Episode 16 - Shedding the Layers of Discomfort with Antonia
By Jessica Garrison
Melissa is joined by the remarkable Antonia this week, a woman with integrity, unity, compassion, anger, and shyness. Her character traits shine through her complex, beautiful layers, and she’s a joy to listen to on the podcast.
Self-care became a survival and evolutionary tool for Antonia. She’s found that self-care can contribute to your whole self, as long as the activity is nourishing to you. By taking some time out of your day for self-care, you continue to provide care to other aspects of your health.
Realizing that your emotional health is connected to your physical health is half the battle, but Antonia has been making strides in these areas of her life. Something as simple as putting nutritious food in her body so she’s able to keep up with her mental health. This, in turn with providing proper self-care, allows her to keep up with the crazy world we live in.
Antonia looks at her journey from a historical perspective, which was so interesting to listen to. I have heard stories from other women who agree with this perspective, but Antonia did a wonderful job of explaining everything in detail. One example she used was the fear of abandonment, which can flow through generations of people. We carry a lot of weight from past generations without even realizing it, and it can affect the way we live our lives currently. Antonia will ask herself questions such as, “What reality do I want to create?” This allows her to have more control over her own life rather than feeling helpless to what her ancestors have experienced before her.
However, it takes a lot of work to reach where you want to go: “In order to connect, you’ve gotta see all your stuff.” Antonia relates this back to her why and her values because you’ve got to dig deep to understand why you are the way you are. It isn’t always a negative thing, but it can be daunting to look back at something you haven’t thought of in a long time. Antonia has been able to accept her experiences and choose love, freedom, and compassion.
On her journey, there have been many years of shedding shame, but Antonia has had the pleasure of healing herself as well. She wants to share everything she’s learned with other women and assist them in healing themselves, too. It isn’t an easy journey to self-healing, but the payoff is totally worth it.
When it comes to accepting her layers, Antonia expresses the importance of doing your own work first rather than doing the work of others. Whether it’s because they don’t know how or aren’t willing to try, it’s a lot easier to embrace your own layers before trying to make someone else embrace theirs. There’s still a community full of support and love, but we have to do some of the work ourselves on this journey.
Antonia is still exploring how her relationships are affected by finding empowerment and embracing her layers, but that’s something that can be so fun. She’s still exploring herself, and new layers have shown up within her boundaries. Not all relationships will survive a person finally setting and sticking to their boundaries, but sometimes that’s okay. If they don’t respect you enough to listen to your boundaries, then those are the best people to let go of in your life. Antonia knows though that new relationships will continue to blossom, and those will be even stronger because they developed with your authentic self.
Let us know what you’ve learned from Antonia's episode, and I encourage everyone to take notes while listening! I have quite a few pages filled up in my notebook at home, and she gave us some great gems to remember from this episode.
Ways to Engage: Antonia talks thoroughly in her episode about generational trauma and how this can affect our current journey. Have you looked at your journey from this perspective? Why or why not? After listening to Antonia’s episode, consider using this viewpoint to journal or reflect upon how you are affected today by something from your ancestors.