PhD in Being Me

Tag: Self-empowerment

  • Supported

    Tree tops with a pink and purple sky, with part of a rainbow above them.
    A beautiful rainbow during a sunset this past week!


    It makes such a difference in life to be supported. In the last two months at my work, I have been incredibly supported. It feels so very good! I’ve been learning a new job and putting together a project proposal for an innovative idea. It’s been a really busy time, but it’s felt so wonderful because everyone I’ve been working with has been so supportive, caring and kind.

    My last post was about meeting myself where I am at, and I wanted to provide the upside of how I’ve been feeling over the last month. Even though I was in a time of transition and challenge in my professional and personal life, not all of the transition and challenges were negative. In fact, I could feel how they were here to help me, even if some of the challenges were harder than I wanted them to be.

    The challenge of working on a project proposal was invigorating and fun. I had never done anything like that before, and I reveled in learning everything I needed to learn for that. It was so empowering for me to come up with an innovative idea, and to have so many people interested in sharing their feedback and ideas. I learned how challenges can help us grow, whether it’s because they’re fun challenges, or even unwanted challenges like I had, with our rescue dog really struggling after he got a cut. It sounds like such a simple thing, but my oh my, it was incredibly stressful.

    One thing I learned over the course of this month of transition was the power of asking “how” questions. I learned about this concept from this Matt Kahn video if you’d like to check it out. I’ll explain with an example. This morning, I found myself saying, “oh man, I am so exhausted, what am I going to do?” It is a question I ask myself often as a person with chronic fatigue syndrome. Luckily I don’t spiral in those unhelpful thoughts like I used to (but I still sometimes do!), but I learned how I could ask a “how” question to greater support myself and invite greater inspiration and support from the universe. I decided to try it out, so I asked, “how can I have more emotional, mental, energetic, physical energy in my life?”. Gosh, it felt so much lighter inside of me. Matt taught that it’s important not to look for an answer for that question, but to be open to having inspiration come directly to me.

    No matter where you’re at in your life, may you be supported in all the most beautiful and miraculous ways that will help you. May your challenges bring your growth, and may you be blessed with strength, no matter what types of challenges you are navigating. May you discover the power of asking “how..(insert what you’re looking for, with a positive spin, here)” questions. I’ll end with a how question of my own, “how may I write each blog post to help uplift, inspire, support and nourish my readers.”

    Thanks for reading and may you be well.
    Bradlee

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2023. All Rights Reserved

  • Different isn’t wrong

    It is very easy as a sensitive, empathic person to think that I am doing something wrong. It happens usually when someone does something differently than me. It is very sad that I automatically assume that I am doing something wrong. Thankfully, I have been learning to nurture myself so that I can embrace the little me who doubts herself and doesn’t think she’s good enough.

    I recently had an experience where I was excited to share something new I tried. One of the responses I received very quickly made me feel like I had done it wrong, even though it had turned out pretty well. The two photos below show how I felt at first (doubting myself, unsure, concerned), and then how I responded a few seconds later (loving and validating myself).

    Bradlee with a look on her face like, "the way I did it wasn't good enough"
    Bradlee with a loving look on her face with a caption saying "your way is very valid honey, it's just different."

    How do you feel when you do something that is different than others? Do you judge yourself? Second guess yourself? Wish you could disappear because you can’t seem to get it right? I am with you. I lived like that for so many years and it is still my default response. Thankfully, I can stop myself, know that I am valid just as I am, and continue on. I still get shaken and I still doubt myself sometimes, but I’m miles from where I once was.

    I learned how to love and compliment myself from Matt Kahn. If you haven’t checked him out, I encourage you to. He is so compassionate, caring, wise and loving. I learned that sensitive, empathic people really need to learn to give love to themselves, because they are generally very good at giving it to others. He teaches about giving yourself compliments and acknowledging the good you do each day. I started doing that in 2015 and it has been a very transformative process. It is very easy to berate and judge yourself, but giving yourself a compliment can be hard, but super, super rewarding.

    For example, I might say, “You know honey, there are lots of ways to do [insert task]. I loved how you tried something new and it turned out. Maybe you just invented a new way of doing things.” Or I might say, “Things are starting to feel hard this evening. You’ve done so well today, how about you take a rest?” Those are little ways I show up for myself now and it has created a buffer that helps me deal with negativity, judgement or different ways of doing things.

    You’re doing great. Even if you feel terrible or things are going terribly, you are still wonderful. You are so worthy of love, compliments, care and attention. I honor you and your uniqueness and you are so much more than your circumstances. No matter what, may you know that you are still valid, even if you do things differently than others. I send you big hugs!

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2023. All Rights Reserved.

  • Cultivating strength through weakness and hardship

    Image of Bradlee flexing her right arm and smiling.
    Image of me flexing my muscles in celebration of finding strength within me

    Sneak peek: loving video at the end of this post!

    Since I started getting progressively more tired with chronic fatigue syndrome, I thought I was getting weaker.  It can be easy to associate any condition or change in abilities with weakness.  I felt the same about how anxious I was getting over the years.  It turns out I was wrong.  Learning to cope with challenges and unexpected realities creates strength and resilience, not weakness.

    For a long time, I hid how tired I was, and I didn’t talk about how hard it was, even with my doctor and naturopath. I felt this absurd need to downplay my symptoms. Through many hardships in my personal and professional, I learned just how much shame I was experiencing. I think I needed to soak in that shame so I could find my self-worth and rise up despite my diagnosis. I feel like I could write a book about this subject and I really hope to in the future. There is something so magical about struggling and suffering yet finding one’s way through. It is so beautiful and inspiring, and I hope to uplift and support others by sharing deeply about my struggles to embrace, accept, know, and love myself.

    I had so many loving and supportive people who validated me, even when I didn’t think I was good enough. My family first helped me see that I am physically and emotionally strong even though I am always tired.  They supported me through the shame and unworthiness I felt about it. My beautiful friend Jana helped me with that, too, when I easily moved a heavy umbrella stand. And Georgette coached me through the fears I had about taking big steps to reclaim my power. K taught me that there are cycles in life and that it’s okay not to give 100% all the time. I remember how incredibly powerful their help and support was. I am so grateful to all my friends, family, and colleagues who loved and appreciated me for me, regardless of how tired or anxious I was (or am).  I hadn’t recognized how small, not good enough and incapable I felt just because I am chronically exhausted.

    With every supportive and encouraging word from family, friends, colleagues and that I learned to give to myself, I started reclaiming my worth and my physical and emotional strength.  Learning to honor myself and my precious body has been life changing for me, too.  Developing my self-worth has helped me make healthier and more confident decisions in my life, including recognizing and enforcing boundaries, eating ways that give me more energy and other healthy habits.  Tremendous good has come out of having chronic fatigue syndrome.  Through perceiving myself as weak, I have found true strength, what a beautiful gift.  My strength still wavers at times, but now that I have found it, I won’t lose it again.

    Even though we face challenges in life, whether they are imposed on us by society or not, whether they are temporary or permanent, physical, mental, emotional, or financial, or the result of longstanding systemic racism and oppression, we are still strong.  Challenges of any kind don’t make us weak.  If anything, they make us more resilient. 

    May we all rise up and reclaim our inner power and strength and dissolve all barriers so we may have true equity, unity, harmony and acceptance within our hearts, bodies, minds, societies, cultures and countries. May we all be blessed to have loving and supportive people to share our lives with too!

    In closing, I am sharing a video with a special message and some deep breaths from my heart to yours ❤️.

    A short video to anchor the message of finding strength, self-love and self-worth especially through challenges

    Note: I have not suffered the effects of systemic racism and oppression as a white, cisgender woman of Lebanese and Italian ancestry.  I wanted to include reference to those who deal with that on a daily basis to honor their strength and resilience. And to highlight my commitment as an ally who is learning and applying what I learn each day. May those oppressive and racist systems be completely transformed and resolved for the well-being of all humanity.

  • How I Feel is Nobody’s Fault

    The sun shining behind tree branches covered in ice.
    The sun setting through ice covered tree branches

    For as long as I can remember, I haven’t taken responsibility for how I feel. I have blamed or resented other people, thinking it was their fault I was mad, sad, disempowered, or overwhelmed.

    I have related to life as a victim for a very long time. I even remember writing in my diary in grade 6 and thinking to myself, “Ah, look at that, this is the role I will be playing in my life.” It was like my inner wisdom was observing me taking on the persona of victimhood.

    I have had a lifetime of Oscar worthy performances as a victim, with many breakthroughs over the years where I live from a more empowered and confident place. Thankfully, through my efforts to get to know, love, and care for myself, I am seeing the role of “victim” for what it is, a role.

    Maybe as I get closer to getting a PhD in Being Me, I am also becoming my own casting director in the play of my life. Maybe I am also the executive producer, star performer, prompter, props person, and even playwright. Maybe that’s why I recently had the thought: How I feel is nobody’s fault.

    I first had that thought while I was walking the dogs in mid-January. It was like I stepped outside of myself and looked at my life from a place of emotional freedom, and those words, “How I feel is nobody’s fault,” trickled into my being and unshackled me. This was very profound for me because of my pattern of blaming and resenting others instead of taking responsibility for myself.

    For example, with chronic fatigue syndrome, I have limited energy each day. Sometimes, when I was especially tired, I would resent my chores, my job, my body, my family, or my dogs. It has been hard for me to remember deep in my being that it is no one’s fault I am so tired or that I choose to resent or blame instead of just being tired. The truth is, I have been resenting and blaming for a long time, way before I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue. That realization of “how I feel is nobody’s fault” has shifted my perspective to one where I can take responsibility for how I feel, which frees me from blame, resentment, and perpetual victimhood.

    For two days after those words, “How I feel is nobody’s fault,” I kept repeating that realization to myself and feeling the freedom within it. I was more liberated in terms of how I related to others and the responsibilities in my life. It was heavenly. I then was thrust back into feeling like a victim until that freedom and sense of peace and self autonomy came back to me.

    I expect that I will cycle through this realization as it deepens and loosens up those rigid, disempowered aspects of my being until I am more free, autonomous, and accountable to and responsible for myself. May the loosening and softening be as loving, gentle, and respectful as possible for me, for you dear reader, and for all. No force or pressure, just beautiful dawning and expanding of autonomy in all aspects of our individual and collective beingness.

    A NOTE: This realization stems from me relating to life as a victim. This realization is from my inner work and isn’t meant to tell anyone who is being abused or hurt by another in any way that it is not their abusers fault. Abuse of any kind is not okay, and it is wrong. If you are in an abusive situation, I love you, and it is not your fault. I encourage you to reach out to loved ones or professional support where you live, and may you receive all the love, support, and care you need.

    Thank you for reading. Wherever you are in your life or how you are feeling, I support you!

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2023. All Rights Reserved

  • Walking Together

    Photo of a pumpkin carved into a heart, with a candle inside.
    My first heart pumpkin, it felt so right to put some love out on Halloween!

    Walking Together – a poem

    Hello my darling one,

    I feel that my whole energy field is jangled and that there is a sensitivity on my skin because my nervous system is all out of whack.

    How can I best help you dearest one? 

    You are so important to me, more than important than anything.

    You matter to me like the Earth needs the sun and rain.

    You matter to me like my inhalations and exhalations.

    There is no me without you and I’m wondering how you are doing?

    This is a really big change, a huge one.  It’s one that used to shatter me into many pieces and it feels like that is happening again.

    Oh, ya?  Is that right? The shattering isn’t necessarily a bad thing?  How is this shattering helping me do you think?

    It’s giving me a chance to align myself differently with the world?  To position myself from a place of confidence and authority, those positions that I have learned about and explored over the past several years?

    Hmmm, that makes sense.  What do you think I need to do to nurture myself during this shattering?

    Breathe in confidence and breathe out doubt.  Breathe in all the beauty that I am and smile for all that I thought I was that is now in millions of pieces on the ground.

    Go outside, lay on the snow and smile and breathe deeply.

    Here I am, I am here.  As beautiful and vulnerable and cute as ever, but with a greater connection to myself and what matters to me.

    Here I am, I am here, regardless of whether our foster dog is anxious, abused and recovering or not.  

    Here I am, I am here, precious, sensitive and in need of care.

    Here I am, breaking the cycles of abuse within me and around me by daring to turn within to nurture myself and be with myself while I am processing, discovering, thriving and struggling. 

    Here I am.

    I am here.

    May I always be here for myself with every breath I take. 

    Note from me about this poem:

    I wrote this poem in December 2022 shortly after we welcomed a new dog into our family. He was a stray dog and he had a lot of anxiety and trauma. I was completely overwhelmed by his needs at first and I wrote this poem to help me process what I was feeling. Lately, life has been giving me opportunities to approach circumstances differently than I used to. I felt very much like this was one of those times, but I wasn’t sure how to approach anything differently. Writing this helped me connect to that fear and overwhelm and gave my maturity a chance to rise up from the scattered pieces of myself to guide me. I love reading this again, it helps me. May we all be blessed with inspiration about how we can best help, guide, and support ourselves! Big hugs!! xoxoxo Bradlee

    A blue sky with the sun hidden by misty clouds low in the sky.
    This photo reminds me of my wisdom and maturity coming up from within me, just like the sun rising above those beautiful clouds. This photo is from a gorgeous morning in Kemptville.

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2022. All Rights Reserved.

  • Finding confidence

    An image of a sun rising from over the mountains.
    Photo by Konevi on Pexels.com

    The theme of my last few weeks has been finding confidence.

    Finding my:

    • self-confidence
    • ability to be confident and clear with others
    • inner confidence to live my life like I own it from the inside out.

    The whole purpose of my blog is to share my journey with becoming an expert in being me, and this theme of finding confidence is a big part of me getting a Phd In Being Me.

    In some ways, I am so very confident and capable and in other ways, I am very small, frightened, unsure and easily overwhelmed. I have these parts of me and they each interact with life in different ways. I have experienced both these last few weeks, so the difference between them has been rather eye-opening.

    In December, I had an appointment with a therapist who told me that I am coming into my power after many years of being anxious and disempowered. She told me that it will take some time for me to become more confident and more able to use my voice to speak up more of the time. She also told me to not hit myself over the head with a big 2 by 4 when I’m not able to interact with the world from an empowered, confident place. She asked me to practice being patient with myself; that is something I have reminded myself of often and it really does help.

    Last week, I felt my power and confidence emanating out of me. It was really special and wonderful to feel that way. I remember really finding that confidence during a walk I went on with our dogs. I was initially overwhelmed by how much our dogs were pulling on the leash during a walk. I then remembered that I am in charge and I don’t need to stay stuck in my default of being overpowered. Once I remembered that, my energy changed so much and I felt truly confident. My walk transformed from a battle into one of ease, excitement and enjoyment. It was so eye-opening and inspiring. The dogs can totally feel when I am in my disempowered place versus my empowered place and they respond to me accordingly. I really enjoyed experiencing so much more of my life last week from that empowered and strong place. I felt like I could accomplish anything and that I had a lot more strength within my heart, mind and body.

    This week, I have been feeling more easily overwhelmed and not confident at all. I have bursts of confidence that have come through but it definitely has been only a small portion of the time. It is really fascinating and I’m grateful for how much more loving, patient and compassionate I am with myself now. It seems like I can’t always control whether I can live life from a confident place, but I sure can choose how I respond to the overwhelmed and disempowered parts of me. Lately, I have been telling them how much I love them, how important they are to me and thanking them for coming forward to share their pain with me. That always helps and allows me to give myself the love that I so crave when I’m not at my most confident or empowered.

    It’s funny because if I had written this post last week when I was feeling very confident and empowered, it would have been very different. I guess this is the day I was meant to write it! I will make an effort to write again on a day when I feel super awesome so I can capture the difference.

    With every word you read today, may you bring peace, harmony, unity and love to all the beautiful parts of you, no matter how good or bad they feel.

    Thanks for reading! xoxoxoox

    Bradlee

    ps. I updated my poetry book page with a video of me reading a poem from the book. I invite you to check it out!

  • Victimhood

    Photo by Dmitriy Ganin on Pexels.com
    Victimhood - a poem

Hello victimized one

Hello to the one who feels like a perpetual victim

Hello to the one who is waiting to be a victim

Hello to the one who can no longer discern between a threat and a strong personality

Hello to the one who senses that there are additional boundaries to put up but doesn’t know what they are or how to find them

Hello to the one who so desperately wants everything to be okay so they don’t have to feel so unsafe

Hello to the one who wants someone from the outside to be our chief validator, someone who can say “you are doing great” and “you are perfect just the way you are”

Someone to say, “it’s okay if you’ve gained weight, it doesn’t make you any less of a person”

Someone to say “I totally see the good you do each day and yes, sometimes life doesn’t seem fair, and I applaud you anyway”

Someone to say “yes, things about your life suck sometimes and things are quite frustrating”

Someone who says “you are valid even if you feel like shit or feel like an angry raging beast”

Someone who says “I am always with you, I am your eternal companion and witness and you are never alone”

Someone who can gently lift up my chin and turn my gaze towards myself, the beautiful, tender, sensitive one that I am, and who says, you don’t have to look any farther than this, you are loved

Hello you

I see you

I honor you

I love you

I love you through your struggles, through your molting, through your fears, through your internal imprisonment

Rise up my dear one, you really are so committed to your life, to yourself and to getting stronger

May you always hear my voice from within, honoring and praising you  

May you know that I am always with you, loving you, cheering you on and rooting for you

May you feel and know your power
    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    Note about this poem: I have related to life like a victim for as long as I can remember. This poem was my way of owning that perspective and then finding more strength within me than I knew was there.

    To all people who are victims or survivors, I honor you. I see you. I am with you and I love you. May we all rise up and find internal safety and healing. May that safety radiate out from within us to keep us and others safe wherever we walk in our lives.

    © Bradlee Zrudlo 2022. All Rights Reserved.