Podcast Episode 95 – Speak, The Universe Listens: Awaken Your Inner Wonder
October 23, 2019
Greetings! This is Arvat McClaine with “Speak, The Universe Listens” - As a very young person, I always felt that I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders, having to make grown-up decisions in order to survive a life marked with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. While my face was smiling on the outside, on the inside I always secretly cried and felt miserable. However, over the years I learned some gems that helped to turn my life around. I now get to live the life of my dreams, filled with love, travel, and wonderment. And, I am absolutely passionate about sharing what I have learned with you. If you want to live your best life, tune in each week as I, along with some amazing guests, share these life-changing gems with you. Inspired to be more, do more, have more.
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ARVAT: Greetings, and welcome to today's episode of “Speak the Universe Listens.” Today's topic is “Awaken to Your Inner Wonder” and we have a special guest with us today, Shawna Halley. Shawna is actually a transformational speaker, and she's also an educator, and an author, and she’s got three books out currently. I will let Shawna tell you the names of those books. But, I want to share a quick story with you that I just think is so fascinating. When I lived in Barbados, I met this beautiful woman who was from Guyana. And at that time, Guyana was going through economic hardship and so people from Guyana would have to go to other countries in order to work. And so she actually came to Barbados to work and then she would send her money home to her children to support her family. So this woman, I met her in about 2006 and so we've been in communication ever since then. She contacts me almost every day. So that's that story. And then I meet this beautiful woman and she mentions that she's from Guyana. And I just throw it out there, not really thinking it would mean anything, but I happened to say, “I have a friend in Guyana” and I told her her name. She's just like, “I know her!” It's just amazing how the world works and how small the world is, and then the synchronicity just to find out that we have so much in common in terms of our thinking, in terms of creating how to create our lives. So welcome to the show.
SHAWNA: Thank you.
ARVAT: Thank you for coming and I wanted actually start off because you're speaking about ‘Awakening Your Inner Wonder.’ Can you tell us a little bit about how you begin to awaken your inner wonder?
SHAWNA: As a teenager, I used to write a lot and then I got married and had children. By the age of 25, I already had three, four children. Woah! I'm forgetting one of them. He's not going to forgive me for that. Yeah, I had four children and then, you know, life happened. I kind of strayed away from what I thought was my calling which was I wanted to be a singer, and I was also writing doing a lot of writing, which is lyrics and I didn't know how to write music but my goal was to go to college and pursue a singing career and musical instruments. But anyway, time passed and at some point I came back. I got divorced, life happened you know, I kind of felt lost, confused, and didn't know what to do with myself at that point. This is when I really started to think about, “What does it mean for me to live the life that I deserve?” Because at some point I didn't feel like I deserved, because I was always chasing something but never what I call it: masking, profiling, never truly arriving, chasing a dream that I just couldn't seem to catch up with. Then I invested in a business a few years ago and lost everything. I invested all my finances, all my retirement that I had and it was done for me. I was like, “I don't want to do this anymore.” Then spirit says “What!?” And I was watching PBS, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and he started talking about the power within, possibility, with God all things are possible. It brought me back to what my grandmother used to say, she said “I surrender all, all to Jesus. I surrender, I surrender all.” When I started to get to that point where “I’ll surrender,” because I'd tried everything I know how to do so…how about you just surrender to the will within you? So I went to that place and my first book was birthed. It's called Prism of Poems: Lost and Found, Not from Determination but Devastation. I wasn't determined to find myself. I was devastated and I had no choice, didn’t know what else to do. So I was like, “Ok, where do I go?” So I started feeding on the spiritual news and found spirituality. Instead of religion, I got the spiritual thinking, spiritual feeding, and I started devouring all the spiritual material I could find along that line. That wasn't confining to me, it caused me to feel more free, and alive, and happy. That's where my journey going within began, because I was looking outside of myself for a lot of things. And the truth is, it's unfair to look to somebody else to fulfill what only we can do. That's where Raw, Rise. Awake to Your Inner Wonder, especially, I speak to women because I have gone that road, and I know what it feels like to not know, to be settling for less than you deserve, or just to be going through the motions, waking up every day for what?
ARVAT: Exactly.
SHAWNA: So that’s where the inner search and the inner love for myself and humanity in general came from.
ARVAT: That’s a beautiful story. So when you started thinking, “I think I'm worthy.” What shifted you from “I feel unworthy” to “maybe I am worthy”?
SHAWNA: I will have to say… I'm a hard worker and even when I had four children in the house and was married and doing wifely duty and motherly duty, I always had something bigger for myself. Because even when I had the four children at 25, I felt like I couldn't go to college, you know? It was like “Okay.” But I still I had already set the goal - I am going to complete college by 35. I went ahead and I set the goals and I accomplished that and a whole lot more. So, for me, it just meant that I needed to realize that I bring more to the table. I bring a lot to the table and not just in material sense, but to me the value within is so much more. And I had to value myself. I think at that time when I didn't have anything, it brought me to the place where I realized there was more value within me than things that can disappear in a minute. Yes, that's where that truly came from.
ARVAT: That's interesting. I think I read something that you said, and I'm not going to probably be able to place where exactly I saw it, but I think you were saying exactly that about realizing that the value within you has nothing to do with the things outside of you. And I think I've shared this with the listeners before in the past, but I remember going through that process when I was actually a student at Ohio State. I had seen a show on Oprah where there was a young lady who had been dragged by a truck simply because she was a black female. And so she was tied to a truck and she was dragged and her face was dragged off. As she as sat on Oprah with no face she actually was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Yes, just her spirit and she didn't have any malice and it was like she was whole and complete. And I remember just looking at her thinking, “How in the world can you be okay? How is it possible that you are sitting there okay with no face? and with having experienced that kind of hate and you're okay?” So that woman she was young, she may have been 20 years old. That woman sent me on a journey of trying to figure out, “How is that possible?” And that's when I started questioning myself, “Would I be okay if I wasn't smart? Would I be okay if I wasn't kind? Would I be okay if I wasn't cute?” I kept asking myself those questions over and over and I kept saying, ”No. I would not.” I really forced myself “Why not? Why not?” Why not? And getting to the bottom of that and stripping away and when I finally got to the point where I was like “I would be okay if I wasn't smart. I would be okay if I wasn't cute. But it was hard for me to say “I would be okay if I wasn't kind.” and I finally made it through that hurdle because I finally realized that I am so much more than whatever I'm presenting to the outer world. I'm more than that. I'm much bigger than that, and I think that whole experience, I remember that day when I made that breakthrough calling my mom, and again I was in Ohio and my mom was in Virginia, so I'm calling her and I'm like “Mom! I'm finally okay. If I were to die today, I'm dying happy!” And she's like “No! What's wrong? What's wrong?” I'm like “No, I'm calling to tell you that for the first time in my life I'm actually happy!” And so that was a very profound breakthrough for me.
SHAWNA: Wow. And you know, just to add to that, even when… I remember I did a show on Comcast a couple years ago and we were talking about relationship with ourselves and I said, people were kind of shocked I said “I'm so okay with myself that there were a time I have corns on my feet and there were times when I wouldn't wear shoes that will show it, but then my grandmother would say, “Some people complain that they don't have shoes. Some people don't have feet to put in shoes. So it's almost like getting to the point where wherever you are, whatever you have, it's yours, and just embrace it. As soon as we stop worrying about other people and what they have to say about us, not really knowing us truly, then all of that starts to fall away and we become more accustomed with our new self. Then we walk differently. We talk differently. Our expectations are different because now I see the good in you. I see the God in you and it's all well, it’s all good. If you don't mind, I have a couple of poems that I wrote specifically for women, and it's just getting them to the poem because I hear a lot of conversation … most of my classes with young women, but of course I interact with mature women as well. One of the things I'm encouraging women to rise…and it says…
Rise woman
You are liberator and curator of souls
You are the gateway from heaven
Life you have nurtured and secured
Rise woman
Tell your story as you want it to be retold
Rise woman
It is your time to shine
Rise woman
Show your sons and daughters how to be dignified
Rise woman and live your dream
Rise woman
I want you to step up to the plate
… because a lot of times I will hear women say “I'm not complete.” We're looking for someone else to complete us and again I'm complete, I’m whole, I’m good. Somebody that comes to me, they're adding to what I have and they don't have to pour into me in a way that completes me because we are complete.
Yes, I hear you say you want more,
so why do I see you commit to less?
We have the conversation you want to be free.
Yet, you take actions.
that pay only me your fees.
Do the math. It deserves more than that.
Yes, add, subtract, multiply your thoughts and actions.
Maybe you think it's your destiny
to be caught up in self-inflicted misery,
A destiny you choose is never divinely appointed or approved.
Refuse to digress, you’re becoming more and never less.
So why do I see you
choose to accept pennies
when an abundant storehouse is available,
an open treasury?
It is time to release her completely, fully.
The kingdom of God is within you.
No need to look outside to be appointed or approved.
Let love be your anchor.
Let love be your sword.
Let love be a current and dominant undertone. When we choose love, and I have studied with doing the work and going on this journey, when love is our anchor then everything else just seems to fall in place. And of course it's a practice. We weren't trained to accept love. Sometimes I will tell people, “I love you,” and it's almost like “You don’t even know me.” But love doesn't require that I know you. Love requires that I just accept you as you are, and you're part of me. When I see you, I see me. If I love me, then I can love you freely.
ARVAT: Exactly, yes. Both poems are very beautiful. The second poem you were like “Why would you accept pennies when abundance awaits you?” And in the first poem, you say something to the effect of “Telling your story the way you want it to be retold.” So, talk a little bit about that sentence in particular. Tell your story the way you want it to be retold.
SHAWNA: As I'm studying and learning from my different teachers and mentors, I understand now, consciousness and how it works, and that whatever I give attention to, where attention goes, energy flows. So if I'm giving attention to what I lack, and if I'm giving attention to what I don't have, and to, “Oh poor me” type of mentality then I create it because I'm giving it attention. I'm giving it focus on I'm putting energy to it. I always say that's like a fire. If you continue to add to it, it continues to stay ablaze. But as soon as you pull that, you stop giving it wood, then it just kind of dissipates and fizzles out and eventually it goes out. So the same thing with telling your story as you want it to be retold. It's creating that future memory, versus holding on to the past memory. That's what my mentor Mary Morrissey taught. I didn't realize how much of a connection, a hold that the past memory had on me, especially when it comes to abundance. All those things we were told, “Money doesn't grow on trees,” and all those little things that you know we until she started. I started working with the coaches there and then I realized I had to yeah it had a really bad hold on me. It took two years to really start to see the difference, but I had to do the work.
ARVAT: Speaking of doing the work, talk to me a little bit about your process of working to be able to awaken inner wonder in yourself.
SHAWNA: The first place I go to is a daily practice and I call it the “five-piece” to prepare, through meditation and prayer. I study and pray to be positive. I try to create that positive energy for myself first thing early in the morning. What I've learned, because I grew up as a Christian, what I learned is that when you pray, prayer is talking to God. Meditation is listening. So when I pray to the universe, I have to be silent so I can receive what is mine to do that day. Meditation is so important. When I started meditating for the first time, I couldn't do it. I was doing the guided meditation, to the point of doing like 10 minutes. Then I move on to 15 minutes and now I'm up to an hour.
ARVAT: Nice.
SHAWNA: So now it's not guided. I have music to keep my concentration, and then I go from there. For preparation in the morning, prepare for your day, be positive so you can attract the other positive energies to you to be proactive. Proactive is taking action, not just saying something, but being about it. So be proactive and then practice, because repetition leads to recall. So when I practice, it’s almost like recreating that inner space where that new personality takes up the habit so I don't have to really think about it anymore, I'm just acting on whether it has been instilled in me, new wiring, this new internal you, this new internal computer system. So practice, partner, and remember to be easy on myself because it's a process. When I think about process I go back to a plant. You plant a seed, there's germination. There's time when nothing's going to happen, and then where it appears that nothing is happening. But you have to remember, as long as I'm doing the work, I'm being proactive and I'm taking action and practicing, eventually I will start to see it. You have to notice the little things. Sometimes we want something to be big first, but we have to take notice and really appreciate the small manifestations that are showing us it's working.
ARVAT: Yes, I like that. As I remember one of the businesses we started, we selected the bamboo as our emblem. Oh what does it call like a somebody in the studio knows
SHAWNA: Do you know you mean a little plan that they or doesn't know
ARVAT: I mean so it's not a mascot is the but anyway the bamboo is the image that we chose as our thing.. that goes on top of the stationery what is it like what does that pick scenario something up act it up but anyway, the LOGO! Bamboo is our logo for one of the businesses we had, and the reason why we chose it is because bamboo grew on the outside of the building. In researching what is bamboo, I found out the story behind bamboo and that once it’s planted, I can't remember how many years, but it might be like seven years before the first sprout comes up, but what it's doing is developing that root system and it's a strong root system and it spreads. Once the bamboo shoots up, it shoots up like three feet in one day or some ridiculous number. I know a lot of times people will say, “I'm doing the work but I'm not seeing anything.” So what you said is a good point about that. Just continue to do the work, and you'll see the fruits of your reward. So thank you so much. Is there anything you want to wrap up with?
SHAWNA: No. I think the bamboo is a good place to wrap up. Just remembering that you know if you're doing the work, something is happening. Sometimes we see small things occurring, small manifestations, but we don't take heat to it. We think it's ..nah.. because we're so used to not believing things are supposed to happen for us.
ARVAT: Right. Yes, I remember someone using the analogy of... If you're heading to, let's say Arizona and let's say that's 3,000 miles away. You get your GPS and start heading towards Arizona. You don't turn around and go back, you just keep going. Even though there's nothing that says “Arizona” on your way, but you just keep going. We always start and when we don't see anything and then we’ll turn back.
ARVAT: Thank you so much. Will you join us again next week?
SHAWNA: Yes, I well.
ARVAT: Alright. Thank you. Do you want to share the names of your books with the audience as well as how people can reach you?
SHAWNA: Yes. My first book is called Prism of Poems: Lost and Found, Not from Determination, but Devastation. The second one is called The Will to Transform: Honoring the Goddess Within and the third is called This Body Houses a Goddess. These are all available on Amazon.
You can reach out to me or connect with me on PrismOfTransformation.com.
ARVAT: Thank you so much. Please check out her work. Thank you for joining us. Also check out my website at ArvatMcClaine.com. Until next time. Bye.
SHAWNA: Bye.