Hello, my loves. Today, I am joined here by my beautiful client, Chené!

You haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her, but trust me, she is one of the most joyous, radiant, embodied women that I know…and I don’t just say that because she’s my client.

So Chené, let the people know who you are!

Meet Chené!

Chené: Firstly, thank you so much for the intro, Michelle! I really, really appreciate it. Secondly, hi everyone! I’m Chené, and I’m so excited to be here.

Michelle literally changed my entire life multiple times, and I’m really excited to get to share the story with you.

This woman is making such a mark on the world and having such a great impact in the lives of other women. If you’re not already working with her…I mean, what are you doing?

Where It All Began

Michelle: First of all, how did you find me?

Chené: I found your podcast first, and I binged through every single episode. I think there were about fifty or so out at the time; I got through them all in two weeks.

I was actually in a relationship at the time with someone who I truly believed was my forever, but things were…not going in the way I had hoped. And I realized after listening to your podcast that choosing the relationship over yourself is never going to give you what you want.

It was a beautiful time for me to actually wake up, hear what you were saying, and put it into action. That relationship dissolved, but it opened up a new doorway for me.

Did I continue to choose emotionally unavailable men? Yes. But I found new patterns and new ways to view those kinds of interactions.

A lesson that I learned very quickly—one that’s very important—is that even when you do start your healing journey, it’s very confusing in the beginning. You’ll think that you’ve got it right at the start…but you don’t. And you’ll keep learning as you go.

The Self-Abandonment Struggle

Michelle: When you decided to join my programs, where would you say you were at with yourself?

Chené: I would say I was in a pattern of self-abandonment. That’s been the most common theme throughout all my relationships, not just romantic ones.

And while it might not be what people expect, you’ve actually taught me to see that part of me and love it anyway. It’s been beautiful to realize that I do self-abandon, but instead of following that up with rejecting those parts, I actually hold them and be with them and take the time to truly see them.

Michelle: Would you feel comfortable sharing what self-abandonment looks like for you?

Chené: From a very young age, I was taught to put others’ needs above my own, which is a very common thing for women.

It started there, then bled out into the rest of my life. I would always value someone else’s comfort over my own comfort. I would rather be uncomfortable than have someone else be uncomfortable. This mostly played out in romantic relationships, but it infected every area of my life to some degree—in the workplace, with my parents, with friends, everywhere.

Eventually, it got me to the point where I was giving up so much of myself that I ended up in an emotionally abusive relationship, and that was a really hard but necessary fall to have. It showed me just how much I was abandoning myself, to the point where I genuinely lost all sense of who I was.

I had the biggest identity crisis at the end of last year, and it’s been one of the most intimate, most beautiful processes to actually just completely fall apart. I’ve really enjoyed it—and not in a “I love pain” way, but inasmuch as I have really enjoyed seeing how I’ve been able to rebuild and discover the true parts of me and really understand myself on a level that is strictly for me, not for other people. That has been a huge game-changer.

Michelle: This is why I love you so much, because most people would come out of an experience like that and just want to point the finger, which is a very easy thing to do. And often, that’s actually a very necessary part of the healing process in order to get to that space of gratitude. But a lot of people don’t ever get there.

Going through my breakup, I’ve had to really fucking go into my anger. I needed to be in that in order to get to the point of softening and being able to honestly say that I’m actually so grateful that everything played out exactly the way that it did.

Did I love it while it was happening? Fuck no. But these things need to play out exactly as they do.

What Came Next?

So, Chené discovered the podcast, clocked her pattern of self-abandonment, and started rebuilding after a crisis of self…but what happened next?

Rebuilding after that kind of fall is not fucking easy…but what happened when she did? You’ve got to hear the rest of that story. Head to the UFYR podcast (yes, the extremely binge-able podcast Chené mentioned, maybe you’ve heard of it?) and put on Episode 198!

WORK WITH CHENÉ:

Want to work with Chené? Uh, yeah you fucking do. Head to her website now to get started: https://embodieddelight.carrd.co/

CONNECT WITH CHENÉ:

Follow Chené on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/embodied_delight?igsh=MTFpM2pnNHZiMzJ2MQ==

WORK WITH MICHELLE: 

Join THE CONNECTED WOMAN, a shadow work course for the woman who is ready to break free from the anxious/avoidant dance in relationships and step into unfuckwithable confidence, security, and self-worth: https://michellepanning.com/the-connected-woman

Sign up for THE EXPERIENCE, an exclusive 12-month mentorship experience where you go all in on YOU (aka, you get direct access to me as a mentor, access to every offer I run over your year, and MORE): https://michellepanning.com/the-experience

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/michellepanning

Website: http://www.michellepanning.com