Freedom Seeking Meaning in Strong Emotions

Discover how understanding your core wounds can transform your life with empowerment strategist JJ Flizanes. Join us as JJ takes us on her fascinating journey from aspiring actress to holistic coach, sharing how her early love for acting developed her empathy and curiosity, which later fueled her passion for personal training. Learn how JJ’s desire to address not just physical fitness but also the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of well-being can empower you to make love-based choices for a more fulfilling life.

Ever wondered if life's challenges could actually be a scavenger hunt for personal growth? This episode dives into that intriguing concept, emphasizing the essential role of curiosity and interconnected experiences. JJ shares how recognizing the signs and interpreting them can enhance your journey toward holistic healing. Using ideas from quantum physics and astrology, discover how to map your core wounds and understand your true purpose, paving the way for emotional clarity and personal development.

Unlock the mysteries of how early childhood experiences shape your adult life and health. JJ Flizanes explains the profound impact of core wounds and how unresolved emotions can manifest as physical ailments. Gain insight into how emotional awareness, open communication, and shifting perspectives can lead to profound healing. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a fresh perspective on the importance of emotional health and its connection to physical well-being, leaving you inspired to clear emotional clutter for a healthier, more balanced life.

Transcript

Julie Hilsen: 0:07

With Julie Hilsen. Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Life of Love, where we explore everyday challenges with curiosity and love and bring forth our messages for everyone to live their individual life of love, whatever that means for them on this day. I know it changes for me every day what my life of love is going to look like, so this is a really exciting conversation we're going to have here with JJ Flizanes. Thank you, jj, for being here. Gosh, a little background JJ has been in this empowerment field strategy, you know, helping people reach their dreams for over 20 years. So it's just a delight to have someone with such experience but such youth and energetics that she's relating to everybody and stick around the whole time, because we have a lot of great things to talk about, and I promise that you're going to think about things in a different way after we're done, cause this is just going to be an enlightening conversation. I'm really excited about it. So, jj, thanks for being on Life of Love.

JJ Flizanes: 1:15

Thanks for having me, julie, I'm excited.

Julie Hilsen: 1:17

What? What transformed you to? To want to be in this space, to to serve in this way where you're empowering other people and you're dedicated to bringing out this space. To serve in this way where you're empowering other people and you're dedicated to bringing out the best in everyone. Because you know, sometimes that's, it's daunting, it's like what if I don't say the right thing? Or yeah, like, give us a little insight into your story of how you got here.

JJ Flizanes: 1:43

So it probably I'm going to do sound bites of timeframes. So I think when I was younger I saw, you know actors and I thought, oh, how do we? That looks fun. How do I get to do that? If they can do that, I can do that. So I want to do that. And there became this sort of you know, me being wanting to sing and dance and then that kind of led into acting and so I definitely played in that space for a long time.

JJ Flizanes: 2:09

And what I loved most about acting and learning about the skill and the art of acting is how to live a day in the life of somebody else, because most of us don't know how to do that. We don't know what it's like to be somebody else, because we're always us. Most of us don't know how to do that. We don't know what it's like to be somebody else, because we're always us, so we don't know how someone else looks at the world differently, or how someone feels based on their circumstances, or how they hold their body or how they get up in the morning and they look at things and they think of things and the music and the environment and the cultures, and so that really gave me a great perspective on how to get into a, I'm going to say, compassionate state, but a true curiosity, understanding about what it must be like for somebody, and then fast forward as I put myself out into the world AKA New York city and um, and then LA, as an actor, actress, um, I also needed to have a job, and so I was learning when I, before I left school, I was very, always, always interested in my body, as most of us are, as women, we care what it looks like, we care, you know, what it feels like, we all that kind of stuff, how people respond to it, and so I found myself dealing with body shame and also being wanting to like.

JJ Flizanes: 3:21

I've always had my, my Mercury's in Aquarius, so I have this sort of looking at the world in stages and like what's going to happen in 20, 30, 40 years, and so I understand that the things I do today will affect my future. So I'm very precise, I'm very conscious about the choices that I make right now, at least I try to be, in order to know that you can look around and see people that don't age very well and you can make guesstimates. That said, they probably didn't take very good care of their bodies, and so I've always cared about that. And so I ended up getting into personal training while I was acting, because I didn't want to wait tables. I'm good at that too, but I don't necessarily love it. And then that just sort of opened up my left brain. I knew that.

JJ Flizanes: 4:18

I had my right brain was very active and good, my whole life being kind of very creative, and. But then I didn me up to like, oh my God, I'm smart, holy cow, I can understand science. And that took me on a different trajectory where then personal training became my main goal and then acting was kind of a side thing until it sort of fell off because I was too busy starting my own business. And in the personal training space, most people come in because they want to lose weight, they want to look better, they want to get strong, they want to all the things. And I question, as a Pisces with multiple Sag planets, I question everything. I question like why are you doing this? Why, like, who cares and why is this important to you? And and then, why aren't you getting better? And why aren't you listening? And why don't you follow the plan? And why, why, why, why, why. And of course, all those whys lead to more mental, emotional, spiritual conversations, not just here's the plan and what's wrong with the plan, although that is very important, but you can give someone the perfect plan for them and that doesn't mean they're going to do it so. And of course, the motivation and energy underneath might not be clean or in alignment or coming from a place of love. It's coming from a place of fear or self hatred. So all that kind of stuff I kind of wanted to clean up.

JJ Flizanes: 5:24

So, as I was sort of in that personal training career and then you know, dealing with people's emotions, spiritual seeker that I am, just asked different questions and I would come up against people with back pain that had no relief and learned the back pain was mostly emotional, which I'm like, of course it is. So all the sciences just led me to quantum physics and epigenetics basically, and so I moved away from the personal training because most of my clients just wanted to look better and lose weight but they weren't willing to deal with their emotions. Now, some were, but not everybody was. Because I attracted a lot of men as clients because they because, again, I was a really good biomechanical personal trainer, I have the sciences, I understand how to work with the body, I can work with anybody's injuries, I can help you get results in all those different ways. I was aligned with a company that did bioidentical hormones and functional medicine and you know, sustainable farming and the whole nine yards, but it didn't serve me because it wasn't really using all my gifts, so as I can. But I was very good at it and I was sort of top of my field, if you will, and.

JJ Flizanes: 6:26

But then I got bored and I realized, you know, I need to expand beyond this. And at the same time, I was having trouble in my marriage and I and I was learning for myself all this stuff law of attraction and quantum physics, homogenics I was learning all this stuff for myself and to help my marriage. But, just like in any relationship, most of our spouses, children, parents, friends, siblings they don't listen to us. We are not supposed to be their teachers, we're not supposed to be their guides. Maybe sometimes they'll ask, but really we're supposed to be their partners. Whoever we are to them, that's who we are.

JJ Flizanes: 6:59

So I knew that he wasn't going to listen to me, so I started my podcast back in actually almost 10 years ago, in 2014, in September and the main goal was to save my marriage, because I was hoping that he'd listen to some of the shows and I brought on people who would literally say the same things that I would want to say, just from a more educated and different standpoint, and it did kind of work for a little while.

JJ Flizanes: 7:23

I made a little bit of traction, but I really spent my time learning. I use my show as a way to get more information, to try on different modalities of healing and responsibility and communication and and ultimately, that relationship was a divine soulmate relationship that had a time limit to it and a contract and that contract was up at 14 years or 13 years total and it taught me so much and it was needed in every single way and I wouldn't change a minute of it because it led me to today and it really it got me prepared for right now. So I've taken all those things and now went from personal trainer to empowerment strategist and have been working with people and their emotions ever since.

Julie Hilsen: 8:05

I just got chills when you said that about it was so perfect and you know I love your journey and thanks for sharing that. That was great. I'm so glad you mentioned like the emotional blocks and reaching your goals and your clients and what motivated you, because that's what I wanted to talk to you about, because we tend to think of our goals as linear things, right, and you put forth this effort to get this result and you know you write your goal sheet, you might make a vision board, whatever, but it's not really that way anymore and I don't know if it's just that in the last few years it's changed. But to me, our goals aren't like running a marathon where you take each hill and you go on the path that everyone else is running on and you know you hit those mile markers and you're like, yeah, I did it, I did it. You have these gates or whatever. No to me and let I did it, I did it, you got these gates or whatever, and no to me and let me know what you think about it. It's like life is more like a scavenger hunt and the way you described your, your path, you're like I'm curious. Now, everything I do leads to something else and what can you know my strategy of what I'm going to do. So I mean, if, if we could explore that together a little bit today, the idea that life is sort of like a scavenger hunt and you it doesn't have to take so much time if you can really look at these blocks or, you know, you can explain how you're, how you work with people to help, you know, get to the, get to that scavenger hunt, maybe the, the treasure chest you know faster.

Julie Hilsen: 9:44

And it's not that it's a race. Obviously it's not a race. That's what I'm talking about. It's about living your best life and it's individual. So how do you connect? You know it's not just linear action. It's about seeing the signs and knowing what they mean and connecting to that. And so if we could bring in that magic into someone's life who hasn't really thought about it that way, I would just be delighted just to shine some light on that. Your knowledge of quantum physics and physiology and human behaviors just gives such a great lens. So I'm just delighted if we can go there.

JJ Flizanes: 10:26

Yeah, well, that's a big question, and so.

JJ Flizanes: 10:28

I think there's. I think there's a couple different paths to go there. I think if I was to take somebody, cause I had a patient I learned really quickly I was working with a very high profile cancer doctor and and we were going to become her team, like to refer to, and I was like, oh my God, I don't know if I want to work with cancer patients. And then she sent me a couple of them and then I was like I don't think I want to work with cancer patients and it's not so if you're a cancer patient I'm sorry, this is not although if you're listening to Julie you might qualify but most a lot of people who who have been in a momentum for so long, who've been disconnected from their body and disconnected from source and who's attracted a big roadblock that needs to be looked at, basically a stop sign that says stop because everything you're doing is really leading you here. If you're open to that, then that's one thing.

JJ Flizanes: 11:18

But there's, I would say that the majority of people aren't, because the majority of people are still doing sort of standard of care medicine and not really exploring the connection of the mind, body, spirit and soul idea of medicine that's out there, that is healing people, so. But that person came to me and she had already I don't even know why she signed up, like literally it was. I think she was just checking it off the box. The doctor told her to like go see me, and so she did. But she showed up to our appointment and basically kind of knew everything already.

JJ Flizanes: 11:48

I kept thinking well, how would you like me to help you? I don't really know what we're doing here, but what I did with her that was unique and different, that no one else had done with her, was sort of a look at her life from the vantage point that you were talking about the scavenger hunt thing and I think if I had to go again in one direction, one direction would be to know your true node in astrology.

JJ Flizanes: 12:06

When you know your true node if there's any, ever a place where you want a checklist of life lessons that would be the place, Because when you know your true node especially the book called Astrology for the Soul by Jan Spiller that opens up, like you, when you see what your true note is it gives you a list of things to your attributes to develop, like working in these areas can help uncover hidden gifts and talents. So, if you so, these different things are listed under your true node. You want to make those better, you want to make those stronger and, on the flip side, there's a list of tendencies to leave behind, like working to reduce the influence of these will help make life more enjoyable. So it's like stop doing these things and then so again. That feels like a checklist to me, and I like a checklist every so often. But you can look on your path of of your evolution, of your journey, and just to see how you're doing. That would be a great place to start.

JJ Flizanes: 12:56

And again it's a very simple place but it gives answers to things you may not have answers for. It helped me in my marriage, actually, when I got the book, when I would read, because I kept thinking now that may change because since I've been doing all this core wound work, I might have a different response to that, but there would be times where I would say something and my ex-husband would interpret it in such a high intensity way that I would literally think to myself what just happened, high intensity way that I would literally think to myself what just happened.

JJ Flizanes: 13:25

I have no idea how we went from zero to a hundred like in a nanosecond, and I was feeling love and like I wasn't, like it wasn't my energy, I wasn't angry or you know, I just was amazed and I was like why does he react this way? I really can't figure it out. And so when I read Astrology for the Soul, I was like, oh, it answered many questions. I was like, okay, I get it now and that brought me back to compassion and peace and understanding. So that's sort of one general, like tricky way to like, if you haven't done that before, definitely learning about your true node would be important for life lessons and goals, because it's the reason why you manifested, incarnated in this lifetime in the first place. So I think that's kind of important. Now, on the other side, I would say, understanding your core wound map. So what I've been creating over the last 10 years has been diving into this core wound work and rewiring core wound patterns. But I've created a core wound map Because how do you know where you're going if you, if you've never been there before, and how do you know how to get there and what are the signs that say you're getting closer or you're getting further away, or you just keep circling in the same cul-de-sac.

JJ Flizanes: 14:33

So the map, after making the map, I'm now on this, like, oh my gosh, why would anyone try to do any kind of emotional healing work without knowing this information? Because because it's you know, it's the people that like oh, I've gone to talk therapy, I've gone to Reiki, I've gone to soul retrieval, I've gone, blah, blah, blah. I've done all this stuff, I've done psychedelics, I've done whatever it is. I've done all this work. Why do I still not know why I get triggered? I can't tell you how many people have come to me and said I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on other people and I still don't know why I react and keep these patterns alive and I'm like, well, that's the one thing you'll get from this mapping process is you'll know exactly. You'll never again say why did I react that way? I have no idea. You'll know, because it all goes back to from zero to seven and maybe even beyond, depending on if you're bringing in, you know, old lifetimes and stuff but, zero to seven.

JJ Flizanes: 15:21

Our brains are recording life as fact and interpreting, but not with a consciousness, because you're not choosing to believe this. Your brain just saying oh, I'm in the other room, I'm crying and my parents aren't here, I'm abandoned I'm not important.

JJ Flizanes: 15:40

I'm being ignored. It's not a choice, it's being recorded. Now, at age eight, we start to gain consciousness and we can deliberate, to become an observer to our thoughts and feelings, but before that, we're not an observer. Everything's just fact. So all this, all this information that you gather from zero to seven, is now the foundation of how you live your life. It's why you choose what you choose and basically the entire rest of your life is trying to fill the holes and get the needs you didn't get met from zero to seven.

JJ Flizanes: 16:07

And now there are traumas that happen between that and an adulthood, for sure, but generally the core wound process would be like. So you want to know where to start working, what to start looking for. Well, where are we starting from? Because everyone's journey is different. Everyone's journey is different. All the lessons are going to take different amounts of time to learn. Some people are going to learn very quickly, like in the core wound process. With what I did the very first time, there was a behavior that I had. It was teaching like try to convince somebody. You know I have a lot of information. Part of my information gathering was to be right, but not to be right, because I want to be right, to be right so I could make change, so I could get whatever I want on the other side of that happiness, connection, success, whatever it was, yeah.

Julie Hilsen: 16:47

And that's hard because you're putting yourself out there to help, with all the best intentions, and then you build up resentment and frustration when people don't take it in, and then you're the victim because that wasn't your intention, like I. I see that that gets tricky. That gets really tricky because why doesn't anyone understand what you're just trying to help?

JJ Flizanes: 17:11

right my ex-husband would say that doesn't work, like what you're doing doesn't work. And I said, oh, I know, but I did it anyway. I kept doing it until I did this core wound exercise when I saw the pattern and how far back it went, and then I immediately stopped doing it because it landed differently for me. It landed like I was making excuses in my head that it was circumstantial, it was about him, it was about my marriage. And then when I saw that no, this is what you do your entire life, you've done this your entire life, then that just stopped me in my tracks and, as a Sag moon, the knowledge was enough for me to like once you see it, you can't unsee it. So now I'm going to change the behavior because it's so in my face that I understand it and I can't repeat it. So I have, I have stopped doing that and I did stop doing that with him. But again, it just gives you information. It's just, it's so important, I just think it's so important for healing. It's one piece of it, it's not the whole thing, it's just the map and then from there you get to choose what you need next and why and how you can you know, qualify, quantify, know when it's working when you're different in the same situation.

JJ Flizanes: 18:13

I have a quote that came out of the work I was doing when I was transitioning from trainer to coach, because I was hanging out with a lot of therapists. They were my clients, not my, they were my personal training clients, but I would see a lot of bad therapy. Now they helped a lot of people, but the kind of methods that I saw was that people were avoiding. They were like if you so, let's say, emotional eating, you're emotional eater, so make sure when you go to the party you don't stand near the table or eat before you go. Or if you have a friend that likes to overindulge, don't hang out with that friend or just have coffee or tea with that friend. And I was like hold on, this is about controlling circumstances. So my quote that came out of that was that healing is when you are different in the same situation, not changing the situation. Healing is when you are different. How are you different in the same situation? That's when you know you're healing I love that.

Julie Hilsen: 19:06

It's so empowering. It's so empowering so you've you've defined all these core wounds in your map and can you, can you go through? Are there like 10 of them? Are there 20 core wounds? Like I'm just curious? I'm just curious, as you know, I know my core wound.

Julie Hilsen: 19:29

I like to control things. Like I and I had to catch myself because I was like micromanaging everyone's life around me to keep them safe and that's not a great way to express love. That's like. That's like digging in and, you know, like control. Nobody wants to feel controlled. Everyone wants to do their own thing and feel appreciated and loved, right, like so I I definitely I know I had that, as you know, being the third of a family of four kids, and, and you know things happen that you know my parents couldn't protect me from everything.

Julie Hilsen: 20:06

I had to like look over my shoulder when my brother's going to hold me down and spit in my face, like things like that. Like I know that I like to be in control and predict a situation so I can get away from it before it happens, right, and that's like a hypervigilant. You're not a relaxing person to be around when you're in that state, because you're always looking for the next hammer to fall. So I had to work through that and you know it took a while because I always wanted to be the victim. Because it's like, why are people so mean? Why am I getting picked on all the time? No, because I set myself up Right.

Julie Hilsen: 20:39

So I'm just. My inner being is so curious as to like the core wound map and how many core wounds there are, cause it's, it's, it's huge stuff. Like when you can start seeing it in yourself. Like you said you, you show up as a different person and the next challenge can come along. So you don't have to relive that groundhog day of feeling that same frustration. Another one will come up that you can work on.

JJ Flizanes: 21:08

Well, let me read to you. I actually just worked with a group, so my program is like the deep dive is called rewiring your core wound patterns, and so we actually did our maps this morning, before today, so I have them right in front of me. But let me read to you some of the most common core wounds. And actually control is not a core wound. Control is what you did to avoid. It's compensation, it's how you're, sort of the fear of like running from the core wound.

JJ Flizanes: 21:29

So so your first circuit, when you're when your subconscious has recorded all this stuff and you get triggered. So whatever the core wound is gets triggered, you have an immediate feeling and then an immediate reaction and it happens so fast you can't even you can't control any it. But when you understand the pattern and it starts to happen, enough you can. You can move into a more conscious space with it and be an observer and see that it happened and then make different choices or different interpretations. So my guess from the list that I'm looking at that well, okay, so let me just read some of the some of the core boys so neglected, abandoned, rejected, smothered, shamed, made to feel guilty, excluded, ostracized, used, dominated, ignored, suppressed, disapproved of controlled like you might have been controlled.

JJ Flizanes: 22:22

Therefore, then, you turn around and control others, and it's because that's kind of what makes sense and maybe it feels better like you are in the victim position, but when you use control you're in the power position. So it feels better, but it's really a reenactment of the same pattern, but you're just on the winning side at this time. So controlled devalued found defective. Depleted found defective just means I'm not good enough.

Julie Hilsen: 22:46

There's something wrong with me Deprived and separate.

JJ Flizanes: 22:50

So there are different ways to say some of these, but generally those are kind of like the core ones. And then from there you know, you look at there's several layers to the map. My favorite is uncovering the ways you do it to yourself. So when someone says I have a core wound of abandonment, and again the idea is that I'm looking for someone else to either apologize or someone else to accept me, or someone else to feel the whole for me. But what happens is that really that becomes a belief that we hold within ourselves and then we reenact it all the time. And so my first question is if your core one is abandonment, well, how do you abandon yourself? And until you stop abandoning yourself, you can't expect anybody else to come swooping and save you. Like that's not how this works, because it's your belief and so your you know love, attraction will say that you're, you're going to attract where you are and who you are, not what you want. So if you give out energy of I'm abandoned, you're going to keep getting people that are going to keep abandoning you. But when you take over and stop abandoning yourself and create a new belief system in your brain and create some neuroplasticity so that brain doesn't default to I'm I'm like one of my core wounds is devalued.

JJ Flizanes: 24:00

So how do I value myself? Well, I value myself by putting the podcast out in the world. I value myself by telling all my personal training clients I wanted to do something. I was honest. I said I'm you know, you guys are using 25% of my gifts. I'm you know, you guys are using 25% of my gifts.

JJ Flizanes: 24:13

I'm bored. I love you, but I'm bored and I have so much more to give and I don't want to be here doing this, even though it's and I was scared, because I made good money and I had this I like people with me for 10 years. So I you know, like letting go of that, taking that leap of faith, really can then make the brain go. I value me and I'm not going to wait for someone else to because no one else is going to do it. You have to be the leader. You have to be the example to the world of how you treat yourself and what you believe about yourself, and then life will respond in accordance. It will mirror back to you what it is you believe. Life is always mirroring back to you what you believe, but most of the time we't like it and we think it's someone else's fault.

Julie Hilsen: 24:53

Yeah, because it's easier. It's easier to project it on somebody else. But I love that there's a pattern and that we can illuminate that. Everyone's going through this, whether they're showing it or not. Everybody has some stuff because, like you said, until you're, until you're seven years old, you're just an observer, um, and you make, you make your, your, your brain's forming these belief systems based on lack of knowledge, of perspective, of any kind of processing. It's just like A plus B is C, and so it makes it really.

Julie Hilsen: 25:39

What happened to me was when I started parenting, when I became a mom, I really started looking at things, because kids can trigger things in you and I wanted to do better for my kids and I had a great childhood. I'm not shaming my parents at all. My parents are amazing, they're the most loving, awesome people. But I wanted to show up in a certain way for my kids, and so I started deep diving any frustration, any kind of thing that I could look at, and then you start questioning everything. You start questioning, well, why does, why does my husband do a certain thing and why? And so you, you start to reanalyze and then, if you can come up with the, with the facts, you know, like my brothers never really hurt me, they just wanted to give me attention and that that's how they thought it was fun, like my brothers just love me so much and so if, if I could reframe it to they didn't, they weren't being mean, spitting in my face, they just thought it was funny because they're just little kids and they're stronger than me. But you know, and it's it's.

Julie Hilsen: 26:45

We laugh about it now and but I mean I just I would be terrified, terrified, I would be absolutely terrified and I, you know, going back to those things is very vulnerable and it's it's hard to look at yourself and say, well, what are my belief systems and how does this contribute to the way I'm showing up? And so that was. That was what like spurred me on was was being a parent in charge of somebody else's psychological development, like whoa, that's a huge thing. You know, you're the major part of your kid's development for those first seven years and then what they experience in school. We send them off as five-year-olds just to get on the bus, and then they're around all these other unconscious children who are mimicking or reenacting scenes from their homes which, you know, it's just like wow, we all have a lot of stuff to do. We talked about this in the pre-interview. There's a lot of stuff and nobody gets out unscathed.

JJ Flizanes: 27:47

That's the good news. Like, no matter what you do, everyone's going to have core wounds. Your parents have them, your kids are going to have them, we're all going to have them. What helps is to have an awareness about that at least, and to do you know to be aware, because I think where this conversation is really needed is where people don't realize that your core wounds create your life. They're the reason why you married who you married, the reason why you do what you do you. They're the reason why you married who you married, the reason why you do what you do. You live where you live. You choose what you choose because you're in search of finding the things you didn't get.

JJ Flizanes: 28:17

It's that simple. We choose our partners to heal the wounds of our past, and so when people start relationships and don't realize it, well you know you're going to become your. Without, without conscious awareness and and work, you will become your parents. You will absolutely 100% become who your parents were not maybe exactly, but your version of them, because that's what was around you energetically, that's what you adapted to, that's what your brain knew as normal, that's what your brain knew as an interpretation. But until we start observing and understanding this process doesn't have to be painful. In fact, today, I think after our mapping process I mean I haven't talked to my clients yet, but no, like, like I was excited because every time they came up with something that they did to make it um to like, make their core wounds stronger, to keep it alive, like I felt like little light bulbs going off and like even them doing the exercise, some of them like this was really enlightening, like, oh my God Now because clarity feels good.

JJ Flizanes: 29:07

And what feels really bad is to not know why you feel the way you feel, or why you keep attracting the same thing, or why you keep doing these patterns. That does not feel good, but clarity is like. Oh my God, now I see it and now I can do something about it.

Julie Hilsen: 29:21

Yeah, it's so empowering, so empowering. So you had on your website there's ways to clear the clutter of emotions and I wondered if you could give some insight onto that, because we're running out of time, but I think it's a very powerful thing to even consider that emotions need to be cleared, and you know how it relates to your health and you've been in that field, so I think it's a very powerful message to sprinkle into this to sprinkle into this.

JJ Flizanes: 29:57

Well, emotions are energy, and emotions are what drive every choice you make, because everything you choose to do, everything you want, is because you think you'll feel better when you have it. Every single thing whether it be for you, it sounds like control makes you feel safe. So it feels like what is underneath some of your stuff is that you didn't feel safe and so there might be, and so you're going to look to do things that help you feel safe and then, after safe, then I can feel joy, because if I feel safe, then I can allow myself to feel joy. Um, potentially. But so we just make choices about that. But we, you know, just like as we breathe in air and we take in food, our emotions are the same. They come in and they come out. Every time we look at something, we interpret something. Every time we interpret something, we relate to what it means for us, and so we always are having emotions all day long.

JJ Flizanes: 30:36

Our whole entire body system is set up from a Chinese medicine standpoint, as our qi really just means your emotional energy, and if your qi is flowing, then you don't have any blockages in your in your body, you're not pulling emotion in one area you don't have any stuck energy. So, for instance, like the lungs in Chinese medicine represent where we hold grief. So if you've had a death in the family, like I've seen a lot of clients, especially men, who when they lose their mother or somebody they love, like they get bronchitis, or somebody who keeps reenacting, something that's grief that haven't let go of, and they get bronchitis, often their lungs are weaker because that channel hasn't been allowed to dump and then, of course, reinterpret or look at something differently or heal that. So it just keeps getting re-triggered. And so the lungs are where you hold grief. Your heart, of course, is where you hold joy and love. Your liver is where you hold anger. Your kidneys are where you hold fear. Your gallbladder is where you hold worry and your spleen. So you know if you've got hemorrhoid issues or you know you pee a lot, like you have to go to the bathroom a lot, you have kidney issues, like that's fear, or you have lower back pain, you know in the liver area, in the lower jowl, that could be anger.

JJ Flizanes: 31:46

So when we look at emotions from the standpoint of the physical body and health, if you're having any physical pains, your body is trying to tell you something. If it's a chronic pain, like if you know you fell off a ladder and you hurt your head or your shoulders, kind of sore Okay, yes, that's not necessarily an emotional pain. But if it doesn't heal in an appropriate amount of time, based on your physical level like if you're physically like in good health and you have good vitamin D levels and you eat well and you're in the sun and you generally, you know, have everything else in check and you're not on a bunch of medications there's a certain time frame where your body should naturally heal itself. If it doesn't, then possibly we have an emotion that is blocking the healing of whatever happened outside of you. But most chronic back pain is repressed rage. Most you know heart issues are a broken heart.

JJ Flizanes: 32:33

Most you think of Christopher Reeve's wife who died of lung cancer. She didn't smoke. Where'd she get lung cancer from? Grief, hello, like her whole life grieving everything about what she did have to take care of her husband. And her whole life changed and all of a sudden she became a nurse a whole full time, versus a wife of a celebrity who got to travel the world and do fun things a whole full time, versus a wife of a celebrity who got to travel the world and do fun things. So you know, when we look at the magnitude of how emotions affect us, I don't think anyone would disagree if I asked you. You know what happens when you feel nervous, what physical reaction happens when you feel nervous, julie?

Julie Hilsen: 33:06

Oh, every, it's your stomach. You get a pit in your stomach. I mean it's yeah. How about embarrassed? If you're like me, you just throw up. I can make myself throw up.

JJ Flizanes: 33:15

And I had taken one of my cats to get surgery and I was so in the moment of like, taking my cat to get surgery, and I dropped the cat off and as I started to drive away, I threw up. I had to pull over to the side of the freeway and I was like, oh my God, I'm so nervous. But I hadn't connected to my nervousness because I was in motion, trying to get the cat to the vet and then I was on the drive back home but my nervousness was like, yeah, you're not taking time for me. So I just I threw up and I was like, well, I'm really nervous. But and then there's like when you're embarrassed, like when you're embarrassed, people's face gets red. You know, blood comes to your face, your face changes color.

JJ Flizanes: 33:50

This is a physical manifestation of an emotion. So what do you think is going to happen when you hold on to anger and hatred and self-hate and you know, for long periods of time, like negative emotion is going to break down your body and it's going to tell you about it and you need to listen. So the body really is where we hold all these subconscious patterns. So you know, pay attention. If something is screaming at you ask it what it needs and it might need space and it might need for you to. I mean, it happened to me three days ago.

JJ Flizanes: 34:24

I got triggered. I don't get triggered often. I'll get, you know, maybe miffed or irritatedate. Like you know, we have our, you know we have our arguments every so often, whatever, we're normal people. But generally I don't get triggered. And I was. I saw a post in a Facebook group that I'm a part of but I don't spend any time in because I judge them as being a bunch of women who are very, very nervous, like life and death, anxiety, nervousness, and so I kind of stay awake because I don't want to like be in that energy. Well, that's because I have that energy about that subject. So I saw a post and I went in there and I immediately got triggered and I felt so bad, I allowed myself for the emotions to come up and I cried and I cried because I was really frustrated and scared.

JJ Flizanes: 35:10

What was the bottom line? I was scared and I was frustrated that I didn't have the answer. I'm a very good problem solver. My intuition leads me the right way all the time. But I couldn't get to it, and so I cried. Doug hugged me, I told him I was afraid, I told him I was scared and then, after I cried for 10, 15 minutes, all of a sudden my whole body was like it, like relaxed, and my intuition came back online and it told me the answer.

JJ Flizanes: 35:35

I was like oh, I know how to fix this, and before that I didn't know how to fix it. So we have to give space for our emotions. We can't think that they are a byproduct. They're a byproduct of our interpretations, but they're here and our interpretations are happening subconsciously all the time, very quickly, and so if you don't stop to acknowledge them, if you don't stop to allow them to come out in a in a healthy way, that means usually crying or like punching something, not a person but like pillows, not a person, but pillows are great, but like allowing your anger, allowing your sadness, allowing your frustration go out and scream.

JJ Flizanes: 36:11

like just put yourself in a room and just scream the top of your lungs until your you know your throat hurts. Like allow out, which you're probably going to cry after that, because normally anger is the lid on the pot for fear and sadness, but when you're angry it's an indicator that you're not allowing yourself to feel sad or fearful. So figure out the emotion, get to it, allow it out, and then that way your body can be like oh, thank you. It's like having a gas tank and the gas tank is overflowing and it's holding. That's what anxiety is.

JJ Flizanes: 36:42

Anxiety is not allowing out emotion that wants to be let out, and it's trying to hold this container of emotion that wants to be let out and you're like no, no, no, you have to hold, stay in, stay in, stay in, stay in. And the emotion's like no, I mean, that's what anxiety is. So find a way to let it out, because you're going to feel a lot better and know that your emotions drive every choice you make. So I would think differently about them. Learn about them, learn how to process them. Don't be afraid of them, embrace them, listen to your body so that you can get all the things that you want, and unblock your success in either healing, in relationships or in abundance.

Julie Hilsen: 37:15

Yeah, 100 percent. I just I adore how you put that it's your emotions, are your superpower, it's your connection. Whatever whatever, you know these were our linements in the stars when we, when we're born. These where our alignments are in the stars when we, when we're born, and it's all these energetics. So connecting to those emotions is is a very powerful way to to get to your best self. And, you know, have the courage. You know it sounds like fear and abandonment could be. They cover 90%. You know you really get down to it and uh it.

Julie Hilsen: 37:52

And I know that once I was able to be vulnerable to say you know that scares me, you know that makes me feel unsafe. It helped me to be okay with it and then also it gave space for those around me to be okay with theirs. So it's not just something you're doing for yourself. This is a loving thing that you do for the people around you, because sometimes it's easier to help other people. But if, knowing that you being better and your emotions, there's no right or wrong, it's all there for a reason. So, not judging yourself, not being upset that you're upset, you just like, like JJ said, make space for it, then you know if, if you're having trouble with your self-worth, you you can lean on the idea that it really helps other people too and then focus more on yourself. It doesn't have to be. You know, know you're doing it today. You know sometimes things take time and it's okay and I think people don't have a vocabulary.

JJ Flizanes: 38:56

So if I can share a sort of a free download, people can get um, it's something, it's something I use in all my groups and all my. It's called um, it's the feelings and needs list. So it's in it it comes from. I have a show called the anatomy of emotion. Well, it's course, but anyway, because your feelings don't just, they're not like air, they are like air that they're always happening. But it's not like you just catch an emotion. Your emotion was because you observed something or you thought of something and then you had an interpretation about it and then it means something, and then from that interpretation is where the emotion comes in. So you can't just all of a sudden be angry out of nowhere, like something had to have happened even in your subconscious that you're not aware of, like some kind of memory or something. But I think a lot of people aren't even aware of their feelings.

JJ Flizanes: 39:40

So what I would recommend and I'll tell you what the link is is to download this form and there's a couple other pages that go with it that can walk you through sort of the three steps to effective communication. But what I want you to do with it is and what I was sharing with my ex-husband's like aunt and she was trying to help her niece and and she was very, very angry, this niece, which meant she was really sad and afraid. But I said print out, like do an exercise where you print out 30 of these and every day, at the end of your day, circle the feelings that you had, like what, what? What feeling is alive in you right now? What is, if you were to look at the list, and the list has a hundred different feeling runs on it and maybe you don't, you can't pick one, so maybe pick two or three. So what are the most active feelings that you have right now, which would help you get in touch with and understand where you feel different things in your body.

JJ Flizanes: 40:31

And then from there you know the next step is to ask what need isn't being met, because you're never going to feel a negative emotion unless there's a need that's not being met or the perception of a need not being met. It may be being met, but you don't know it, you're not interpreting it that way. And I had this group of people that I'm working with right now in the Rewire program just start with, just circle, all the needs that aren't being met. Skip over the feelings, we're straight to what needs are being met. And one of them said well, what if none of them are being met? And I was like then we have a lot of work to do on how to get your needs met right, but anyway.

JJ Flizanes: 41:04

So it's a fun little thing to do. It's very helpful, I think, this tool. You can work with it for a long time and really get some place with it. So if anyone's interested, you'd go to jjflazanescom forward slash feelings list. It is not on the website so, julia, I have to give it to you to write in the show notes because you can't find it. I only offer this when I do podcasts or when I'm speaking. So it's yeah, but anyway, free download to start working with your emotions, cause if we're talking about how important they are, I should probably give you something to work with them.

Julie Hilsen: 41:32

Right. And then you can have compassion and like I don't know, I want to say validation, like you're not the only one. And then you have compassion for yourself. And then when someone else is freaking out, you can be like, oh man, there must be.

Julie Hilsen: 41:48

I started to look at people like they're two and three-year-old selves. I picture that guy who's I don't know. There's a guy in Costco a few weeks ago and he was really upset about something with the pizza. I was like there must have been something about his diet when he was a kid because he was irrationally upset about the takeout pizza at Costco. And here you're at Costco. You know you have plenty, abundance. If you can afford a Costco membership, you're going there. You know it's like this is bigger than his pizza order and you know what I mean. And when you can look at people and say and I wasn't making fun of him I was just like wow, he's working through something.

Julie Hilsen: 42:30

And you know, you, just you just feel compassion and understanding and it, it, it changes something from judgment to acceptance. And you know, I don't think anybody gets better if they feel subjugated or judged, and so that's. That's a huge thing that in my journey I was like, oh my gosh, I started looking at myself. I'm like I'm judging things as good or bad all the time and sometimes they just are and you don't have to put a stamp or a sticker on something. You know it's like I don't know if it's part of our school. You know you get A's and B's and C's, but that's not the dynamic that I want to live in. Like my world. I want to. I want to be in the flow, I want to be in joy. I don't want to be stamping or giving someone a sticker Like I don't want to be a teacher, I just want to. I want to have a happy life and, you know, do my best. Like it's really.

Julie Hilsen: 43:26

It's really fun when you can change your perspective, cause I used to be a judgmental person because I was trying to control and you know I didn't want to feel unsafe. So you know, to me judging people put them in a box and then I could go about my day and know that those are the people that could hurt me. But nobody really wants. You know, there's very few people that just want to hurt you. It's you taking it in as hurting you Sometimes if you just tell someone how they're making you feel they're like, oh, I didn't mean that it doesn't have to be so serious.

Julie Hilsen: 43:59

So I love your message and I will put the link to the download for the emotions. And it's huge because sometimes you're in such a funk that you don't even know what to ask for. So if you look at those needs and you're like, oh, that'd be a good one, I want that one, like you can lock into one and create your timeline for that thing, that can be part of your scavenger hunt to get there. So I'm all about it. I love it. Thank you so much, jj. Thank you, jillian.