What Happens When You Stop Muting Your Authentic Self
Helen Armstrong
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:03): Helen, welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
Helen (00:07): Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Aneta (00:10): I'm so grateful that you're here. And as I was reading your bio, I was really struck at how you spent 27 years in HR in financial services. And that really reminded me of my own 22 years in financial services as well. So as you reflect back on that time and all the journey since then to now starting your own business with Claris Box, walk me through a little bit of What that looked like for you to leave your corporate career and to start something brand new?
Helen (00:42): Yeah, I mean it was definitely a leap of faith, but I think I had been building up to that for quite some time. and the work I do now is a big piece of it's the phrase I use a lot is what went quiet. So what did we mute and dim in ourselves to either fit in or do what we thought we were supposed to do, do what we were told. and it was
For me, it's I could kind of got to a breaking point of I can't do this anymore. And there were a series of things that happened that led up to that. One of which was my dad got sick and I took a leave of absence, which, you know, as you know, in the corporate environment and in financial services, especially at the level that we were likely both at, was unheard of. And I thought I have to do this, right? I mean, they make these things available to people, but I never really thought it was something I could do or should do. And I took the leave of absence and spent time with him and helped him ultimately transition and pass. And I was like, I can't go back. I just my body will not let me. I know that I'm not meant to go back, and this is my opportunity to really do something that is truly aligned to me.
Aneta (01:52): Yeah. Isn't it interesting when we actually take a step back and we pause how maybe everything we've been thinking of, but we were trying to distract ourselves from or trying to push aside where it literally physically makes it it's so difficult to come back.
Helen (02:10): Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I'd been getting taps and signs for years with my physical health. I had heart palpitations, I had thyroid issues. And when you look at, what's your body trying to tell you, it's, hey, you're not doing what's aligned to your heart, you're not using your voice. But to your point, we develop all these coping mechanisms to just shove that to the side and keep that quiet. that's what I tell people. I mean, you have to create the space or the pause to start really listening. And I think, in that environment, we're so jacked up on cortisol and adrenaline of the go, go, go, do, do, do, that once we start to get those things regulated, we go, there I'm getting all these other messages and things I'm meant to listen to.
Aneta (02:57): Yeah. Yeah, I do completely believe that if we are distracting ourselves or we're just hustling that it's really difficult to hear the signs of what we actually should be doing. So when you took the step back and decided that you weren't going back to corporate, did you already know what you were going to do next or did you just feel like I need time away from work to be able to figure that out?
Helen (03:24): No, I was lucky in that so I started down my own healing journey in a path probably 10 years prior to leaving. So I had these physical issues and ailments. I'm a dear friend of mine, she's actually a business partner today, was in corporate with me and we went to dinner one night and she looked at me and she goes, You know you're a healer, right? And I was like, What? What are you talking about? She goes,
Aneta (03:49): Yeah.
Helen (03:49): You know you're a healer. And I thought, I'm not sure what you mean. And she's like, dive into working on yourself and doing your own healing work and see what happens. And that's she was the catalyst to doing that. We now do energy work together. We have a small healing center together in Charlotte. So she was the catalyst to kind of dive in and learn about energy, learn about healing.
And then she's the person that when I left corporate, we started a business together. So I knew what I was gonna be doing, but I will say it's morphed and changed in the I've been out of corporate three and a half, four years. And I do think I had to unravel so much of myself. I knew, but I didn't fully know. It's really been for me the past year where I've gotten true clarity around, okay, what are my gifts? What am I meant to be doing? And how do I start to bring that out to the world?
Aneta (04:43): Yeah, and I believe that we can't figure it out by thinking through it. We actually have to start taking action and discovering it and following our energy and noticing what works and of course getting validation from friends I had a similar story. It was interesting. I was the first year after I left, I went to London to visit my daughter who was studying abroad. And I walked into Like a shop, and they had crystals and incense and cart, all kinds of fun stuff. And this woman said to me, you're a healer, and I said, No, I'm doing coaching and whatever. And she's kind of looked at me funny, and we left, and then she chased me out of the like we left the store and she came after me.
And she gave me some lavender incense. She's like, here's just a gift for you. And she said, remember, you are a healer. She goes, and I know you'll be back. And it was so interesting. It was just one of those moments where I never met her before, but it was interesting that she saw in me something that maybe I didn't see in myself. And
Helen (05:43): Yeah, yeah.
Aneta (05:44): so tell me now about the work that you do especially at your company. Tell me a little bit more about your company.
Helen (05:50): Yeah. the work I'm doing is I've named it Claris Vox, which is play on Latin for clear voice. And it's really about coming back to ourselves. And so for me, voice is all about your true essence, your vitality, your frequency. And the reason I ultimately named it that is that's been a big piece of my own healing journey.
I muted myself for so long. Sit down, be quiet. I grew up in a traditional British environment, which was don't talk unless you're spoken to. You have to follow this path. Same thing happened in corporate. It was behave this way, act this way. And I was a bright, vibrant, vivacious little kid that slowly started to just shut myself down and dim myself. And so my healing work has been
Turning the dial back up on myself and on my own vitality and my own vibrancy. And so that's really what I'm called to do now with women. And the voice thing is I do energy healing and energy work, but I also use frequency, vocal toning, and singing as part of my practice. Where if you had asked me if I sang, I'd be like, no, you don't want me to sing.
But during a healing weekend or a training, I got this huge loud hit that was like, Helen, open your voice and use your voice, sing. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that. I can't do that. I was the one that at Girl Scout Camp got made fun of for singing off key to audition for the school play and was like, we're gonna put you in the chorus, not in any of the major roles.
Aneta (07:25): Yeah.
Helen (07:26): So I had been sort of shamed. In a sense of to use my voice, but I couldn't stop this internal voice. It was like, open your mouth and sing. And I did. And what came out, the room kind of stopped and everybody looked at me. So it's a little mermaidy, angel sounding. I'm like, it's not me. It's coming through me and it's channeled through me and it's frequency and vibration. It's one of the major skill pieces I use to move trapped energy in people's bodies.
Aneta (07:54): Wow. Yeah, I remember being at the bank and actually it still happens today. If I feel like I'm not leveraging my voice, I would clear my throat a lot and I would
Helen (08:02): Yes.
Aneta (08:03): feel a total contraction here. So maybe can you describe how it presents itself when maybe the energy is trapped in the vocal?
Helen (08:11)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I think you nail there are a lot of physical ailments. I think it can manifest in thyroid issues. As a kid, I used to get strep throat all the time, sinus infections. for me, I hold all of my tension in my neck, so some of my upper shoulders, but my neck, which is all tied to our fifth chakra for people that are familiar with energy centers.
Yeah, I hear that a lot. The feel like you have a knot in your throat. And I actually just dug into some research within Chinese medicine. There's a blockage called the I think it's the plum pit it's two thousand of years old, where they discovered it's almost like you're pushing so many things down.
That it gets to a point like a drain that needs that's clogged, right? The water keeps coming in, it gets to a point where it keeps rising, rising, rising, rising, and then you feel it in that pit in your throat. so
Aneta (09:04)
Interesting.
Helen (09:05)
that's I find so many women that are like, yeah, I'm always getting sore throats. I always feel sick. Sinuses, I think I mentioned that's the same area, same energy.
It's what are the taps that our bodies are trying to give us that are the signs that something is not aligned.
Aneta (09:21)
Yeah. Where where do you think this idea of us muting ourselves as women in corporate comes from? Cause nobody actually said to me, be quiet. I mean, I got a lot of that in school actually, like as a girl who is really into school and loved to ask questions and loved
to answer questions.
Helen (09:37)
Yeah.
Aneta (09:38)
But where do you think that comes from? Did someone actually tell you to be quiet or was it just a learned behavior?
Helen (09:46)
I think it's learned behavior. I mean, for me, I do think it started at a young age where I was told to be quiet, be appropriate,
sit still, so similar to what you had in school.
Aneta (09:58)
Yeah.
Helen (09:58)
I think what I find is we start to quiet ourselves, but we also start to not trust ourselves. And
Aneta (10:05)
Yes.
Helen (10:05)
so I found the analogy I use is I
Feel like I was like a Wi-Fi unit and having to ping out to everybody else to get validation of am I doing the right thing? Am I saying the right thing? Am I wearing the right clothes? Did I take
Aneta (10:21)
Yeah.
Helen (10:21)
the right class? And we start to question ourselves, which I think in turn makes us start to quiet ourselves and not use our voices because we're unsure. And then I do think there's an element of
masculine versus feminine. It doesn't have to be men versus women, but it's energetic where we're in such the masculine energy is very constrictive. It's very logical, it's very analytical. and I think that starts for us as women, it starts to repress our energy and push our energy down where we again we don't feel comfortable speaking up or saying something.
Aneta (10:57)
Yeah. Who do you work with primarily now?
Helen (10:59)
I love to work with all kinds of people and many people show up, but I think it's the people who have lost their way. Who
know that there's more to life, they've sort of lost their sparkle, lost their vitality. And normally it starts with the hey, we're all energetic beings and
most of us have had emotional traumas in our lives or things that have happened to us that have caused us to take those emotions and push them down and trap them. And it's what if we could create more capacity in your body so that you're not having to cope anymore with the day-to-day, but we can remove some of those things. And so I use the emotion code. It's a variation of the emotion code, but how do we have
Aneta (11:45)
What is
Helen (11:46)
The emotion code is a modality created by Dr. Bradley Nelson. And it's where do we have trapped emotions stuck in our body? And emotions energetically are like the size of a fist. And so if you think about the fact that most of us have hundreds of trapped emotions. where things have happened to, the be quiet Helen. that doesn't feel good. I don't know what to do with
Aneta (12:06)
Mm.
Helen (12:07)
it. So I push it down and it's stuck in my body. And then two things happen with that.
Let's just say the emotion that comes with that is shame. I'm a bad person for talking, or I'm a bad person for doing what I was just doing. So then I've got that low vibration, low frequency. I'm spending a ton of energy pushing it down and keeping it trapped. And the analogy it's like a duck swimming on water, like everything's fine up here, but I'm paddling like heck to just keep that down and keep that trapped because I don't want to deal with it.
The other thing that happens is shame has a low vibration or a low frequency compared to love or enlightenment.
Aneta (12:45)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Helen (12:48)
and I have that vibration of frequency resonating in my body, which ultimately creates dis-ease or disease. Right. So
Aneta (12:57)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (12:57)
for me, it physically did show up with heart issues, thyroid issues. What have I been keeping trapped in my body that is now inviting in that frequency?
So it's just helping people sort of connect the dots that we're energetic beings and things that happen to us on a mental and emotional level have so much more impact than we give them credit for. We're typically so focused on the physical and the what can I do to fix this physical issue. But my goal is to help people go a step behind that and look at where did this start in the first place? What's the root of the issue?
Aneta (13:33)
Yeah.
Do you see a benefit with matching what you do, the energetic work, with maybe what people are currently doing within therapy, if they're in therapy at the same time?
Helen (13:45)
Yeah, that's a really good question. I love therapy. I'm a fan of therapy. For me, what I found is, I think we talked about this before we we hopped on. I can think about things and logic my way away and compartmentalize
Aneta (13:58)
Yeah.
Helen (13:59)
like a champ. So I can talk about something till I'm blue in the face. But for me, it wasn't until I looked at the energetics that things started to shift. So I think therapy is great for
recognizing the patterns, connecting the dots on a logical level. And then the work I do, I think goes the next level, which is where is it stuck and where did it start initially?
Aneta (14:23)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. And so walk us through maybe a couple of ways. If I were a new client and I was trying to find my voice again after I knew that I'd suppressed it for a while in corporate, or what I hear from my coaching clients many times is that you know what? This is a heavy coat that I just don't want to wear anymore. I'm tired of putting the armor on. I want to kind of reveal what's underneath it again to discover who that is. And I think part of that is our voice.
How would you work with a new client? What are some of the things that you initially do?
Helen (14:54)
Yeah, yeah. So the first thing really is to sort of explain energy. Most people are not familiar with it. And helping people recognize we are more, even though I again I feel like this heavy physical creature, I'm way more space than I am physicality. And one of the analogies I use with that is, or it's not an analogy, but an an atom, right? We learn about that in eighth-grade science class. The nucleus is the bulk of the density.
And then you get the outer wall of the atom. Most of it between the nucleus and the outer wall is complete space. And if you blew the nucleus up to the size of a marble, the outer wall of that atom is three miles away. So helping right? So we are these expansive,
Aneta (15:38)
Wow. Lot of spaciousness. Yeah.
Helen (15:44)
spacious creatures, and there's a ton of science behind this.
So it's helping people understand that first, right? That we're more space than anything. And then walking them through what we just talked about that when things happen to us, it could be a big trauma or a little trauma. There's no difference? Our bodies don't differentiate. It's those things get stuck and trapped. So typically, a first appointment is let's just clear off the things, the heavy blanket and the armor
to create some space where you can think a little differently, or you kind of go, wow, that feels different. And so I will use again the emotion code, is we I use muscle testing. If I'm in person over the phone, I can use my own intuition or I use a pendulum which taps into somebody's energy to show me is it aligned or not aligned.
And I go through a series, I've got 60 different emotions, and I'll pull up an emotion that comes up and I'm like, it's shame. And ask people, does that resonate? Does it not? And then we can ask more questions. Was it an incident that happened as a child? Did you come in carrying this? Right? Did you
Aneta (16:52)
É ruim.
Helen (16:53)
inherit it from your parents? And then I can feel where it's stuck and trapped, and then I clear that energy. So sometimes I will sit in as a surrogate.
So I'll clear it from myself going over my governing meridian that goes from the tip of my nose, up my head, and back down my spine.
Aneta (17:10)
Okay.
Helen (17:11)
I'll clear the energy out. And then I just get guided where to go. Like I get intuitive
Aneta (17:18)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (17:18)
messages and questions, ask this, or there's something stuck on the heart. And then that's where I'll use toning and frequency to clear those things out. And I'll get guided around
something happened to you when you were a small child. So let's go back and visit that small child. And we sometimes will do what are soul retrievals. And a soul retrieval is that thing that happened to me when I was five did not feel good. I trapped the emotion. And then not only did I do that, I dissociated. I spun up and out. I'm gonna protect myself. So I'm gonna leave my body and I'm gonna get out of here.
And so it's hey, there's a piece of you. We're all we all have fragments, but how amazing if we could bring all of those fragmented pieces of ourselves back to our body and to our own energy center. So you feel like you've got all of the resources to bring to bear versus a fragmented component of yourself. And so
Aneta (18:13)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (18:13)
it may be bringing pieces of you back in doing the work that way. So I follow the energy.
I know
Aneta (18:18)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (18:19)
one session looks like the other one. I have kind of I start in a certain way and then I just get guided where to go with people.
Aneta (18:27)
Mm. And are most of your clients in person or virtual?
Helen (18:31)
No, with Claris Vox, it's virtual. And that people are like, how is that possible? How can you do
Aneta (18:36)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (18:36)
this work remotely? I find the remote sessions in some ways are more powerful because you're in the comfort of your own home and energy traveled this same way that the Wi-Fi unit I talked about or radio frequency travels.
Time has no space and boundaries. And so I can tap into the energy the exact same way that I would if I was in person.
Aneta (19:03)
Do you have younger women coming to work with you as well?
Helen (19:08)
Yeah, I am actually drawn to work with a lot of younger children. typically I have moms that come and then they go, Do
Aneta (19:13)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (19:14)
you work with kids? and I think, gosh, wouldn't I have loved to have had this awareness? So I
Aneta (19:18)
Yes. That's why. Yes. Mm-hmm.
Helen (19:21)
actually, I mean, I just worked with as young as three to clear. That's less interactive, but I've also worked with 10, 11 year olds.
The analogy I use with them, I'm big into the analogies, is a backpack, right? You've got a backpack on and you're
Aneta (19:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Helen (19:38)
picking up things that don't belong to you and energy that's not yours throughout the day. Let me help take the backpack off. But my sweet spot is probably younger girls, teens. I had my own struggles with eating issues, eating disorders. I'm a huge empath.
And I didn't know what that was. And so I find I work with a lot of young girls that are empaths. And I can an empath is somebody who picks up and takes on other people's emotions without knowing. So it's the you walk into a room and you immediately feel a hit to your stomach, or somebody around you is sad and you feel sad. And so what I find is so many young girls are empaths
don't know that they're empaths and then look for coping mechanisms, whatever those are. For me it was food to help either numb the emotions or help soothe myself because I was so overwhelmed by all these emotions that I was taking on that weren't mine, but I didn't know that they weren't mine.
Aneta (20:41)
Yeah. Since you've started this work, what would you say is the biggest thing you've been able to overcome in your own life? is there something that you couldn't have imagined doing before, but suddenly like you clear the energy and now there's more spaces?
Helen (20:55)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think one using my voice. The fact that I'm here talking about the fact that I move energy, sing
Aneta (21:03)
Yeah.
Helen (21:03)
and clear frequencies, if you told me 20 years ago, I would have been petrified. I would have said, no, no way. So the fact that I'm owning the gifts that I have is huge for me. I would also say, as I've stepped more into my authenticity
My health issues have alleviated in a lot of ways. My weight has fluctuated. I've been 40 plus pounds heavier, I've been thinner. I found I would put on and gain weight as I was felt the need to get bigger and bigger and bigger to take on everybody else's problems. So I was
Aneta (21:38)
Mm.
Helen (21:39)
literally creating physical mass
to be able
Aneta (21:43)
Yeah.
Helen (21:43)
to hold energetic weight for other people. And when
Aneta (21:47)
wow.
Helen (21:47)
I look back at corporate, right in HR, I was the dumping ground for everybody's problems.
Aneta (21:54)
Yeah.
Helen (21:55)
I'm not eating any differently, I'm working out, I'm doing all the same things, but I just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And
Aneta (22:02)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (22:03)
once I left that environment and could breathe.
And offloaded all of the things I was holding and carrying for other people. I've found my own physical vitality as well.
Aneta (22:17)
Isn't that so interesting? Yeah.
Helen (22:20)
Yeah. And
we have so many people that come in, I'm struggling with my weight or I can't drop this last 10 pounds. And yes, there could be a physical component, but a lot of times it's emotional, right? Weight is also a protective mechanism and a protective device where I'm gonna keep you at arm's length and I'm gonna keep you pushed away to protect myself. And so helping people recognize that and again clearing off some of these emotions, things start to
shift and flow.
Aneta (22:49)
Yeah, it's so interesting. When I left corporate, I think that first year and a half I lost like twenty five pounds.
Helen (22:56)
Yeah.
Aneta (22:57)
It was just interesting 'cause I was like, wow, it's like a detox or something.
Helen (23:01)
Yeah, I mean, I think
that's exactly right. That energetic detox. The other thing is we're in such a high level of that cortisol, adrenal, and also just in the grip, right? We're white knuckling and gripping.
Aneta (23:10)
Yeah. Yeah.
Helen (23:13)
And so if our bodies are doing that, then of course they're hanging on to everything. And we're in fight or flight. And if our bodies think we're gonna be attacked
Or something bad is going to happen, we hang on to all of our resources. And so our bodies are like, hey, I'm not giving up this protective device because you might try and starve me, right? So who knows what's coming. So I think
Aneta (23:36)
Yeah.
Helen (23:36)
we're just in such a state of our bodies are so dysregulated because we're constantly go, go, go, go, go, and running nonstop.
Aneta (23:46)
Yeah. One of the things that in your own bio and your story and something that was in mine and also with my clients, and I hear it over and over again on the podcast is this notion of the woman who is externally successful and internally it maybe have dealing with physical issues, maybe with disease, maybe with just emotional strain or burnout. So if there's someone that's in the middle of it right now, they're in the thick of it, they're hearing it, and yet
They're like, I don't know if this could work for me because maybe they just can't imagine that it's would be a simple, not as simple, but as an energetic lens or doing some tools to allow them to reclaim their voice. What would you want them to know?
Helen (24:29)
One of the things I talk about a lot are coping mechanisms. And so how we learn about fight, flight, freeze. And there's a fourth one, fawn, which doesn't get talked about a lot. And the fawn is, how do I manage my aggressor or say, hey, look and as women that shows up a harmonizer. Yep. Yep.
Aneta (24:47)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (24:49)
And it shows up for us as caregivers. And so I just ask women to just
look at where these things might be showing up. And fight for me shows up in it's not that I'm gonna attack as women, it's more the prickliness of like, nope, everything's fine, I've got it all together. Or perfectionism is a piece of fight, which is I'm gonna do everything perfectly. So nobody can come at me, nobody can tell me I've done anything wrong. It's noticing,
are you a perfectionist? Are you doing these things? Does everything have to be exactly right? The next one flight would be running away from the bear. But for women, it's typically the go, go, go, do, do, do. I'm gonna keep running from these feelings, running from these emotions. And we get rewarded for that. Right.
Aneta (25:33)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (25:33)
That's the promotion. That's the wow, Helen's doing an amazing job. She's giving her all.
Freeze would be the numbing. Do you catch yourself dissociating or the Netflix binge or the phone spiral or the two or three glasses of wine after work? And then fawn, the caretaking. So are you the caregiver? And that's what shows up the most is how am I caretaking everybody else and appeasing everybody else? So I just ask women to look at those things.
And say, do I recognize myself in any of those? Am I using those coping mechanisms to divert my feelings, divert energy? And if so, then what can I do to start calming my nervous system, to start creating space, whether it's, try box breathing, try any type of vagus nerve regulation, breath work.
Even essential oils can bring you into a state like lavender we talked about earlier
Aneta (26:31)
Sure.
Helen (26:34)
to just calm the nervous system and start to notice do those things have an impact? Do they create small pockets and spaces where you feel calm? And if that's happening,
Aneta (26:43)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (26:45)
then why not take the next step or the next leap to say, hey, this might work at a deeper level?
Aneta (26:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's so good to start with something small that you we feel that we can do. And then once you start to see the benefits, then I think you start to create a little bit of momentum and more curiosity about what else is available. It's there's always an entry point into the healing. And for some people, it could be breathing, breath work, yoga, acupuncture, whatever it is. There's so much.
And then once you get in there, it's amazing how you just discover new healers and new modalities. And then suddenly
Helen (27:21)
Right.
Aneta (27:22)
that's the way it was for me, and this way for most of the people on the podcast that have somehow become healers themselves. So I want to go back to something you said earlier because I think it's something that many of us maybe struggle with. And I'm curious how you were able to overcome it or at least continue to
step out, even if you haven't
Helen (27:43)
Right.
Aneta (27:43)
overcome it, which is this visibility wound, especially when you go from having a very traditional job. You had a career
Helen (27:50)
Yeah, yeah.
Aneta (27:52)
in HR in financial services for a very long time.
Helen (27:55)
Yeah.
Aneta (27:56)
And right or wrong, we build identities around it. We build identities
Helen (27:59)
Yes.
Aneta (28:00)
around who we are, the way we dress, the way we carry ourselves, the title, all of the things.
And to move from that, especially with some of the people we used to work with in our circle, into talking about energy work, talking about clearing your chakras talking about some of
Helen (28:17)
Right.
Aneta (28:18)
finding your voice again, it can be really scary. I remember it was terrifying for me as well. So how did you start to overcome that visibility wound, especially talking about the things that you were doing?
Helen (28:31)
Yeah, that has been an ongoing journey. I don't want to use the word battle, but in some ways kind of battling against myself. It started with I would use essential oils at work. People would kind of go, something smells really good. And I'd be like, it's an essential oil. All right. Or I would
Aneta (28:45)
Yeah. Yeah.
Helen (28:49)
actually, I was a kind of a sneaky healer where I would take essential oils, put them on cotton wool balls, and hide them in people's offices.
I had one guy I worked with that was tip, people like he's so grumpy. And I would take a citrus essential oil and just hide it in his bookshelf.
Aneta (29:03)
yeah.
Helen (29:04)
And people like, have you noticed that so and so is a lot more,
Aneta (29:06)
He's so joyful.
Helen (29:07)
yeah, he's so more chill than he was. and so for me, it has been sort of baby steps and to take one step and then like, I'm not being judged for that. In fact, people were more interested than not.
Aneta (29:17)
Yeah. Sure,
right.
Helen (29:20)
Or
I would have the crystal braces under my blazer at work. Right.
Aneta (29:24)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (29:24)
And people would be, I really like your rose quartz bracelet. Thank you. Guess what? It also brings me tranquility, peace, and love. So
Aneta (29:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Helen (29:34)
I was kind of one little tidbit at a time, breadcrumbs, honestly. I probably breadcrumbed myself. And then once I had left, for me, I would say I had these sort of coming out moments.
Of posting on Facebook and holding my breath and going, what's gonna happen? And I was shocked by the reaction that I got. People like, my gosh, this is amazing. I can't believe this. And then I did the same thing. LinkedIn was harder, right? I had
Aneta (30:02)
Yeah.
Helen (30:02)
thousands of contacts from my career, and probably a year and a half ago, I like,
If I'm gonna do this, I have to own this. And
Aneta (30:10)
Yeah. Yeah.
Helen (30:12)
I went on LinkedIn and posted it. And the same thing, like some I'm not gonna resonate with everybody and becoming okay with that. Not relying as much on that Wi-Fi unit for validation, and recognizing man, most of these people I haven't talked to in 10 or 15 years. So if they disconnect and unlink me, that's okay.
Aneta (30:28)
Yeah. Yep.
Helen (30:31)
So it's really has been baby steps and
Putting myself out there and then, holding my breath and waiting and then going, I'm okay. I'm safe. And then doing the next thing. I'm
Aneta (30:40)
Yeah, yeah.
Helen (30:43)
safe. and learning to be unapologetic of this is who I am, this is what I believe. And the more I stand in that, and the more I stand in my essence, my voice, my authenticity, the more the right
people show up. And I would say I've seen that in my healing practice. The more I constrict myself, or I'll put myself out there and then I kind of shrink again. I put myself out there. And when I put myself out there, more people show up, the right people show up. When I start to question myself and I constrict, guess what? I don't have as many clients. So it's paying attention to the energy.
The other thing I love about voice is we all have a vocal print like our fingerprint. And the world needs all of those things. So
Aneta (31:30)
Yeah.
Helen (31:31)
our voice or frequency is one of a kind. And by shifting it, constricting it, muting it, we are keeping that from the world. And I think there's a beautiful mosaic
that exists with all of us and all of the different colors, all of the different threads and all of the different pieces. And if I'm trying to be somebody that I'm not, then I'm stopping this beautiful mosaic from coming to fruition.
Aneta (32:00)
I'd never heard it described that way, but it makes so much sense. And I think that does give us permission, all of us to just be able to be who we are and to share our perspective. I'm rereading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, probably for like the fourth
Helen (32:14)
Mm.
Aneta (32:14)
time. I love that book so much. And he just talked about that. He's like, so what if you are noticing a sunset that everyone else is noticing? It's what are you noticing? And it's
Helen (32:23)
Yes.
Aneta (32:24)
okay to share that.
And I think that that's part of what you're saying as well is like use your voice, share what's part of your internal world because the world needs it. And the more that we do that, the more we give others permission to do the same. Yeah. Yeah.
Helen (32:37)
Well that's what I was yeah, it's permission. So that's
what I've seen that people are like, wow, I can't believe you just did that. And then they're more likely to do it. Yeah. Yeah. she didn't keel over and die, so I'm gonna tear.
Aneta (32:46)
That's right. yeah. It's okay.
yeah, I also had the same experience where I was like, Okay, I'm gonna post this and let's see what happens. Wow, nothing happened. Okay, maybe some good things happened. I guess I could do it again tomorrow. Yeah.
Helen (32:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's the same way when you learn any skill, it's repetition and just continuing to put one foot in front of the other. And I found, I'm big on what's my body trying to tell me.
And so
Aneta (33:13)
Mm.
Helen (33:14)
as I was trying to decide if I was gonna leave corporate for probably a year and a half before I left, I kept falling and twisting my ankle.
I mean, I was at a car dealership lot and I fell off the curb. It's just and then I went for a walk with a friend and I twisted my ankle. And it happened probably six or seven times within a six-month period. And when you look at what's your body trying to tell you, it's your ankles and your feet are about moving forward. And it's like, Helen, you're not moving forward in the way that you're meant to be moving forward. So we're gonna keep telling you and keep reminding you.
And guess what? I haven't it hasn't happened since.
Aneta (33:52)
Mm, there you go. Yeah, our bodies do tend to send signals and if we're not paying attention, they'll get louder.
Helen (34:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Well, in the healing clinic we have my business partner had stage four breast cancer. So she was same as me in a corporate world, go, go,
Aneta (34:09)
Yeah.
Helen (34:09)
go. And she's like, I got the taps and I didn't listen. So ultimately I got the two by four over the head, which took
Aneta (34:16)
Yeah.
Helen (34:17)
me out of the environment where I was in. And I had no choice
Aneta (34:20)
Well.
Helen (34:20)
but to sit and listen. And she's
Aneta (34:23)
Mm-hmm.
Helen (34:24)
completely healed now.
Aneta (34:25)
Wonderful. Thank God that she is healthy.
Helen (34:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta (34:28)
Helen, for folks that are listening and maybe curious how they can work with you, what is the best way that they can find you, learn more about you, contact you?
Helen (34:38)
Yeah, yeah. The best bet is my website, which is it's helenarmstrong.life. I have a book on there, a little free downloadable audible that people can listen to called What Went Quiet. And I just encourage people to listen to that to say, Hey, do you see yourself in here at all? Cause it's kind of my story, but it's also just how we trap energy and how we dim ourselves.
And so I just invite people if that resonates, I'm here and open and love to work with people because I want this beautiful mosaic. I want this beautiful world. And the more constricted we are, the less likely that is gonna come to fruition.
Aneta (35:17)
Absolutely wonderful. And I ask a final question for everyone, which is tied to the title of the podcast. What does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Helen (35:28)
Yeah. I love, love, love this question. And I sat and thought about it. I think so many of us are taught to live in this vertical line of I have to do these things, I have to go to this school, get this job, work, work, work till I retire. And then that's when my life's gonna start to happen. And, I saw it with my own parents. I saw my mom passed away when I was 27 very abruptly.
And they had this big plan of all this travel in retirement, she never got to do it. And so for me, it's the living your life in that width where difficult things are gonna happen, but what are we doing to bring joy in every day? And what are we doing to instead of postponing gratitude, postponing the good things, bringing them in every single day? And I
worked with a healer years ago who said to me, She's like, Helen, you're never gonna retire. And I was like, what? And she said,
you're gonna be doing this work for years and years. So part of your goal is you're gonna have tough days where you work with people who are going through some really difficult things, and you're gonna be helping them in that healing session.
And then you're gonna have to make sure you go out to dinner with your girlfriends and have that glass of wine and plan that trip because you're gonna have to every day you're gonna kind of live life and you have to do that because you're never gonna retire. There's never gonna be an endpoint that creates the opening to do all these things. You have to do them now.
Aneta (37:02)
Mm. So good. I love that. Thank you so much, Helen. Continued success for you in all the work that you're doing. I just keep imagining all these women that you were working with and them finding their voice and then being able to share that in the world. It's a beautiful image. So continued success for you.
Helen (37:19): Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.