18. Overcoming Fear of Success: Embracing Authenticity

Overcoming Fear of Success: Embracing Authenticity with Pearl Howie.

Pearl returns to the podcast to discuss Fear of Success, a topic that she has written two books & a journal about, provided free training on Udemy and lastly but by no means least: Pearl and Claudia are hosting a virtual 1 day training to enable you to learn more about Fear of Success and become an instructor this month.  (Fear of Success Instructor Training)

Key Themes of this episode:

1. Fear of Success Unveiled: Explore the hidden patterns and societal conditioning that may be silently holding you back, hindering your journey towards success.
2. Personal Journeys: Pearl Howie shares her profound insights and personal experiences, illustrating the transformative power of breaking free from the chains of fear of success.
3. Recognising its impact: Discover the subtle and often unnoticed ways in which the fear of success manifests in our lives, impacting our choices, perceptions, and overall well-being.
4. Embracing Authenticity: Gain valuable insights into the extraordinary possibilities that unfold when we embrace our truth, face our fears, and step into a life of authenticity and empowerment.

How Fear of Success Shows Up:

Uncover the various ways fear of success may be affecting your life, from self-sabotage to subtle patterns of avoidance. Learn to recognize these manifestations and pave the way for transformative change.

Life-Changing Impact:

Explore practical examples of how addressing the fear of success can revolutionize your life. From improved self-awareness to empowered decision-making, discover the profound shifts that await you.

Join Claudia and Pearl on this transformative journey to unveil your truth, face your fears, and step into a life of authenticity. Tune in now for a captivating exploration of fear, success, and the extraordinary possibilities that arise when we embrace our authentic selves.

Sign up for the Fear of Success Workshop here and embark on your journey to empowerment

Connect with Pearl 

• email: pearl@pearlescapes.co.uk
• websites: https://www.pearlhowie.com, https://www,pearlescapes.co.uk
• Instagram: Pearl Escapes

Transcript

fear of success

[00:00:00] Claudia: Welcome back to the podcast, Pearl. I'm so excited to have another conversation with you. We could talk forever about many different things. But today we're going to focus on fear of success because you kindly did the fear of success instructor training with me and it has just changed the way I see things.

So I'm so excited to talk about the fear of success on this podcast and basically learn from you.

[00:00:28] Pearl: Thank you so much. I am so excited to do this because as I said before, we did another little podcast before. We have tried to do this for months. Months and months and my health was not enough to, you know, I had to keep cancelling. So this is just genuinely, this has been top of my list since August to do, to do this podcast about fear of success. We did another podcast about something else, which is what's enabled me. To do this, but it's lovely because it feels like coming home, you know, to, you know, I love talking about fear of success so much.

It's so powerful and it's been really hard not to be able to do what I wanted to do with it. And last year, this time last year, we did the first fear of success instructor training. And then I did some more through the year. And unfortunately I had to stop that because of my health. So I feel like everything in my life is getting new, new legs.

So this is, yeah, it's wonderful to be able to really talk about this and it's something that's so when I did the instructor training, what I love is that everybody gets it. Yeah. You know, writing the book, I loved the book, the feedback was really good. But when you leave people alone with a book that I think people struggled with it.

I did some video trainings, I think people found that easier, but doing a live training where we do exercises, we do interactive things, what was great is this incredibly complicated concept that we, we all seem to really struggle with and we struggle with globally when we did it and we did, you know, we walk the walk together.

We did those practical exercises and I didn't know if it was going to work. You know, I'd planned it all out, but I didn't know if people were going to, if the penny was going to drop. And it was just such a, I remember the day I was like walking on air, you know, because I was like, it worked, it worked and, and it's.

In a way, it was a one day training and I've done it as a half day as well. It's such a small thing, really, but it's just, it's, it's that magic, that real magic. And then you've got all the other resources to sort of support that. But one, it's like, again, one of these things I say, it's like, when you're looking at a the magic picture. And you look and you look and you look and you can't see it. And then suddenly when you do, when somebody, you know, points out for it, you can't stop seeing it. 

[00:02:55] Claudia: I was literally thinking the same thing I was going to say, like, what were we just talking about? But it is everything that makes sense because you come away from the training and you're like, Oh, Oh, okay. Okay. I get it. I see where that's come from and it's just so, so useful. Can you, so there might be people listening to this podcast that haven't heard this term fear of success or may have heard it called by other names. Would you be able to give us a little kind of intro about what fear of success is?

[00:03:30] Pearl: It's very simply and I always quote, it's a Marion Williamson's quote, which is "our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate, it's that there were that we're powerful beyond measure". So our fear of success is really our fear of our power, but it's not necessarily what we might think of as power. It doesn't necessarily mean, you know, being president or, you know, any of those things, it's, it's our personal power and our authenticity. It's, you know, who we are when we really dig down into, into everything that we are. And there's a lot of reasons that we, we create and we, we've been brought up to have that fear. And we can often see it much more clearly in other people. We see, you know, watch movies.

And I think in the book, I did a lot of references to films and things like that. We see people who are scared of, of Just being in, it's just the fear of being ourselves, but when we, when we do the training and in the book, I talk about five types of fear of success. And so that's our, that's our really true fear of success.

And it's, a lot of it is about a fear of feeling ourselves, you know, being ourselves and feeling our feelings because while we're pretending to be somebody else. You know, we, we're kind of hiding. We're wearing a mask or, you know, and so we, we feel, you know, really like we're protected, but actually what we're doing is we're, you know, we're not living our lives.

Which, which for better or worse, when we live our lives and we, and people criticize us and things like that. I think we think it's going to hurt more, you know, because we're naked and we're vulnerable. But actually, even though it hurts, it's like, but I still get to be me. I still get to live my life. So, so in a way, it's, it's so much easier than pretending to the other.

And that's the thing. We're always using this energy to try and be what other people want us to be and that kind of thing. And we're wasting our energy really. And when we come back to ourselves, we, we get all that energy back and it's. That's a wonderful thing. 

[00:05:45] Claudia: We were talking a little bit before we pressed record and I was just thinking back to what you said about quitting your job and your boss asking you why you quit and you're like, well, I hate my job.

I'll let you carry on with it, it's 

[00:06:02] Pearl: your story. I think the thing is, it was, it had been three years and I was working in finance. And it was through the you know, the great downturn, the big, you know, 2010, not 2010, 2008. I left in 2010. And everybody was, you know, losing their jobs, you know, friends of mine in the finance industry, they were, you know, Lehman brothers, they were going out with their box of, of possessions, you know, it was all very big shock to the system and society and the financial system and everything.

And I think that's why I hung in the, in there, because I think we were already scared of not having that regular paycheck. And You know, there was a lot more work put on my debt, you know, it was, it got a very toxic environment. And so we were always talking about quitting and leaving. And then one day I got a migraine and on the Saturday and I said, Oh, well, I can cope with being miserable five days a week, but not six.

So, and I, I was actually hanging out that Saturday or Sunday with friends of mine, but all from work. We, we all, it's funny, it's like being in war. We were all made really good friends in that environment. And I still am friends with those people, even though it was not a good job, it was not fun. And, and I, I remember sitting there saying, no, I'm going to quit.

And they were like, no, don't go, don't go, you know. But I was like, no, I just can't take it anymore. So when I went in, it was like not a negotiation. I just went in and said, yeah, I'm leaving. And he said, why? I said, because I hate my job. And he said, but we all hate our job. So that's no reason to quit. And I was like, it's a, it's a reason for me to quit.

Like, be miserable. I don't want to be unhappy. And your life is, 

[00:07:47] Claudia: your life is, life is such a,

well, we don't have any guarantees, do we? And if we're spending all of that time and energy being sucked away into just misery, I, I think, why don't you get to, to, to, to give it a go and not fear? 

[00:08:05] Pearl: There's so many arguments about leaving a job and, you know, and the thing is I, I would say that in terms of following my dreams and doing what I love, sometimes I've had to go and get a job in order to do that.

Sometimes I'm not talking like an inspirational speaker. It's saying, yes, quit your job. I just got to that point where it was so clear to me that it was me or the job. And I, and I think you all, you know, it's like in being in a relationship when you suddenly get to a point in a relationship and you go, no, no, it's a line that's been crossed and that's it.

And, you know, it doesn't matter what you say. And the funny thing was I had been in this job and kind of waiting to be headhunted to sort of go, well I can't, you know, I can't quit the job, but I, you know, maybe someone come along. And of course, when I did hand in my notice, I had about three people, you know, different companies in finance offer me jobs, but I'd, I'd crossed the line as well for the industry.

So I think in some ways it was good for me because if I had been headhunted before I would have jumped ship, but then I was still in the industry. And by going that far, it was like, no, I've had enough. That's it. I'm never going to work in finance again. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. And I just, and that was my last permanent gig.

[00:09:27] Claudia: I'm just like linking it to like the fear of success, like for me, I can definitely look back and there are certain things that I have done in my life because I have been pursuing the things that other people want me to do. And it's in your book, it's about the fear of false success. So when you're going to like, you're doing that thing that everybody is expecting you to do, but you're actually not very happy because it's not your success.

It's not your 

[00:09:53] Pearl: definition. Absolutely. And it's. It's so easy. And I think I, I used fear of success and I, and I liked that because the phrase, it was the one that kind of called to me because I was feeling I've really got this fear of success and I need to figure it out. I need to write down you know, what I know about fear of success because every time I, when I tried to do the research, the answers weren't there when there were answers.

I was like, no, that's wrong. Because I know, I know, because somebody said, yeah. Was it, there's no such thing as fear of success, just fear of hard work. And I was like, no, because we work harder to avoid success. You know, and, and it's, it's crazy really, because sometimes it's right in front of us. And we keep pushing it away, pushing it away, pushing it away.

It's very difficult as well, because I think the things that are really easy for us and natural to us, we often undervalue them. Like becoming a Zumba instructor. And the reason I did that was because I bet you fall in love with Zumba. And I quit my job and I was like, well, what can I do? And I had started this business, Pearl Escapes.

It was like my cow. Okay, being a Zimmer instructor is something I can do while I figure this out. And so I did the training and I started being a Zimmer instructor and I was like, I can't believe that people are paying me to dance around. to dance, you know, because I love to dance and people are paying me.

I'm having my workout while I'm doing this and it's the best fun in the world. It's the most wonderful job. And it's funny, I'll just cut to this as, you know, you sent me some questions before and they're just brilliant questions. But you, there was a question and I was looking at it and it took me down this sort of journey into big awakening experiences, things like that.

And It's really easy to get caught up in personal importance. Mm hmm. The phrase that Don McGarvey always use, you know, this idea that we are important, and of course we are important, you know, we're all special, wonderful snowflakes, and you know, we're all trees, and you know, all different, and beautiful, and wonderful.

This idea of personal importance, and things we hang on to that. So money fame, having the right car, having the right house. You know, all of those things, status, and we say this and then we go right back the next minute to, to being caught in that trap of doing things because of how it looks. And I work, I know I've worked with enough millionaires, enough, very, very wealthy.

I mean, I worked in finance to know it doesn't make you happy and being a CEO doesn't make you happy unless you're doing something that you love. Yeah. And it was, I mean, Nelson Mandela said that, and it's so beautiful the way he put it, and I quote it in a couple of my books about, and he said, it's not any of these things that are, that we should be looking to cultivate.

The things that we should be looking to cultivate are kindness. And, you know, I know I sound like a bumper sticker, I sound like this kind of thing, but it really struck me this morning because we were talking about this book that I'm working on that's coming out. And I, and I, you know, there's an element of personal importance that I attach to it because I think the work that I've done is so groundbreaking.

It was so, you know, we'll change the world. It's so, it's changed my life. And I think it's going to change. It has the potential to change almost everybody's life in the world, which is kind of crazy. It's kind of mind blowing. And I get caught up in that in thinking about that makes me really important.

You know, that's, that's really important. But then I look again, and I think, The mind blowing, the most amazing, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant thing about this is that I am serving others and it's the same feeling when I'm standing on stage doing Zumba in front of all these people. It's, it looks, you know, from the outside, it looks like you're standing there.

All these people are like applauding you or whatever. And you're the most important person in the room. But being myself, doing the thing that makes me happy, what it is, is I am serving everybody in the room. And it's that feeling of service, of serving everybody, that is the best feeling ever. 

[00:14:39] Claudia: That ripple effect as well, because, you know, you're there leading everybody in this uplifting activity, they're feeling better about themselves.

You know, for me, I, I kind of treat Zumba classes like a kind of meditation in a way, because I can't think about anything else, but the music and letting my body move, like all the worries melt away. I'm not thinking about what, what I need to buy from the shops. I'm literally just. In the zone and it is freeing.

And I think the question was about basically the fact that we, we're quite scared to really know who we are. We, we've spent so many years fitting in and trying to fit in that actually knowing what we want is really difficult. And so we get blasted with these messages all the time. Like, okay, well, the, having the new phone, having the car, having a big house.

These are the things that are going to make you happy when actually if you take a minute and that might make you happy, but it also might be living off the grid. In a hut in the middle of the mountain somewhere that might be your place. And so I suppose it's a way about how do you go from that place of not really knowing what's going to make you happy to really figuring out, well, how can you unlock your potential?

How can you figure out what that is? And then you can start to think about where the theory of success is actually. coming in. 

[00:16:04] Pearl: Well, actually that's so, so, so I wrote the book. I should have had the books here. They're sitting in the other room. And, but so I wrote that in and I, and I released that Christmas 2019.

And so of course that came out just before COVID and it amazes me when I read that book now, because there's so much in there that was like. Whoa, it was a little bit psychic, you know, it was a little bit like talking about some things. I'm like, oh, you know, yeah. So, so, and it's, I think it's a bit like what I'm doing now this other way, you know, you feel like I'm coming to this at the perfect moment where this is going to become so important.

This is so important and the fear of success is about freedom. Okay. So when we are authentic ourselves, when we're doing that, we are free. And we say we're more afraid of freedom than we are of chains. So, and I, and I actually wrote a whole series of books before that, the Camino de la Luna, where we talk about, and I actually talked in that about that in that, because I left my life and went off traveling and that was so terrifying.

You know, I wanted to do it. I sold my house. I had the time and I literally put myself in a position of. I have enough time and money, pretty much, to do anything I want in the world. So I had, I created this sense, this freedom and so when that all happened and I, and I left the house and I was in a, you know, staying in a B& B, getting ready to go off and get on a plane, all that, I was terrified.

And it was like, there's all this fear coming at us. And it's really, you know, a lot of it's our ego fear, what we've learned to stay alive in this world. So we learn how to survive. And we learn to survive not in a vacuum, but with all the people around us. Okay. So when we're at school terrifying experience, you know if you're not popular and you're a geek, like me, you know, nerd, and you have to deal with the abuse and you have to deal with being yourself enough to get by, but don't be yourself too much because you're going to get beaten up bullied or Same thing with your family.

You might have family members who Who take the piss out of you, you know, who, who don't, and often the family members will do that because you're like them. You know, so often we see relationships like mothers very critical of children because they represent either what they've been taught to hate or what they wish they were, or, you know, having opportunities to do things that they didn't have.

Yeah. And a lot of times they're, they're, they're teaching us stuff because they've been taught to fear it or they resent the fact that you get to do. So it's very, very complicated and very, very simple at the same time. Mm-Hmm. , but, you know, my role and what I did and went out traveling and all this kind of thing.

And then, so what I did is during lockdown is I tried to distill that into what I call the practical trainings. So the practical trainings are really, really, I thought, you know what, let me do what I do in Zumba, which is not just kind of go, Hey, here's a salsa and all the things. I'm going to go right, we're going to do this step and then we're going to do this step and then we're going to do, you know, so I tried to really make it, you know, step by step and I do it in the new book as well.

The plan that I've done is like, this is the step by step, you know, A, B, you know, when you're going to put your Ikea stuff together, this is what you're going to do. Your instruction manual. Yeah, but it really starts with following your heart, beginning and end, follow your heart, listen to your heart. And it's very, it's a practice.

And when you get good at it, it gets easier. When you get good at it, it gets easier. When you do it more, it gets easier. Sorry, it's practice. It's practice against the master. So you've got to practice listening to your heart. And it's, I found that really hard at the beginning of lockdown because My natural, you know, who I am, where I am, and this is a lot of what I got taught not to do when I was a kid is don't talk to strangers, don't wander off.

And so, so setting myself free when I went, you know, set myself free before to go traveling was like, I can wander off and I could talk to strangers. And, and wonderful, magical things happened and I, I came to really to come to accept myself and just really deep healing work. And that took a lot of time and money to do that, to get to a place eventually of reconciliation which is actually the audio book I'm working on at the moment.

That's, that's going to come out soon. It's about reconciliation. Reconciling my family, my lineage, my ancestors, also the culture that I'm in, and who I am and accepting myself and loving myself, exactly who I am. And a lot of the things in me come from my dad. My parents had a very difficult relationship.

So anything that's like my dad, I've, I've I've put to the side. I didn't want to accept that as part of myself. You know, when people say, you're just like your father. It's going to be very painful, very hurtful. But we push away, you know, we cut off these pieces of ourselves and we put them away. And they're no better or worse.

They're just different. You know but anyway, what I found in COVID was like, you know, so difficult because suddenly having set myself free and done all this thang and come back to this really beautiful healing place. Suddenly, you're like, you can't wander off, you can't talk to strangers, you know, you're not allowed to stand in the street and talk to people.

It was a very dehumanizing experience and I, and I remember feeling, oh, here we go again. You know, I, I've just got all this stuff back and now it's going to, you know, this thing of trying, being somebody you're not, and at the time, you know, all the rules, everything, it was like. Don't be you. Don't be you.

Don't be you. Don't hug. 

[00:22:18] Claudia: I'm a hugger. Such a hugger. And it was literally, and it's taken me years to get back to being a hugger. With consent. I do check that the person wants a hug first. I just hug 

[00:22:28] Pearl: people randomly 

[00:22:29] Claudia: now, isn't it? Yeah. But, you know, it did, it really massively impacted just our, our whole ways of interacting with 

[00:22:37] Pearl: people.

And, and some people, you know, this thing is like, we have this, Oh, COVID's over. You know, and it's like, no, there's a lot of healing that needs to be done. And the amount of healing that needs to be done depends on where you were in the first place. You know, if you're a closed off workaholic to start with, you're probably okay, but you're probably still a closed off workaholic.

You might not have done, you know, you've missed out on the healing that might've happened if it wasn't for COVID. And also, you know, as we were talking before, we were talking about some, you know, health issues. COVID has made a lot of other health issues worse. So very often what we're doing is we are.

Like for me, migraine, and so migraine has been locking me in again, stopping me from being relaxed, being able to make plans, being able to do what I love. And it's, it's really interesting now because, you know, the book and the work I've done in the last. A few weeks, you know, I've had this kind of miraculous recovery.

Please let it continue, please let it go like that. Please let it be real. But suddenly it's like, as I say, it's like getting out of prison and it's like, what do I want to do? Where do I want to go? What's going to happen now? Oh, oh, oh, there's all these things and it's wonderful. And it's also a little bit scary.

And they do say, you know, that the people leaving prison find, you know, find it incredibly hard to rehabilitate back into society. And what I did when I was traveling, one of the things that really informed the work was looking at animals and rewilding. So orangutans in, you know, I went to visit the orangutans and learned about how they rewild orangutans.

And also bears, you know, bears that kept in captivity. And bears will do a thing of like just pacing, you know, they would just go backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. And it's quite, you know, this place went to look at it and they have. You know, it's a beautiful enclosure and then they have this little bit of concrete.

And they have the concrete because these bears have, you know, have lived on concrete. Yeah. But they need that feeling under their feet to feel comfortable and safe. To be on grass is very scary for them. But they're not, you know, as a bear, they are climbers, but they don't know how to climb trees. And so they, and you, you'll see them and they'll pace backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, because that's what they learn.

And we do it ourselves, you know, you suddenly, you know, when you're doing something, you're like, do I do this? Do I do this? Do I do this? And you think, I'm pacing, I'm pacing, you know, and it's because. It's familiar and it's safe. And if I, if I step out onto the grass or I try and climb a tree, I could get hurt.

I don't know how to do this, but that's our, you know, that's our natural thing. Yes. And with the orangutans, there was a beautiful female orangutan. She was the oldest one there, same age as me. And when I was there, she had been there 17 years and she was, she was semi wild. So she was only ever going to be semi wild because to rehabilitate to get wild again is, is much more difficult.

You know, when you saw it in lockdown, a lot of times people adapted very quickly to the rules and to being inside, you know, to certain rules and to get back out again can be much more difficult. And that's what we do. We need to get back to being ourselves.

I think 

[00:26:15] Claudia: it's, I mean, I can't obviously speak to everybody, but I think for me, I'm definitely not the same person that went into it and it has, I mean, so when lockdown started, I had a one year old. I was a single mum. My parents lived two and a half hours drive away. It was illegal for me to drive anywhere near my parents.

I couldn't wave through the window, you know, it was just me and Harry. We recently moved into the town that we live now. Didn't know anyone anyway. And just that kind of work, parent, work, parent, work, parent, work, parent. And then suddenly you're kind of like. Oh, I can go and do things, but is it safe? Do I remember how to talk to people?

Do I remember how to, you know, I, I'm a Northerner, so when I moved to London, everyone was like, why are you talking to people at a bus stop? Are you strange? She's clearly crazy. Whereas, you know, up North, we quite happily talk to anyone. That's just how it is. Just how it is. And you kind of have to re, like you say, re, rewild yourself.

Like literally like go, actually, we took such a long pause. From reality that there is, I don't know how long it's going to take to process it. I don't think I've even started it. 

[00:27:48] Pearl: You know, when I, when I was looking at this and the Sudoku, her name was this orangutan, and she was lovely and she'd obviously lived in, she lived in the wild and they fed them, sort of, they put out food every couple of days, every twice a day.

But she was living there and she had babies and, you know, it was all kind of things, but I remember looking at her and I thought, you know what, I may never be wild. I can be, I can be semi wild. Yeah. And it's about what's the most important things. but up for you, for me, for everybody. And also it's about choices as well.

Like when, you know,

I've been on this big spiritual path, I've met so many people, I've read so many books, and it's very difficult sometimes to do that familial healing, or maybe your partner, maybe your parents, and sometimes we have to leave our families, you know, sounds a little bit like, and sometimes that's the only way.

That we can do things. I remember, I, this was a long time ago when I started therapy and I was working with a therapist and I went into it and actually this, this came to me the other day and I'd love to share this because I think it's just the best thing. I, when I went into therapy and for a long time before that constantly feeling there's something wrong with me.

There's something wrong with me because I'm depressed because I'm miserable. Because I don't fit in, don't fit in with my family. There's something wrong and I wasn't happy. And I think it was actually an interview with Matthew Perry, who passed away, and he was saying something about not being able to be happy.

And I, and I remember thinking, but I am happy. I am happy. I'm like right now, I'm so happy. And I have all the normal annoyances. And up until recently, you know, this really big health. problem. And, but I'm still really, really happy because I, I've learned how to be me again. And it's not all the time, you know, I still make small talk.

I still do the polite thing which is what we call like in the, the warrior work, being a spiritual warrior, we call it restraint. I'm not repressing myself. I'm restraining myself. So if I, one of my family members says something that's really rude, or so a work colleague says something that's really.

discriminatory. I don't repress. If I want to say something, it's a choice. If I want to say something, if I want to say, don't you ever speak to me that way, I will. Or I can choose to restrain, you know, be, have restraint. You know, it's a choice. I can choose to never speak to my family again. If that's what it takes for me to be happy and me to free myself from feeling that I have to fit in or I have to make them happy.

That could be the choice for a lot of people who say gay. You know, and that's one of the things about the fear of success. It's understanding also, it's, it's a lot of choice in there. Yeah. 

[00:31:09] Claudia: And it's valuing yourself, isn't it? To go, actually, this is, this is making me happy. This is me and my authenticity.

And I value myself to not have to feel like I have to have these people in my life if I choose 

[00:31:23] Pearl: not to. And the big thing when I was sitting in therapy and I'd been through, I'd given my brother a kidney. I gave my brother a kidney. And I think, you know, part of me was thinking, Oh, that's really amazing.

And I'm going to feel wonderful afterwards. And a year later, I was in such a mess. And that's when I started, this was my third therapist and I, I went in and it was a bit like, it was too much for me because I thought, you know what, if I feel there's something wrong with me and people treat me badly, there must be something wrong with me.

And then I gave someone a kidney and they still treat me badly. So I thought I must be a really awful person. I must be a really awful person to, for people treat me this way, even after doing something as great as that. And so it was that kind of logic and trying to figure it out. And I was sitting with the therapist and what I learned was I'm okay.

I'm all right. I'm a decent human being. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve to be, be treated in this way. And it was a wake up call because again, it was that thing that there's something wrong with me, there's something wrong with me. And suddenly you go, Oh no, it's not me. It's you. It's you. Whether it's a relationship, it's like, you know what?

Whoa. And it doesn't mean to say there is actually anything wrong with the other person, because it could just mean we are in the wrong relationship. It can 

[00:32:50] Claudia: be the combination. Some combinations of 

[00:32:53] Pearl: people. Yeah, I'm in the wrong job. And everyone's trying to tell you, you need to keep this job. You know, we all hate our jobs, but it's a great job.

And you know, you should be here for the money and that. And you kind of go, it is the wrong job for me. I do not want to, I do not wish to be unhappy and rich. Yes. I am happy and poor. I'm being me and I say that, oh, I'm happy and poor. Yeah, of course I would love some more money. That would be great. 

[00:33:21] Claudia: Buy the book, please.

[00:33:22] Pearl: I think the thing is, is every day I'm following my heart. And sometimes it gets torn. You know, sometimes I want to do this and I want to do that. And it's really hard. And then sometimes I have to remember, you know what, I think that's my ego. Telling me I'm torn because I mean, I want to write my book. I want to get my book published.

I want to do this right now. And yet there's a little bit of heart goes, but grandma, grandma needs you, you know, and, and I think, is that true? Or is that my ego that's trying to. 

[00:33:52] Claudia: If that's like resonating with someone who's listening and they're kind of torn between two things, do you have any suggestions that they could use in that situation where they're being pulled 

[00:34:03] Pearl: between two different things?

Most important thing, right? So you say, I say, listen to your heart and you're like, yeah, yeah, bumper sticker, whatever. How do you do it? You do it. So I talk about this in practical training and it's. A lot of it is about you know, I use the thing called like a, like a mood board and say, look at pictures and see what, what pulls you, you know so that's actually a little goes back a bit before your question.

Don't know who we are. We don't know what's when I went off traveling. It's like, do I want to go? You know, I had a lot of ideas and. What actually happened was a lot different because every step I took, I was changing. And so you have a five year plan, but you don't know who you're going to be. I don't know who I'm going to be tomorrow.

So I might make all these plans and then tomorrow morning I wake up and I might have a gut feeling of, I have to go to my grandma. And that's instinct, you know, that instinct. But the most important thing is get quite quiet and listen to it. And so I use a kind of practice of meditation. that was taught to me by Don Miguel Ruiz, which is to silence the mind.

And in a meditation, we can use that word for so many different practices, but the practice is really just to get very, very quiet and stop talking. So stop listening to the, when you hear this little voice in your head. If it's speaking in English, shut up, because that's the ego. Excuse me. And what we want to do is get so quiet, so quiet, stop thinking, stop thinking, stop talking in your head, and stay in that space of silence, and allow the feelings to come up.

You know, feel, don't think, feel. Because It will come up and it will be so clear, but it is that practice, you know, and we'll get, we'll make, we'll make mistakes. Sometimes you think, oh, I think that, you know, or sometimes we'll hear something really clearly and we'll go and do it and we realize it's a mistake.

It's a mistake we needed to make. Yes. You know, that's the path. You know, when I did this Camino, Camino de Luna, I was on this, you know, I was learning things all the time and sometimes you can't learn without making mistakes. You say that a lot, but it's like it's very difficult because I think, as I always say, during COVID, it was like we, we couldn't make mistakes.

You made a mistake. Somebody died. And that's, I think very often, like when you're a little kid, sometimes that's how you come to feel. Often if you have, I would say parents when you were afraid, that's everybody, but there's scale. So I think when you, if you, we talk about people pleasing and, you know, trying to make people like you, that kind of thing, that is a survival instinct.

And it's, I think it's very hard for some people to understand that if you grew up with the kind of environment, parents, people that, you know, they loved you, whatever you did, they didn't tell you off that much or it was quite, you know, I see kids like that in my family and where, where the parents tell them off and go, yeah, yeah, you know, I was terrified of being told off.

Me too. And I think, you know, there's a, you, you kind of. It makes you in some ways, a really good student. You do really well at school because you don't want to be told off. You know, I was, I was a model student, model student, apart from a couple of times, you know, but it was like, you know, you try so hard to avoid getting in trouble, but you still do sometimes, but it's like always getting your homework in on time always saying, you know, cause you just, you've just got to, you know, but it's, it's a survival instinct and it's really hard when that carries, you know, you're growing up like that and it's like.

What if they don't like me? What if, what if this? What if that? And at a certain point you kind of go, it's okay for people to not like you. And actually, you know, one of the best things is you learn in the end, when you are yourself, people like you more. Some people don't, but in general, like when I was traveling, everybody was always trying to be kind to me and help me and support me, look after me, because they can feel that authenticity.

So that authenticity is it's like, you know, it's like a superpower and people feel it, but I think they also feel that you're, you're not, your intention is not to take advantage of them. You know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a challenge sometimes because. You know, when I let everything go and I was sort of backpacking with nothing and you know, it was such a jump, such a leap of faith and a trust, you know, a lot of trust there.

And it was really amazing to me just how supported I was when I made that leap of faith. And I'm still I still get scared about things and I stress about stuff and then, but the more I lean into sort of trusting that whatever is for me will show up, then it does. And, and I realized, okay, and it's difficult because there are times when things go really, really horribly wrong, but I think those moments are there to show you, you can reach out and ask for help.

And that doesn't ever go away. Like what those times when you were really low and and you felt like why is the universe doing this to me? Why am I like even when I went into therapy? That's just a low point But then I reached out and got that help and the person who I worked with was somebody not only who was a fantastic therapist But who also connected me up to this sort of spiritual world because I was very negative that I was very closed off to you know, anything that you could describe as like a shamanic, because growing up and also we are, we are one of the first generations that can talk about this kind of stuff openly.

Exactly. Before that I would have been locked up for being crazy. So we are the first generations that can, so you can say, well, why did my parents shut that down because it was dangerous at the time. And there's that, 

[00:40:30] Claudia: Ultimately, we've got generations of stored memories in ourselves, in our subconscious, but also in the way that in our interactions with society and all those things that we pick up as part of being human sponges, picking up millions of bits of information every day.

A lot of it we don't register, but the, if you stepped out of line back in, say when caveman times. If you were ostracized from the tribe, your chances of survival were not very good, let's face it. So you kind of trade the line, you do what everyone else is doing, you keep peace, you people please. And then I was reading recently about the witch wound and obviously people taking Their power and actually, you know, saying, I don't need to get married.

I want to earn a living as a woman. And there wasn't just women. It was men as well that were brutally killed because of this, but primarily women stepping into their power and actually saying, you know, whether they were healers or midwives or any, any person really, it was the slightest thing is if you stepped out of line, there was a punishment.

So we carry all of this trauma unknowingly. And it's why it is, particularly if you're raised in that thing where it is, you will do as you're told, or there'll be a consequence. You've got all this fear inside you. You might not be able to put your finger on it, you might not know it, but it'll be manifesting in those ways where you're like, be my friend.

Love me, love me, love me. But actually they can't love you because you don't know who you are. 

[00:42:18] Pearl: Well, I, I'm going to disagree with you on that. That's fine, I'd love a disagreement. One of the big things that has unlocked for me, again it was one of your questions earlier that I was reading, it took me to a place, it was like when I had this, I had this really big awakening, that I grew up, and It happened, I'd done so much work and everything, and I'd even been to a big spiritual retreat, I'd done firewalking, I'd been doing, you know, this thing with Don Miguel Ruiz and his family, it was just all this amazing, amazing stuff.

And I was in Sedona and he said this thing, it was wonderful. And very often, you know, it's these tiny little bits that you get when you are in person with somebody who's a great teacher or healer. It's not the, you know, it's just the energy as well. But he said this thing that I was having a real struggle with a romantic relationship and also all my family as always, you know, he said, he said, we say to our beloved.

I love you so very much. If you would just do what I say, we could be so happy. And we all laughed, and I laughed, and I was like, but I also was like, it was like, it was like a question. Because everyone was like, yes, but what else is there? You know, what else is there? To love than this. And so we're in Sedona, which has got these amazing dark skies.

It was really rainy and I went to bed and I woke up really early in the morning and I went out wandering and stars in Sedona. I mean, they talk about it and it is. incredible when you look up and you see the stars. And for me, when I'm in a natural environment, I often, you know, the penny drops when I'm in a natural environment.

So I was looking up at this huge sky and the stars and stars and stars and you went, that's Love like there's always more, you know, there's more that's that's unconditional love. Oh my gosh, there's no limit It doesn't go away. I was like, I know like my nieces and nephews. It's like your children Yeah, ever they do in life.

They could do the worst thing imaginable You know, they could kill somebody and you might turn them into police, but I'd still go and visit them in prison I would never ever ever ever stop loving them no matter what I would stop loving them and I went wow This is unconditional love. Guess what? I love I love everybody unconditionally all the time.

I don't, but what I didn't realize was the big thing that was going on in me and I didn't understand it in that moment, I went off and I, and I went to this Native American healing and I had this profound awakening and what had unlocked in me was I suddenly realized that I love myself unconditionally.

Yeah. And you suddenly, that thing where you go, no matter who I am or what I do, I love me. It doesn't matter what anybody else, oh wow, like this is, there's, there is a well in me and it doesn't, you know, we love, love is just all around us, you know, it's that kind of, but then when you said that thing about sometimes people say, oh, you have to do this for other people to love you or whatever, and it's like, no, no, no, it's, that's all around, you know, we, sometimes we confuse love and boundaries and, and, and different things like that, but it's, yeah.

It's all, you know, it's all there. 

[00:45:54] Claudia: True love isn't, isn't conditional, you know, it's not like, I'm only going to love you if you stack the dishwasher. That's not what it is. You love the person regardless of what they're physically doing. As you said, you know, they could do something you deeply disagree with, but you still love them.

[00:46:16] Pearl: Yeah, but I think sometimes it's It's incredibly difficult because, you know, we do have people in our lives sometimes that we cannot be around and we cannot speak to, we cannot contact them and it's funny when you're talking about the lineage and healing this, you know, witch wound and the history and all this kind of stuff.

And I remember I did, and I write about this in the book, I did, a session at this I think it was the Best You Expo in London. I went with my friend and she was kind of acting as a little bit of a coach for me because I was saying, you know, I've got this fear of success, so, you know, what can I do and what, what sessions should I go to in this thing?

And I was looking through the whole brochure and I was like, Oh, I don't know. And she looked through and went, what about this one on fear of success? You know, and that's the thing. The fear stops us from seeing what's right in front of us. Which is kind of what I was saying to you about some of the work that I'm doing now is it's when you do maths and you actually write it down, you can't escape the answer because you're, you know, so it's a really good.

It's the process is not so much the figuring out. It's not letting the answer run away from you. 

[00:47:26] Claudia: Or not dismissing it because 

[00:47:27] Pearl: it's too easy. I think that's why people like, you know, the journaling kind of thing, because if you write it down, it's right in front of you. And, and that, one of the other questions was about once you've identified the thing.

And it's like, the identification is the, is the, it's, that's the 99 percent of the work. Because if you, if you decide and you figure out what it is that you want to do, and then you put it, you know, write it on the wall in front of you. I will do this. You'll do it. It's the, it's the getting to that, you know.

When I went to Borneo to the orangutans, I had actually before that I had no desire to go. And when I was on this, this journey, and I was like trying to figure out things about where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do. And I realized one of the things that had happened was I had blocked the desire to do that.

And one of the reasons was when I was a kid, we used to go to Chessington Zoo. Mm hmm. And they used to have like the, the monkey house or the ape house. Yeah. And they used to have orangutans in there and it was, it was like, you know, the quintessential worst. environment for an animal, which is, you know, they were in a white room, you know, so you had orangutans in a, you know, probably a room that's about as big as my living room.

These enormous, you know, and being there looking at them, you know, through the glass or the, it might have been bars, I don't know. It's a long time ago and I just remember feeling just, you know, so awful and so sad. But at the same time, loving seeing an orangutan, you know, and I realized that I'd shut down this feeling like, I want to go and see the orangutans.

It's like, I don't want to go and see the orangutans because for me to see them, they have to be kept in a box. So I was protecting them by saying, I don't want to the orangutans. It's like, I'm protecting them from being treated that way because I hated seeing them in a box. Yeah, and I sort of, you know, it's figuring out these things where we've, we've, we've tangled it up.

We've got, we've got turned around. And then when I went, it was wonderful because they're, you know, this is a preservation place, conservation place, where they're trying to make them wild. They're trying to get them to go off into the, the jungle. So, so going there was a really good thing because it was supporting something like that.

And it was wonderful because it was like, okay, this is. This is fantastic because I'm doing what I love and open. I'm opening myself up to the parts of me that I've shut down, but sometimes it's only by doing those things that we realize, okay, this is a wonderful holiday or this is the rest of my life.

This is the rest of, and one of the big things that you said about the witch wound is. When I did the training at this expo, so we did a medihealing. It was going down into, into our bodies, into our ancestors, you know, what, what is, what am I carrying that I need to heal to be me, to be successful, to be, to, to tap into my power.

And again, it's sometimes a nonverbal, you know, going really feeling, feeling. And what I really felt was.

I'm a really good hider and my family survived and when I went and I researched my lineage and everything, it's like, we survived because we lied. , we survived because we said no. I don't feel anything strange. No, I, I can't help anybody. No, I don't know anything about herbs and healing and no, I'm not gonna give you a massage.

No, I'm not gonna do any dancing around. You know, I, I'm gonna be a straight laced, boring practical, mathematical, comfortable, , I'm gonna say in the safe space. where everything is black and white and there is no magic and there is no medicine and I am going to deny my nature. I'm denying my lineage, my ancestry, everything about who I am because if I don't, this comes from my family, we will be put to death.

And that goes up until, as you say, you know, very recently that we are, and when I wrote before I was my guide to healing, you know, in the 70s, and that's the year, the decade I was born in the 70s, people in Native American healers were still being. locked up for talking about spirit animals, for you know, and, and, you know, women particularly, when we talk about these things, you're hysterical, you're hysterical, and you must be carted off to the loony bin.

And I actually lived opposite a what I lovingly refer to as a loony bin, don't mean to offend anybody because it's where I grew up mental hospital in Epsom. And, you know, what was very sad is growing up, you know, so many elderly ladies in, in Epsom. You'd see them around and they weren't great and their mental health wasn't great.

But what we discovered was that they had been put there when they were young women, because they had become pregnant out of wedlock. And so they were put into mental hospitals and spent their lives in mental hospitals. And that would 

[00:52:53] Claudia: be enough to detach you from reality to a certain extent, because just because you're pregnant doesn't mean that you've lost.

Your mind might feel that way sometimes, but 

[00:53:06] Pearl: a lot of these women were connected to wealthy families where the shame was so, you know, that if you were because it was so close to London, so you had people who, and to see these people who, I suppose this will probably be in the, the 20s and 30s, you know, and they.

They had lost their whole lives. Their whole life was gone because they had been locked up for transgressing a societal norm. But we are a great generation because we are able to talk about things, but we must, I do think we mustn't judge other generations because the punishment that they had was, you know, my, my mum my grandma didn't have any of the opportunities I've had.

And I get to talk about this stuff. I get to, but I have to fight this feeling, this training that also comes from my lineage of don't, don't let them see what you can do. Don't let them see what you can do because you're going to get in trouble, we'll get in trouble and you'll also get us all in trouble.

[00:54:06] Claudia: Exactly. It's dangerous to be seen. Oh my God, I could talk to you all day about everything. We've kind 

[00:54:15] Pearl: of gone in a really weird way. We've gone 

[00:54:17] Claudia: so full circle. So with regards to fear of success, you have some amazing resources. So you have the Pearlescape's fear of success, the instructor trainings, the practical trainings.

Do you still have the journal? I know you released a 

[00:54:32] Pearl: journal. It's a journal, it's online, yeah. It's, it's kind of fun. It's it's just, it's just a little like, you know, it's got some quotes and some questions and quite like coaching questions you can, you can pick up. And it's a paperback, so it's quite nice and you can hold on to it.

And it's all available on Amazon and a lot of other bookshops as well. And I'm doing more and more audiobooks as well. Excellent. A lot of people find it easier to Yeah. Yeah, 

[00:54:58] Claudia: definitely. So I will drop the links to those in the show notes and if anyone has got any questions I'll link to your social media as well.

So that you can get in touch. I would love to chat all day, but I have to go and look after my children. 

[00:55:16] Pearl: Look, it's all there and there's, you know, you can also email me as well. It's a lot, but just start, do a little bit and then do a bit 

[00:55:26] Claudia: more. And it's like that exploration, isn't it? Like you said with, you know, why do I not want to see your own new tongues is actually until you really ask yourself those questions, like why, then you won't ever figure it out.

And so it's like starting little, quieting your mind and yeah, just have a look at everything that Pearl puts out there. It's absolutely 

[00:55:48] Pearl: fantastic. I think the biggest thing is it's, it's about, it's all about truth. If you've been saying something to yourself for a while, or even sometimes if you have to keep saying something a lot, you know, you can ask yourself, is this, is this really, you know, again, the book that I'm doing about you, always asking yourself, is this really true?

Is this really true? And, you know, also it could be true yesterday, but not true today. Yeah, I want to do this. I want to go there. I love this person. I want to live with this person. I don't, I do, you know, just it's, it's learning to, to be honest with yourself, which sounds really simple, but honestly, I don't think there's many people that can really do it.

Work in progress. 

[00:56:32] Claudia: And that's the thing, isn't it? It's being compassionate with yourself. So say, for example, if it's taken you 50 years to realise this is me, not thinking, why has it taken me 50 years? Going, I'm so glad that I've realised now. And I'm going to enjoy the rest of the time I have. 

[00:56:47] Pearl: You have to remember, you know, when you do this kind of work Often you see people who, you know, the big spiritual teacher and things like that, who seem to have it all figured out and they're fantastic, but they are, you know, very, very few people will, will get to a place of being truly authentic in their lifetime.

So, yeah, give yourself a break. I mean, if you manage, great teacher said, you know we're all Buddhas to be. So at some point you will be, you will become a Buddha, you will become truthful and able to say it might be this year, it might be next year, it might be this lifetime, it might be next lifetime.

You know, we'll get there, but yeah, it can take several lifetimes. So don't give yourself a hard time. 

[00:57:38] Claudia: Fabulous. You started with a Marianne Williamson quote, and I'd like to finish with one, which is actually my screensaver at the moment, but it's nice. I love synchronicities. So the quote is don't be concerned that things appear to be falling apart.

This has to happen in order for something new and wonderful to emerge. And so it can be messy beginning to question these things, but don't be disheartened is the start of something beautiful. And that's That's 

[00:58:09] Pearl: it for today. Thank you so much, Claudia. It's okay.