Doing Your Work with Rita Henry

[00:00:09.710] - Sheila

Welcome to the spiritual geek podcast, Wisdom for Modern Times, where we focus on living with intention to consciously create a life you love and celebrate. I'm your host, Sheila Franzen, and I'm so excited to share another episode with you. Today, Rita has joined me for a conversation about a concept she refers to as doing your work. Rita is an intuitive guide and healer who helps people release stored pain from their past because she's faced her home. From sexual assault to the death of her nine day old daughter, Rita's gotten her ass kicked by life and now helps others heal theirs. She calls this process of seeing how you got where you are and releasing the emotions keeping you held in pain and struggle, doing your work, which we'll be talking about today. Rita makes it easier to do your work by naming truth, holding a safe space for you to show up exactly as you are, and making energetic shifts that quiet the noise so you can make peace with your troubled past and create a life you freaking love. Welcome, Rita. Thank you for being here.

[00:01:04.770] - Rita

It's so good to be here. Thank you. Love it. I love that we're talking about such a practical, tangible topic.

[00:01:15.190] - Sheila

Yeah. It's not going to work every day, so it's a very different concept.

[00:01:20.160] - Rita

Exactly.

[00:01:22.230] - Sheila

Is there anything else you'd like to share as part of your introduction so that people have a sense of who you are?

[00:01:27.810] - Rita

I'd really like to name the fact that life hands us really tough things, right? But none of the things we experience are actually the truth of who we are. A lot of times we get stuck in believing I am my past and what's happened to me. As I work with clients, it's just so important to recognize you are not any of the things that's happened to you, the things that knock you on your booty, the things that are a punch in the gut. They do not define you, but they certainly do shape you. That's been a super important thing as I've done my work to remember and to just celebrate. It helps me to connect with the joyful connections without the heaviness of, Yes, I had that experience. Yes, I'll have to navigate and release the held emotions and misunderstandings about who I am. But on the other side, I still get to be happy.

[00:02:36.580] - Sheila

Yes, and that's what we're all trying to get to, right? That aspect of where do we find joy and happiness in our day to day lives.

[00:02:46.290] - Rita

Absolutely. It's been such a relief for me to recognize that every single relationship that I have and how I experience that relationship is actually a reflection of who I am. When I realized all the triggers that I was experiencing in my life where I kept tripping over, the concept of what it means to do my work and what's up for me to heal was so important with all of it. It's really humbling, actually.

[00:03:21.200] - Sheila

Yeah. When we stand in that place to start to look at ourselves, then we discover an awareness. There's Eckert Tolle, the whole observer aspect of being an awareness so that we know what we might need to bring attention to.

[00:03:39.680] - Rita

That's a very good point because really the secret sauce is once you start doing your work, you get to see all the ways that you're struggling in the relationships. One of the things that I found so helpful is I was mostly struggling in my relationships because I was in them.

[00:03:59.310] - Sheila

There's a common thread and what's that thread? Oh, wait, it's me.

[00:04:05.300] - Rita

I know.

[00:04:07.740] - Sheila

That's the definition of work because I always like to play with words. When I read the definition that Webster or maybe whoever somebody on the web has for work, an activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something. When we have such an aspect, particularly in the US, this attachment actually to the concept of work, we have all these workaholics in the world, and we get very focused on our aspect of what do we need to do to make money or to be successful in the world. We often discover that no matter how much we work or how much money we have, none of that actually gets us back to what we've just introduced or the concept of talking about, which is really being happy and being joyful and being peaceful and understanding ourselves. I love how you've actually taken a concept called this really self help, self improvement. It's had so many names throughout time, at least even in my life. I've looked at things and just called it doing the work. And it's like, yeah, because why wouldn't we want to work on ourselves more rather than all of the time and effort we spend trying to be successful in a career to still come back to some point in our life going, it's not working.

[00:05:38.730] - Sheila

I'm still not happy. I'm still not content. I still don't have the relationship I want or the money I want or whatever that is. I think it's really fun to dig into what doing your work looks like.

[00:05:52.180] - Rita

I love that you're asking that because it's so humbling. To me, doing the work is recognizing anything that takes me away from being able to live openheartedly, being able to be happy, be joyful, be connected, that is showing me what I need to work on. Doing your work, a lot of times people consider it voodoo and way out there. But what I found was it's actually the most practical thing I've ever found. Because a lot of times people will say certain things like, Oh, I'm happy. And yet you look at them and it's through the eyes of judgment and constraint, and it's so painful. So once I started to really come across and look at energy work, I was finally home. It was like, bam, because there was this continuity. There was recognizing as I learned how to read energies, where are the blocks to being happy? Is it mental? Is it emotional? Is it physical? And really, when you roll up your sleeves and dig in, doing your work is really all about love and truth. And yet as we walked through life, we were taught to give our power away. For me, my core issue in this lifetime was all about feeling abandoned and rejected.

[00:07:32.360] - Rita

And yet innocence, I didn't recognize all the ways I was abandoning and rejecting myself. So for me, doing your work is really about diving into where are the blocks to love and truth, and how, essentially, can I come back online?

[00:07:51.900] - Sheila

Back online, I love that. It's the aspect of how do we be more fully present in this moment? There's so many teachings around the present moment. Eckart Tolle pops in my mind again as we're talking about this and being in the moment because if we become aware of why we're not in the moment, that really is our opening that says, Why am I not in this moment? Am I worried about the future? Is something coming up from my past? Is there resistance? Am I frustrated? Anything that takes us out of this moment is an opening to look at.

[00:08:39.440] - Rita

Absolutely. So what you just said, it's really about paying attention to when we're triggered. If I'm triggered, then that's absolutely the secret Dakota ring that's showing me what's up for me to heal where I need to lean in and do my work, even when the other person is being the biggest jerk in the world. If I'm inflamed, if I'm triggered off center, then I'm being shown, Wait a minute, I don't have to lose my center when somebody else is being the jerk. I need to recognize, Wait a minute, where is this pain from my past and what is up for me to heal? The reality is we can't have peace with our now unless we make peace with our past. That childhood experience where we have stored trauma, and for me, the definition of trauma is anything from your past where you don't have peace with it. At the time when your third grade teacher brought you up to the chalkboard and ended up making fun of you and the entire class laughed at you, and your body froze and you weren't able to process that, well, that freeze response can still impact your ability to feel safe talking to large groups of people or being seen in your life.

[00:10:12.500] - Rita

To me, doing your work is creating that really safe place where you can roll up your sleeves and just allow yourself to feel those feelings, to be brought into present time, and to look at some of the conclusions you came to about yourself that were never true.

[00:10:36.640] - Sheila

And boy, don't we come to a lot of those conclusions.

[00:10:39.460] - Rita

Oh, I know. The stories of I'm not enough or I'm not lovable, or I was absolutely plagued with the thought and belief that I needed to work harder in a relationship than anyone else in order to be worthy, or I needed to work harder because then they would need me so then I wouldn't be abandoned and rejected. A lot of these patterns, once we begin to understand them, then all of a sudden we have a choice that we never knew existed.

[00:11:18.150] - Sheila

Yes. The early steps that you start to take with those moments of discovery, it can feel like it will never end. I'm aware of that. But if I deal with that, then I have to deal with this and I have to deal with that and I have to deal with this. And it's like, Well, maybe. But also it's just really about one thing at a time. I think sometimes we can, and I know I used to do this personally, I'd look at my life and I'd like, Oh, there's so many things that are falling apart or not going well. And yeah, I don't do this right and I feel this way and I have this belief. And on different personal development or self help classes that I had gone through. Sometimes that feels so overwhelming because you're like, Fine, then I'm not doing any of it.

[00:12:19.890] - Rita

It's so true. Recently, I had a conversation with someone and I just had so much compassion for them. They had talked about joining one of my communities for women that I facilitate healing, Journey To Your Center. They had shared that they wanted to do their work at some point in their life, but not right now because they knew it would change them. They knew it would change their life. I just looked at them with my jaw dropped and I said, I'm so impressed with your awareness. Some times we're holding up that house of cards and it's okay. I just loved her awareness that right now she didn't want change in her life and she knew she was committed to it, but it wasn't the time or the place that she was interested in doing it. Ultimately, doing your work gives you the connection with yourself that we've always wanted. A lot of times we hunger, and this was me all over the place, especially with men. I wanted intimacy, but it came at a cost of losing myself. It was so painful. Ultimately, when we do our work, it's really about getting intimate with ourselves. We don't even know, though, it's rather ludicrous because we don't even know how disconnected from ourselves we are because we're taught to be disconnected, right?

[00:14:04.040] - Rita

Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel. When we do our work, again, it helps us to come back online and to live that guided, joyful, connected life that we hunger for. But sometimes we're not even open to that. We're just, I need to be disappointed in myself, so I'll do better. What's that? It's a misunderstanding.

[00:14:30.340] - Sheila

Or it's a pattern that is just what we learned. I was having that conversation. I can't remember who it was. I talk about these topics with everybody in my life. But recently I was talking to somebody and I was like, It's the aspect of once something comes into our awareness, then we have to decide, do you shove it back down or do you pay attention to it? And it might be that that one you're not ready to deal with. And then it's like, Well, there'll be another one. What's in the next moment? And so it doesn't have to be complicated to do your work. It really is just an aspect of starting to pay attention. How am I walking through life? What's automated and what's not? What am I enjoying? What am I not? But rather than just resist it and say, I don't want to do any of it. It's like, Well, just pick something little then. Pick a little thing. It doesn't have to be a big thing.

[00:15:35.950] - Rita

That's absolutely spot on. One of the things that I've noticed is the universe absolutely has our back. So if I'm avoiding the thing and not dealing with it and putting my blinders on to avoid, pretend and deny that it's there, the universe is going to amp that up and throw it into my face. Once I started recognizing, if I didn't pay attention and lean in to the triggers along the way, they would just get amplified and I'd get my booty kicked even more. It just, to me, felt really loving and kind to learn about what it meant to face my triggers, even when other people were acting out of line. Because the reality is, at the end of the day, Sheila, this is a world of insanity, and world peace is an inside job. Being able to recognize that my triggers were actually the key to my castle of learning how to release blocks to me experiencing love and joy, it just meant the world to me. Every time that little trigger that you were talking about, which is a great place to start with, that I started paying attention and making adjustments. What attitude am I bringing to it?

[00:17:07.930] - Rita

Or what energies need to be cleared, whether it was held trauma for my past or recognizing a shifting consciousness or a new belief because the old one wasn't working. I just gained more space and more freedom in my life. I love your attitude about just one little thing at a time and being able to be kind and gentle to ourselves and choosing not to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of what's before us, but just really trusting the process along the way.

[00:17:48.190] - Sheila

Yes, trust and surrender. That is almost always part of this journey. You had mentioned peace in there early in what you were just talking about. I remember you used that phrase of world peace is an inside job. I remember when I first started this aspect of personal improvement or doing my work so many years ago, I was like, That makes no sense. How can world peace be an inside job? I'm like, I think it's taken me 20 years, but I do understand it now.

[00:18:31.730] - Rita

How would you describe it?

[00:18:36.170] - Sheila

I'll come back to that. That's a good question. I was so conflicted. I'm a math major and the problem solver and the analyst in me, it was like, There's no peace. There's no peace inside of me because I'm always solving a problem. I'm always seeing what's wrong in the world. It's taken me years to learn how to use that same skill to find out what's right in the world versus what's wrong in the world and to focus. There's always a glass half full or half empty. And I found a notebook several years ago of quotes that I had written back when I was in elementary school and high school of inspirational quotes. Even at that age, I was trying to make sense out of life of like, I don't feel this way. And yet there's these quotes that say this is how the world works. And then I handed it to my daughter, who also loves quotes. And so she's continued it. But it's that aspect of we have these moments of awareness. When we feel so much conflict inside of us, it does feel like world peace is not an inside job. If the world would just be peaceful, I could be peaceful, but it's really the opposite.

[00:19:57.770] - Sheila

We can be peaceful in a world that is not. With eight billion of us almost on this planet, world peace, our experience of life comes from just that, our own internal experience. It's going on outside. It's how do we find peace within us and know what's going on inside of us.

[00:20:22.890] - Rita

Absolutely. What you're talking about is really we're taught to give our power away. I can only be happy. I used to believe when my children were young and in the household that they needed to be happy before I could be happy, that my ex husband needed to be happy before I could be happy, and it was a form of giving all my power away. It's, Wait a minute, when can I connect with myself and be happy, satisfied, and joyful, no matter what's going on around me? I need to do my work. It's really a tremendous understanding, remembrance to be able to say, Wait a minute, I don't need to go through a middleman and spend my time trying to make everyone else happy so then I can get a morsel of peace and joy because that house of cards is going to fall and somebody's going to be unhappy again in 2.5 microseconds. It's really empowering to recognize. It's similar to the statement from the Bible where Jesus supposedly said, I am in this world but not of this world. Can I be happy with what's going on and not take it on as the only truth?

[00:21:56.060] - Rita

Can I make that connection with the light, truth and love that I am and amplify that in the world?

[00:22:07.430] - Sheila

That's just how can we amplify that? Absolutely. The role of peacekeeper. I think there's so many people that play that role of I can't be peaceful until what's around me. T hat's when we have to come back and say, Well, it's not what's around us that's causing it. Whether that's politics or I stopped watching the news and listening to the radio 20 years ago because I'm like, I just can't fill my head and my energy space with all of that.

[00:22:41.300] - Rita

And yet I'm to.

[00:22:43.000] - Sheila

Actually watching more of it and paying attention to more of it because now I wasn't in a place then that I wasn't affected by it, to be honest. And now I can watch it and have compassion and love and come from a place of choice that says, Well, do I want to go take action somewhere? How do I want to contribute to making change in the world? If I'm still reacting, how do I find my own inner internal peace? And then how do I go help somewhere? And so it's a very different perspective than where I was when I started a journey of recognizing what things I have control of and what I don't. I love.

[00:23:24.900] - Rita

That because what you're doing is you're talking about connection with yourself. When you look at it, you could save the whales, you can save the s nails. Where is it that your passion lies? When you connect with your passion, you're connecting with sharing that love with the truth that's amplified. You don't have to worry about all the different pieces that you really aren't into. It's about where is it that you want to put your heart in that you're inspired to do. I love that, Sheila.

[00:24:09.660] - Sheila

I love hearing your journey, and I love reflecting on my own as we have this conversation about doing the work because it is a journey. There's not an end point to doing your work. The beginning point is when you say, Oh, I'm paying attention to my life and I've noticed that something's not how I want it. I mean, everybody's doing their work all the time. It's just at what.

[00:24:34.920] - Rita

Level of consciousness and awareness, how aware are they of doing their work? When I was a child, growing up in my household, my dad was super angry and abusive, mentally and emotionally, mostly, sometimes physically. Within that, he was recreating the horrors of his own childhood and his own abuse that he had received. And yet we all were taught I'm the youngest of five kids, we were taught to walk on eggshells to not make dad angry. But the reality is dad was always going to get angry. So I was taught to control and manipulate other people, and that led to me completely losing myself along the way. I couldn't have wants, I couldn't have needs. They weren't going to be met. We learned through contrast, right? We're on this Earth plane as near as I can tell to evolve, and we evolve through that contrast. When we have the master teachers who are reverse role models in our life, they're really inviting us and showing us all the ways that we can do our work and claim that connection of the light, love, and truth that we are for ourselves. I just appreciate that so much.

[00:26:12.250] - Sheila

Yes, so do I. This planet of duality, we are all here learning together, and there's a whole lot of souls on this planet learning together right now. I just feel so much appreciation and love and compassion that we are all here. Earth is a beautiful planet. It's got some crazy parts to it, but as a planet, Earth is incredibly beautiful. And yet there is so much turmoil and frustration and pain and war and crazy on this planet. And yet we're all here together. We can all support each other and love each other and find our path through and know that whatever we're going through, somebody else is probably going through something tougher than we understand. So this conversation about doing your work is really just an opening. It's a I don't know. It's a reminder. It's just if you're listening to a concept called doing your work and you're doing it, right? You're already doing it. Acknowledge that just listening to conversations and learning and curiosity, those are all ways that everybody is doing their work. Then when we get stuck, I think that's the part where sometimes when we get stuck, we give up. It's the opportunity when we get stuck that we actually reach out to one of the other amazing eight billion people and souls on this planet and find one that can help us.

[00:27:54.520] - Sheila

Rita is going to share a little bit about what work she does. There's all kinds of people in the world that are guiding and coaching people. It's this aspect of then being able to recognize that no matter how far along we are on our journey, whether you're just starting or whether you've been doing it 20, 30 years and hundreds of thousands of lifetimes, there's just points where we hit these roadblocks, and those are the moments where it's like, I'm willing to ask for help. I'm willing to try somebody, try a new technique, try something new so that I can come back to or rediscover or remember the peace and joy that's available.

[00:28:37.420] - Rita

That's such a beautiful way to describe it, Sheila. When my daughter died, it actually broke my heart open and putting lipstick on the experience that I smelled my way through it. But the end of the story wasn't written yet. So for all of us to remember, no matter what tough points in your life you're experiencing, it's not the end of the story. And we do evolve and learn through the contrast. And when we don't do our work, we often stay in the level of victimhood, disconnect, and hurt. It doesn't have to be that way when we are guided to take the next step, to also reach for the joy, reach for the place of connection, snuggle with the puppy, whatever that means to you, because the pain isn't the only thing in life. The pain is showing us what's up to heal, and it's also an invitation to recognize we're not in alignment with love right now and how can we return to love?

[00:29:53.500] - Sheila

Yes, it's always about how can we return to love. Thank you, Rita, for joining me today. I feel like returning to love is a great place to start to bring our conversation to a close. I'm sure that Rita will be back and we'll talk about other topics because Rita has been on her journey for a long time and so have I. And so it's fun to go explore these different topics that are out there. So, Rita, before we close, would you like to share something more specific about one of your offerings so that people know how if they would like to work with you of how you can help them move along their journey?

[00:30:34.370] - Rita

Absolutely. First of all, I just want to say thank you so much for creating a space to just have real conversations where we get to be real people and just share our hearts with each other. I've loved being here with you. As far as offerings, on my website, I have a how to do your work freebie under Free Resources. It's on ritahenry. Com, and people can just tune in to be more reflective of even what you said. You're already doing your work, but how can you amplify in awareness to start rolling up your sleeves and through awareness, really bring more compassion and understanding to the process of what it means to do your work? If you want a little bit deeper dive, there are a couple of communities that I offer. The Essentials, which is a place that people can roll up their sleeves and really jump start their healing journey, whether they're new to energy work or deeper dive. It has meditations and discussions. Just really, it's a lovely guide to help to accelerate the process of your healing journey.

[00:31:59.540] - Sheila

Thank you. You've just listened to the spiritual geek podcast. Thank you for joining us. If you've enjoyed this episode, be sure to share a comment and rating on your favorite podcast platform. If you were inspired, consider sharing with friends and family. Love and light to each of you. May your day be filled with joy and wisdom as you consciously create your life.