired action. .  A mindset of lack is going to equal for you.

Resistance, the grind. This is hard. This is not working. Um, you feeling like you have to force things to happen along the way, you know, and always be. Um,  you know, see, I wanna argue with myself right now because there is going to be hard work going into anything that we're doing.

And it's going to take persistence and trying different ways, that is just part of it, depending on what your goal is, right? But also when you're doing it, there's a difference between taking the actions and wanting to force it. Like force a square peg into a round hole or however they say that, you know, it's going to feel, drain.

Right. But when you're coming from a mindset of abundance  even the hard work and trying all the different ways will still feel worthy for you because it's going, you're gonna feel inspired by doing, it's going to be a pleasure for you because you know, in the end that you, the result you're creating for yourself and even along the way is, uh, better.

It feels better than where you've been. Does that make sense? Okay.   📍 📍 So you've got to get okay though, with where you are and work with what you have right now. That is number one. And I've talked about that in the, in the recent episodes, right? You have to be okay with where you are because if you're not, and you're trying to get away from where you are, it's going to co, it's gonna stall you out. 

You have, again, back to the mind of abundance. You have to right now work with what you have. Like here, when I said all the reasons, it's impossible, I never created more money in any other way.   📍 📍 I had to build that over time, and I stopped eventually. It wasn't within this year. It happened after that.

I, I, I had to let go of all of these limitations and I've had to lean into what I did have, what I was working with, and what I knew that I could provide,  like the value that I could provide to others for me in this situation. You know, for you, you may not be doing this in the, the career way. Just maybe that you wanna build a better, like a better feeling life for yourself, that's fine. 

But you've gotta feel okay right here, right now too, so that you're not, like I said, trying to run for minute. Okay. 

So one of the first questions I wanna ask you is, which are the standout experiences that you have defined yourself around up until today?

The Importance of Writing Down Goals and Visions

 

If you, you guys, I would really suggest, and I, I think for all of these episodes, especially when they're like the how to ones,  📍 📍 taking notes and writing this down, all of this, any goals that you have, any visions you have for a life moving forward for you, please write them down in a notebook somewhere, 

I had just found was able to access like the old versions of me like teleport back to those versions just because I kept all of those notebooks. It, it's such a great tool, you know, that I love journaling or like, I call them thought downloads. 'cause it doesn't have to be journaling in like a, in the writer's way.

You can do bullet points of what's going on in your brain. It's so valuable on so many levels. Not only do you get separation from your thoughts, but you can now, a year from now, like, let's say we're starting 2026 right now, right? So six months from now, three months from now, six months from now in 2027, you can look back on what you wrote and not only see how far you've come or where you the gap still is, like what else you would like to still work on.

And it can be a reminder of all the things you know of like what you truly want and measure it against what The future you actually really wants, you know? But two, ,  by looking back at what you've written, you'll find that, and I did this in one of my other notebooks that the other day that, that things that I wanted back then are, have been come to fruition years ago now since then for me, because I made them happen.

But I didn't even remember that I wrote those things down, you know, until I saw 'em the other day.  So anyway, so if you can run into separate, like in a journal somewhere you can save.

How Do You Define Yourself

  📍 📍 which are the standout experiences that you define yourself around? What makes you, you right now?

What are, what, who do you think you are? Who are you and, and, and all of the qualities that you are.  There's two ways to do this actually. A couple episodes ago I talked about picturing the,, new you, the.   📍 📍 Evolved version of you, what you're working towards, right? And I said, just either draw a stick figure or you can also, how I have done it in the past, actually, I never did the stick figure before, is you can print up, uh, like an avatar, like a plain old avatar.

It's better, especially working on future you, it's better that you don't put a picture, an actual photo of you because then you're going to, that photo is gonna have memories the old identity of you attached to it. And when we're talking about the future version of you, you don't want that, right? You want a clean slate.

And so that's why an avatar sort of works. But you can, if you want,  I know I just confused you. Um, you can, for what I'm asking you to do right now, which is, what I was missing in those two episodes  is confronting the, current version of you. You can,   📍 📍 put a picture of you today. because it's true to who you are, what's going on, right?

And then around that photo, you can write down all of the characteristics that you are, okay, that you believe that you are today. Like what identifies you? Okay? What are the standout experiences that you? Define yourself around, What emotions do you like? The top three emotions, but write down all the emotions that you feel most frequently, Whether that's anger, sadness, shame, guilt, rage, resentment, whatever.  Or maybe it's good emotions too, I'm not just saying they're all bad, write those down,  what you do on the day to day, what you believe is missing in you Write all of this down. These are all questions for you.

, What you believe your barriers are. , Other people, like in your mind, the things that you believe are you, because of what other people said? You know everything about you. What time do you wake up? What time do you go to bed? Keep this about what is true for you up until today.  So that's one way. And if you're visual, maybe that way would work. There's another way that you can do this. And I also came across this the other day and I used to do this for my clients, like all my one-on-one clients.

And for whatever reason, I think I might know why I stopped doing it, but I. I don't like that I stopped doing it. I think if I'm being quite honest, that I stopped doing it being trauma informed and maybe I took like some continuing ed and I thought maybe it was a little too confronting for, my newer clients, you know?

And so now I don't like that reason for doing it because I think I was underestimating the strength and the power within each one of my clients, you know? And I was sort of putting that as a blanket. Anyway,  I really love this exercise and I think I'm gonna reincorporate it back into my coaching,  especially for the clients that are gonna go and do what I and coach, anyway,   📍 📍 📍 📍 you can List three positive results that you have in your life right now.

Okay? List 'em down, or you can do more if you want, and then you wanna list the three thoughts that caused those results. Three positive results that you've had in your life. List them, what were the thoughts that caused those positive results?   📍 📍 📍 📍 Then you're gonna list three negative results that you have in your life right now. And then you're gonna list the three thoughts that are responsible for creating those negative results you have in your life right now. 

Now, I know that when my coach first had me do this. This is the way that she wrote it. I felt very uncomfortable

 This can be very confronting. If you are currently believing that what caused the negative result to somebody else, and so it takes a lot of inner strength and willingness to face you in order to take responsibility for whatever negative results are in your life, no matter what somebody else outside of you has done. 

It's a really powerful exercise to do this because then you realize that your thoughts create whatever it is that is currently in your life or not in your life, right? So then it goes on, there's more questions here, questions that I ask my clients actually, which is, you know, list three results you wanna create.

What are the beliefs that you will need to adopt to create those results? And on it goes, the rest I, I will leave to my clients, the point I'm trying to make here is that in order to move to somewhere different, to Start creating a reality different than what's you have right now.

What you're seeing right now, these questions or facing even the drawing of who you believe that you are, your identity now,  or both is going to skyrocket you, help you  confront what caused your current circumstances.  Please know that I'm not victim blaming. Please, please know that I'm not. I just want you. The sooner that you can take responsibility, the sooner that you can move forward and start creating something amazing for you. 

one of the last things that I want to talk about is that one of the last things.

Yeah. It is really one of the last things. It's the last or second to last.  📍 📍 📍

The Exchange

📍 I think it's really important to know and this was a part I had a hard time with in order to. Move to the new version of you and start creating something new. You obviously have to start, uh, developing a new identity, but you have to give to receive.

It's an exchange. You can't sort of change, you can't, have one foot in the old identity and one foot in the new identity. It's not going to work if you're trying to hold on to certain things of you if you feel like you're stubborn to wanna give it all up if you are not fully. Um, like in the way what's coming to me right now is like, you know, I know that this isn't a lot of religion, so it doesn't really matter what religion you are, or maybe if you're not even religious, doesn't matter.

But I was brought up Christian, and I know that in order to receive something you must sacrifice something.  and The same thing is true here for you.   📍 📍 You've heard me talk about this before, and the way that I talked about it then, and I mentioned this the other day too, is that you have to be willing. What I did was I had to be willing to divorce all of who I was. I had to let it all go. And recreate new beliefs for myself, new ideas for myself, become aware of what those were, and then let them go so that I could start from scratch and build myself up to where I am today.

And I'll do that again. Like I am doing that right now to level up to the next version of me. Right? I keep shedding and stepping into shedding and stepping into, because if I'm keeping the old ideas that got me here, those ideas are not gonna get me there.

So I need new ones. I gotta create new ones and I gotta let these ones go. 'cause these ones come with limitations and whatever.  okay? The easiest way I can explain this, you know, um, I'm not a video gamer, So my, the extent of my video game knowledge is like Super Mario Brothers. Okay. And, but this I'm sure is true for any video game, no matter what we're talking about.

When you start playing a video game, before you even go on to any level  you have to choose your character. You can't be two characters at once. You have to choose a character. You have to choose Mario or Luigi or, uh, what's that little one's name? The one with the mushroom hat. Anyway, you have to choose one and each one of the characters that you choose from have different powers, different. Abilities and strengths and weaknesses and what have you.

Like Luigi, he was slower to run. He wasn't as fast as Mario, but he was great for when you went to the sky, level so that he could float down a little bit easier, especially if you were working with those flying, whatever, goose, geese, whatever they were up in the sky. Do you know what I'm saying? It's the same thing here with you, except for you're not choosing from some catalog.

You are creating it. You're creating the new character, but you cannot be the old you and the new you at the same time. It won't work. You're gonna get so, so results and you're always gonna face resistance because  you're still holding onto these ideas like white knuckling these ideas and beliefs about you and about how the world works for you.

And that is never going to meld. It's going to be a lot of cognitive dissonance inside of you. Does this make sense? So in order to. Receive, have new, right. You have to be new, do new, and you, the, you can't do without the being coming first. Does this all, hopefully this is all gel and, and then  when being the new character, the new identity of you feels. Like it's default because you've practiced it so much, you changed your energy once you're there. If there's certain things that, you know, I talked with you guys about this, oh gosh, maybe six or eight months ago. There was an episode that I was like, you know, I took out the playfulness in, again, this playfulness piece coming up because it's, we're getting ready to do, um, an episode on this because it's super important.

I took out the playfulness   📍 📍 from who I was. Right? And I wanted to incorporate that back into today version of me, because I believe that playfulness is so important when you're going to create something new for yourself. In fact, it changes your whole energy so that you're not in the grind, right? 

And trying to control and change the world, right? Instead, you're choosing and the playfulness, the lightheartedness of that contributes to a higher frequency, okay? And what is needed in order to stay in a receiving mode.  📍 📍

I guess my point of that, what I just said here is I want you to have fun with this. This isn't about being all business. .  📍 📍 📍 📍 Don't just pick a character two that you think is right based on what it can create externally.

High Quality Questions to Provide Clarity

Okay. Um, We did talk a lot about the stepping into and who you're becoming, but I would just wanna reiterate real quick, , some ideas that maybe I didn't necessarily articulate back then.

in order to decide where you're headed, like who you're stepping into, instead of listening to everybody to the external or allowing circumstances to dictate who you are, it's really important for you to go inward and ask yourself what you truly want, who you want to be, who are you. And when you listen to yourself, you get quiet and you're able to hear yourself speak no matter how crazy it sounds.  📍 📍

spend five minutes just asking yourself, like, where am I headed? What do I want for myself? Is one of the questions that you can ask,  📍 📍

You could even list out three to five results that you wanna create moving forward. And who would you have to be to create those things? Like what thoughts would or beliefs would I have to adopt? How would that feel for me? Like, what does this belief cause me to feel like while you're sitting and asking yourself these questions, ,  try those results for you on. Does that feel good? Does it not feel good? let's say you wanna write a book.  I always bring that example up, I haven't in a while, but it's an easy one to do is if you say, okay, I really, the idea of writing a book keeps coming around to me.

Why do I wanna write that book? Okay, ask yourself why.  If your reason is for external validation or whatever, i'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that is gonna be a grind. You don't want your reasons for doing whatever you're wanna do to be because of some external, and by external I mean anything outside of you truly.

Because some, you'll get acceptance, validation, or you'll redeem yourself in the eyes of everybody. You'll feel better about. This was one of mine was that I would be feel better in crowds being able to explain

 

who I was and where I came from. Like what happened. Where my daughter was, you know, and that was a shitty reason, if I'm being frank, for me anyway,  It had me, there was a lot of friction along the way  now when I truly look inward and like who I am and where I'm going, why am I doing that?  Because I know, first off, it'll be fun. That is like my number one because of the fun of it,   push my limits and see how much I can create for me and how I can help to affect other parents positively,  That's truly, where I'm headed with that. Not because I need anything from any y'all. I need parent, but because for me, that's the result that I know would make me feel good. It's like, how many people can I help? How can I set the example? How can I continue to set a different example?

You know, it's playful. There is a lightness and a love energy in it. Uh, unconditional love and a giving and a, there's motivation behind that. That feels great. But when it's that I wanna feel better , about presenting myself in a way that's a, it's friction, it's a grind, you know, because I'm always needing something from somebody else.  📍 📍

Does that make sense? So ask yourself why, and whatever your reasons are, do you like those reasons? Okay. 

Peace Starts From Within

Carl Jung said that decisions that aren't rooted in inner truth create chaos and disconnect. Okay. I don't know if that was his exact quote, but I know that's really what he, leaned into, his teaching and his writing.  In order to be at peace with the world, you must first be at peace with yourself.

As I always say,  this is the foundation for which all else flows. Meaningful experiences and relationships are built. You being at peace with yourself as within so within, without right. When you're at peace with yourself and who you are being, then you're doing will follow and you will instinctively know where to go.

Back to the, the first course that I was talking about that I did,  of course, I didn't know how to do or I didn't know the people or how to speak to anybody. Coming from a mindset of lack. Of course I didn't. I was leaning into me not knowing, but when I changed my energy, chose a different energy. I should say. 

I don't let the word change. And I said it a bunch last week, and I really don't love it because it suggests the idea. Sorry, this is just a thought aside bar, I heard somewhere in such an easy saying, but choose don't change. Choose don't change. Choose don't change. Because choosing gives you, it's a, to me is a, it's a more of a forward motivation push, right?

I'm choosing something. It's very intentional, mindful. It's what you're doing. Not trying to change it's more of a controlling feel for me. Okay. So we say we're choosing something, then it's because we're doing it intentionally,  When you prioritize off the sidebar back to where I was Carl y beliefs in, in mine sort of together. , When you prioritize, you live in your truth. You attract all of the things that correspond to you and what is true for you. When you prioritize you and live in your truth, you attract all the things that correspond with that.

whatever you're living in. The you back then, or the me back then I attracted everything that corresponded with that. And that was not great. And that is why it's so important to become aware of what you're believing about yourself, what you believe to be true about how the world works for you.

So sitting down and doing this at the avatar and writing down all the things that make up you in your mind, right? All the emotions, all the things that I shared about before, or the photo of you, if this is the current version of you, right? And or the questions List three positive outcomes that you've had in your life.

List the thoughts that created those outcomes. List three negative outcomes that you've currently have in your life. List the thoughts that created those negative outcomes. That is going to give you a very  look. It's very confronting, especially if you're the, you do the first thing that comes to your mind on the negative and positive outcomes.

Just first thing that comes guaranteed. One of them's gonna be, the predicament with your kids.  You cannot set yourself free until you acknowledge this.

Okay? And then you can move into the you.

So in order to be honest with yourself, just sit and ask yourself the questions. It sounds so crazy, like, well, you would think like, if I'm just sitting and asking myself these questions, like they're coming from within, don't you think I'd already be living that way? It's not always the case because so much, there's so much noise in our every day and we have so many fears and blockage blockages, right?

About what we think we can create,  which is why it's important to get that down on a piece of paper so you know what you're working with, and then ask these questions.  And that is what I really miss talking about those last two episodes, which it's fine. I mean, I'm actually glad that we did it this way, that I did it sort of out of order, if you will, because then today I am really honing in on and sort of summarizing everything together, putting it all together for you.

So, um, if you haven't seen the other or listened to the other two episodes, it might be helpful for you to go do that because, because it's gonna give you all, all the other information, and the steps to creating many of you and looking at some of the other parts of you that maybe you haven't yet. Okay.

The Power of Implementation & Coaching

You know, all the things that I share with you here, I give you guys, like in this free podcast, you know, I give you guys so much of the info, like you are getting a lot, I can't say all, but a lot of the info that I also give to my coaching clients, the difference is, that the info is one thing. 

The implementation of it is what I do with my one-on-one clients. That implementation is what really skyrockets you, get you going in, in the direction that you wanna head. You know, that's really, that's your goju  you guys have so much info at your, in your ears, at your hands, right in front of you if you want it in all of these episodes.

And if you answer like, response in a journal, the questions that I pose for you within all these episodes, you're, you're definitely gonna get, , some different results in your life already. So I just wanna say that, you're getting so much info free.

And then my coaching is the embodiment, the implementation. So, um, if you wanna get yourself a little late Christmas presents or New Year's present, to kick your 2026 off with a bank and start creating this time is gonna pass.

Anyway. You guys, this next year is gonna pass anyway. You may as well apply yourself and see what you can create, that's the one thing, like  nobody ever regrets doing it, especially with the method that I use and everything. You, the results that you can create so long as you apply yourself and you're willing to do the work,  which isn't that much, it's not some huge time constraint.

You know what I'm saying? It's five to 10, maybe 15 minutes and maybe pushing it 15 minutes a day if you're really working hard at it. But it's, it's not so much of a time commitment as it is , your heart and soul commitment, your mind, the commitment to being diligent acknowledging the current thoughts and beliefs that are holding you back.

You know,  my whole point of just saying what I was saying there is that my rates, as I explained to you guys at the end of last week's episode, my rates are going up on January 20. So if you want to have 'em at the current rates, then schedule yourself for a clarity call.

Okay.  Um, there's a link. Well, you can go to my website. Okay. And maybe I have put the link on the episodes in a while, like in the, episode notes because I was getting spam for a while, like weird appointments being scheduled at all times of the day. But I think I've figured that out and worked out my scheduler so that I can't, but my, the other thing I was thinking about doing was charging like

Outro & Next Steps

some really small fee, like five or $10 for a clarity call.

Um, so that I knew that you weren't just spamming me. And, and I would show up to these clarity calls with people that weren't ever planning on showing up, you know? But anyway, um, I think I might've figured it out, so I'm not gonna be charging for that 'cause I really, truly don't want to do that. But, anyway, we'll see.

but maybe I will put the link down in the show notes for you to schedule your clarity call if you wanna punch up your life Start creating some new results for yourself. And especially if you're really frustrated and feel like you don't know where to start, I've got the whole structure prove it, backed by science, , waiting for you.

Okay. So with that, I'm gonna go, because it is New Year's Eve and I gotta edit this. Bye. Just finally got, a sense of urgency. Okay, bye.

 Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-sized clips and tips, be sure to find me on TikTok or Instagram. See you next week.

00:00:11 – Welcome & Setting the Stage welcomes new & returning listeners, sets the emotional tone for parents experiencing alienation at the turn of the year.

00:01:14 – The Weight of Time & Stalled Progress Shelby shares how time passing without progress in her alienation case felt; validates listeners who are in the same place.

00:02:36 – Movie Reflections & Emotional Triggers discussing two movies, how they unexpectedly triggered emotions related to alienation, offers a gentle warning to listeners.

00:05:25 – Recap: Energy Series & Healing Themes Recap of the last two episodes, including shifting your energy, separating from your unconscious self, & the science behind connectedness for alienated parents.

00:07:20 – Facing Your Current Self & Emotional Inventory Encourages listeners to honestly assess their current emotional state, the top three emotions they feel daily, & how this awareness is the first step to change.

00:09:46 – The Role of Identity in Alienation Deep dive into how identity is shaped by alienation, childhood roles, & beliefs we carry— + the importance of confronting these patterns.

00:13:41 – The Impossible Goal Exercise a personal story about setting an “impossible” goal, the barriers, & how her mindset & identity kept her stuck.

00:15:09 – Scarcity Mindset & Shifting EnergyExploring how a scarcity mindset keeps alienated parents stuck; why shifting your internal energy is essential for change.

00:18:53 – Self-Reflection: Are You Ready for a Shift? Shelby challenges listeners to confront their current identity, beliefs, & emotional habits, why this is uncomfortable but necessary.

00:20:06 – My Badges of Victimhood A candid look at how alienation, victimization, & external labels become part of your identity & how to start letting go.

00:21:16 -  The Influence of Negative Beliefs on Outcomes

00:27:58 –  The Influence of Positive Beliefs on Outcomes

00:28:01 – How Your Identity Shapes Your Reality 00:32:44 - Mindset of Abundance vs. Lack  00:35:39 - Importance of Writing Down Goals 

00:37:22 - How Do You Define Yourself?

00:43:08 - The Exchange - Give to Get

00:48:11 - High Quality Questions to Provide Clarity

00:51:34 - Peace Starts from Within

00:55:36 - The Power of Implementation and Coaching 

00:58:49 - Outro and Next Steps