Unlocking Self-Love and Healing: Gabriela Popescu's Transformative Journey

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Hello, and welcome to this episode of your ultimate life, the podcast dedicated to helping you create a life you love, a life of purpose, prosperity and joy.

And I am blessed today to have a special guest, Gabriela Popescu, or Popescu, is it you?

Tell me how to say it.

The last part.

Popescu.

Popescu.

Okay, thank you.

With a name like Kellen Flueker, I ask about that stuff.

So I'm delighted to have you today.

Welcome to the show.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

You are so welcome.

Now, I'm not going to give an introduction.

What I'm going to do instead is I'm going to ask you to tell me and the audience tell me how Gabriela adds good to the world.

And I don't want you to be modest or anything.

Just tell me the things that you're doing to add good to the world.

Okay.

By healing myself, I show others how to heal and I carry the torch for them.

I think that there's no better way to help others than to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

So for me, is taking action every day for myself and then inspiring others to do the same.

I love that.

Taking action every day.

Why do.

Why do you think it's important to do that?

Like you said, every day.

What.

What is the value in that sort of cadence where it's a regular habit?

It builds momentum.

Right?

I'm sure you've read Atomic Habits, the book atomic habits.

Taking 1% step in the right direction can compound over time, and then you get big results, big impact.

And it's important, it's important to remember why you're doing what you're doing.

So keep the vision alive and then take the steps every day.

So there's two things there.

One is just absolutely builds momentum, like a percent a day.

In three months, you're 100% better.

So.

And the days are going to click by either way.

Something you mentioned in there, in the process of describing that was keeping the vision alive.

I'd like you to talk a little bit more about vision first, just tell me why it's important to have one.

You don't have a vision.

How do you know where you're going?

And for me, personally, I think vision is everything because you share that with your loved ones.

You Share that with the clients you're working on or working with you.

Share that with your friends.

And it not only helps you because it helps spread the message and extend the vision, but it also inspires them to have their own vision.

So I think there's dual value in having a strong vision and keeping it close to your heart and in front of you.

Okay, Strong vision, close to your heart, motivating you constantly.

So that.

Or that's all true.

And I completely agree with that.

In terms of the value of happiness, having one.

Let's talk about yours.

So we understand now why it's valuable.

So tell us, what is your vision?

What vision are you keeping alive and keeping in front of you and working on?

Yeah, my vision is to.

To empower women to heal on the deepest level, and by doing so, also to help heal relationships and communities.

Because I believe women are the container and they set the tone for their relationships, platonic or otherwise, and their communities.

And we have extreme power and responsibility as women.

And women need help too.

Right?

Just the same way that men get help, so do women.

However, we don't prioritize ourselves or we prioritize everyone else, and we put ourselves last.

So my vision is to help those women shift and transition and transcend into learning how to put themselves first.

Because filling up their cup only supports and helps everyone else.

So there's lots of pieces to that.

You said empowering and helping women.

You said that they.

They set the tone and the container was the word you use for both personal relationships and community and that sort of thing.

So let's do this.

Well, so I don't disagree at all.

They do.

And they have very unique and powerful roles.

And you said that they tend to prioritize themselves last because maybe because they're aware of that role, and so they put their heart and soul in it and they end up depleted and empty.

And so then they end up trying to serve from an empty cup, which we know we can't do.

So talk about that special role that women have and then about why you think they put themselves last.

So tell me about the role and then why you think they somehow have learned to put themselves last.

I think it all stems from lack of self love.

You know, I don't think that's really well taught in our communities anywhere really in the world.

And as a result, we're taught to talk down to ourselves, not really celebrate ourselves.

And that's not through any fault of our own.

It is what it is.

And we have the opportunity to change the conversation and Empower others to love themselves.

And I think because most women out there, the ones that I want to work with, they live paycheck to paycheck or they prioritize their children, their extended family, and the last thing that's on their mind is to actually spend time with themselves, for themselves, to replenish their energy, their cup, and to work on the deeper issues.

Because I think if you have peace within you, then there's peace outside of you as well and into your communities.

And that cannot be created without taking the time to create that energy and to create that space.

So if you don't put attention towards it, you will not have that in your life.

And you know, we're constantly bombarded with information every second of every day.

And I think that we forget to take time to recharge and to really be intentional with our vision, you know, be it for our work, for our family, for our community.

So, you know, I, I, I love the words that you're saying and you're drawing on a couple of, or pointing to a couple of really important things.

It doesn't really matter.

And you, you noted that how we got where we are, okay, we are where we are in as a society with the expectations and things, things get busier every time there's a new generation of digital device and more stuff.

It opens both opportunity and creates more distraction.

And then on top of that, we have all this mechanism literally from the time that we're born of judgment, ranking, you know, grades, upbringing, whatever it is, school, church, community, that sort of point beat this idea into you that you're not really going to measure up, you're not quite enough.

So you spend all your time trying to do that and you don't do something that you said which is really love yourself.

Now one of the things that people confuse is self love and self indulgence.

So when people say, oh, you got to take care of yourself, sometimes people mistakenly hear, I do do whatever I want for me and forget everybody else.

I don't think that's what you mean.

So to help me and, and people that are listening who are yearning to understand this truth that you're teaching, what's the difference between true self love and overdone or the idea of self indulgence?

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up because there are, there is a lot of misconception for that definition.

And my definition is really being with yourself and forgiving yourself for anything and everything that you may have done that you didn't have the awareness or the wisdom to handle.

Differently.

It's accepting and honoring who you are and where you're coming from.

It is being gentle and compassionate with yourself the same way that you are with other people.

And that could take many, many forms, right.

I believe that anything is possible, that any could transcend anything.

And at the same time, as a foundational behavior, we tend to be our toughest critics, right?

So that's something that you can unlearn.

And I am working on that every day.

And I think that if we show the grace to ourselves the same way that we show to other people, we will be one step closer to fully loving ourselves and understanding that no one is perfect and that we too have the choice and the option to be present with ourselves and to give ourselves a break, to nourish ourselves through, through meditation, through working out, whatever that looks like for you, you know.

You know, one of the interesting things, I love you mentioned several words.

You said forgiveness, grace, acceptance.

And I, you know, it's not about making excuses, but it is about a truth that you said, which is you did what you could with the level of understanding and circumstance that you had at the time.

And that is so true.

And then when something doesn't work out or we learn something later, then we go back and second guess all the stuff that happened a minute, an hour, a week, a month, a year, a decade ago and were harsh with the mistakes perceived that we made.

Even though the truth is we did what we could at the time with what we had.

And that compassion, that forgiveness, that grace is so.

It's essential and it is divinely designed.

Like, I can't imagine the Creator sitting around angrily pointing at people, saying, you jerk, you should have done this.

That just doesn't feel true.

What feels true is encouragement.

And if things were done that didn't work out right, assistance cleaning up whatever mess is left, okay?

And sometimes there are messes left and you have to go figure out if you can clean them up or not.

And maybe you can and maybe you can't.

But that truth of grace and compassion, learning, and we do give it to others before we do ourselves.

And so that is so key and so powerful.

And you mentioned two or three times that you know, you're working on yourself to do those very things.

What do you do?

Like, you know me, I have a whole morning thing and I teach people all kinds of crazy stuff, and I've been working for 17 and a half years on perfecting that.

But that doesn't mean it's the only or the right anything.

It's just Stuff I know.

What do you do that works for you to get that forgiveness, grace, energy center, your vision?

Like what do you do?

I do something that's atypical to my lineage, at least my family, which is to notice, notice the emotions that are coming and allowing them to be released.

Very simply put.

But I do have many processes that I use.

I use meditation.

I do a lot of release work.

As you know, I am trained in neuro linguistic programming and some of the tools that I've learned in that process have really supported me in really having much higher levels of release and helping me process things as they come up.

Because I'm not presupposing that anyone is broken.

I'm not broken.

It's a matter of as you heal, you're spiraling up and as you're spiraling up, some things that are ready to be released come, come to the surface and then it's a process.

And I think, yeah, the tools that I've been using over the last few years have really supported me in doing that.

But the simplest tool is noticing, allowing and being present with what comes up and really being curious.

Why is that happening?

What is really, what is really the root cause that is creating this expression or this emotion.

You mentioned two things that stuck out for me at least.

You mentioned meditation, which is familiar to some and not familiar to others.

And then you mentioned release work, which you described as noticing, getting curious, allowing, not fighting it, and then working to release.

I notice an emotion, get curious about what caused it.

Here it is.

I allow it and then I release it somehow.

So I've, I've understand the words.

Tell me a little bit more.

Like if you were helping me do something, how does a person notice and then allow and release and you know, that sort of description.

How do I do that?

Well, I don't know if you, I mean, I'm sure people can't do it on their own, but it's best to do with a practitioner, with a coach because, you know, we don't see what we don't see.

We only have 120 bits of information that we are able to notice and observe at one time.

And so we have a lot of blind spots, right?

We have over 2 million, 2 billion pieces of information that we get bombarded every day.

And so we distort, delete and generalize a lot of things.

So I find it that it's really helpful to have a second party to point out your blind spots and to notice your language, to notice your patterns.

And so I've Worked with a coach.

I think that any coach that does not have a coach is not really serious about their business.

And so I think it's, you can't do it alone.

You could, but I think it's much, much better and much quicker.

You get much quicker results if you work with someone.

I love what you're saying.

I say it even harsher.

I say coach without a coach is fraud.

And it isn't a question of you being not a good coach.

It's a question of continually reminding yourself that growth is a mountain without a top and, and leaning into the opportunity to have someone help you who's in your corner to just suggest things or to make notice for you.

Sometimes quiet and subtle and sometimes noisily, but in the process with the idea of service.

So you said you like to work with women in this process.

What brought you, what brought you to this place?

Like I was born, you were born.

Stuff happened to us along the way.

And then at some point you say, I, I don't think I'm where I want to be.

I'm not experiencing life, I'm not using these things.

In fact, at that sometime, mostly when we decide that we don't even know what the things are we could use.

So how did you get here?

To where you are working with women and you're working on yourself and you have a coach and you're working with these tools.

How did Gabriella get here?

Through a lot of trial and error and a lot of self hatred and just not knowing how to love myself.

And my dad passed away when I was 12.

And then for the next 18 years there was, I was just like a Tasmanian devil, you know, creating, creating toxic environments and being in toxic environments and yeah, just attracting all the most nefarious characters.

And after one set relationship, I decided that I had enough and I wanted to do something different because what I've been doing for the last 30 years was not working.

And that it started with energy work, Reiki, and then it became yoga, meditation, it went into plant medicine and then neuro linguistic programming.

And here I am.

You know, it's interesting because I want to make sure at least I'm going to say how I hear this X happened.

A massive traumatic event happened.

You were 12 with someone dear to you.

One of your parents passing away.

That often leaves a kid in limbo, angry, confused and a whole bunch of stuff.

And we, we react to that in different ways.

And you said, you know, you're a Tasmanian devil, creating all kinds of chaos in your life in different ways.

And then at some point, you got to a point where you said, I'm not okay with this chaos.

And I don't.

I'm not going to stay here.

And I don't even know how to do this, but it's not this.

So, you know, you sort of scrounge around to find something and a lot of trial and error.

And then you listed a bunch of tools, you know, Reiki and meditation and yoga and.

And that there are, I don't know if I would say hundreds, but at least dozens of modalities and tools that people turn to and choose for themselves and often and hopefully with the kind of guidance that you're talking about, and do that so that they can begin to heal when they recognize they're no longer willing to stay in this chaos.

So when you find someone or you, because you're talking to people that are feeling that, that hate themselves, that, you know, and I, in my years of addiction, they used to ask me, they always ask in rehab, what's your drug of choice?

And I listed, because it was a main one, cocaine.

But the truth was, my drug of choice was hate hatred.

I needed to hate myself, and I did all kinds of stuff to prove that.

And so when a person is saying, I've had enough and they go start looking for tools, how do you suggest they start?

Where do you start?

Where?

What do I do?

What do you do first?

Thank you for that question.

I think, I mean, for me, finding Reiki or turning to Reiki, that was divinely guided because I've never encountered Reiki before.

So I think what shifted within me was listening, just like stopping, pausing, and listen to the guidance that's coming forward.

And if that doesn't work, then try different things.

I've tried so many different yoga practices because there's a million ways you could practice yoga.

And, you know, for me, Kundalini Yoga was beautiful because it combined movement and breath work in a very wonderful way.

And if done correctly, breathwork could really shift and transform your life.

And it's.

It's simple.

It's simple, it's free.

You could look up Wim Hof is another favorite of mine.

Wim Hof breathing anything and everything.

You could find it online on.

On YouTube.

And that.

That's where you could start, right?

You could start either online or you could go in person.

There's plenty of tools.

There's a multitude and millions and millions of tools.

But I think pausing and listening to what comes forward, and if you can't hear anything, that's okay, you're going to start hearing things or you're going to start getting signs of what you need to move forward.

I want to just agree with you so loudly.

You mentioned something and this is a, a thing I, I know you know and I want to drill this home.

We, we, when we are trying to do stuff, we get so worried about what something costs in terms of money.

And so you said it's free and there's stunt tough on YouTube and there are, there's a hundred ways to learn how to meditate on YouTube or breathwork or Wim Hof or whoever it is, you know, different yoga teachers and studios and all that stuff.

And it's caught free or very low cost, but it's not free at all because you have to stay with it.

You don't walk into a thing and do a thing once and it works.

We learn this sort of idea that everything's download and double click and it's not.

So if you really want to heal, you need to explore and find the thing that starts at least to begin to feel something.

But then you got to keep at it.

You can't go to the gym once and suddenly, you know, up your lifting weights on any exercise, £100.

Like you gotta go a bunch of times and you gotta keep doing it.

So whether or not something costs money is not even really the most important thing.

I mean, it may have something to do with something depending on your budgets and a bunch of stuff, but the most important thing is your level of commitment.

So what I want you to talk about now in that context is you have been working.

You said something happened around 30.

Well, you've had 30 years and finally came to the conclusion, I'm done with this talk about the level of perseverance that a person needs to learn to love themselves after they've spent 10, 20, 30, 50 years of doing something else and listening to all that input and the payoff for the perseverance.

Yeah, it's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

I really, really leaned in and looking back, I feel like I treated it like the most important thing.

Outside of covering my livelihood and covering my basic bills.

I was highly motivated to feel different and to clear out all that junk that I've accumulated over, over my lifetime or lifetimes.

Because I do believe in past lives and I was very dedicated, whatever.

And everything that I could get my hands on that supported healing on any level.

I was curious.

I was curious.

I leaned in.

I leaned in a lot with anything that I took as a course or that I experienced on a personal level.

And yes, I couldn't agree with you more.

You can't just do it a couple times.

You need to make it a lifestyle.

It's a choice that you take every day to honor yourself, to learn how you could support yourself better so that you could support the world.

I just love that.

And I want to again here, emphasize the best gift.

And I think this is what you're saying that you or I or any of the listeners can give to the world is for you to be a healed, powerful whole being and shine the light that you have the brightest.

And so whatever effort you need to put into.

You mentioned lean in and you leaned in when you said that whatever effort it takes to clean up old stuff, to heal broken things, to mend relationships, to forgive yourself and others, whatever effort is required pays off tenfold in dividends as you become lighter, less baggage, and then as you become a source of light and guidance and hope, whether you do it on purpose or not for those around you.

Is that true?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

So I want you to tell us what you do now so how you'd say that in the world, you add good to the world by helping women do this stuff.

Tell me about your programs and stuff that you offer to do that very thing because you've done the work, you've become more of a light, you've healed a lot of stuff.

And now you're saying, I want to help other people.

So how do you do that?

So I do that through one on one work.

Right now I do have plans to do group coaching in the near future as well, but one on one looks like two days over two, eight hours over two days, where I go deep into one area of life, whatever area of life the person needs to, to unblock.

And then we look at all the limiting beliefs, negative emotions, and just language patterns and how those, how that language is creating their situation or the issues they're having and then from there releasing all of that, creating a plan and taking action, purposeful action.

And that has been monumental for myself.

Like I've experienced it for years now.

And the results that I get with my clients are incredible.

So I have, I've looked for this framework for a long time and I'm really happy to have it now.

I think there's a couple steps missing in my framework before, but now there's no way.

If there's a will and if the client leans in, anything is possible.

That's a bold statement.

And I support you and Agree with that.

Anything is possible.

If we get over the idea that anything's download and double click.

If they lean in and if they stick with it and are honest with themselves and with you as a guide to identify those stories, the limiting beliefs, the negative stuff, the garbage we tell ourselves, how we treat ourselves, what we believe are possibilities, all that is eliminated.

I know that's not a word, but we'll pretend and you can get rid of it.

And I totally love that.

And you tell me now that your favorite thing right now or the thing you're doing is you work with individuals for a couple of days at a time.

How does someone find you?

So someone hears this and they say, wow, I want to hear more about that.

I want to explore that a little bit.

So how does somebody find you to find out more about that and get a hold of you?

How does that happen?

Yeah, they could go to my website, phoenixmedicine me m E and they can reach out that way.

I love the Phoenix.

There it is behind me, on fire.

And I didn't do that because I knew she was going to say phoenixmedicine me.

I know, Gabriella, and I would recommend that you go do that.

If you have heard these things and recognize with pain or struggle or suffering the truths that she has said, go there.

Phoenixmedicine me.

Gabriella, if you had one piece of love and encouragement to leave with us, what would that be?

Trust the process and stay the course.

Be.

Be patient because there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it's going.

You're going to get closer to it and be in that light sooner than you think.

Trust the process and stay the course.

I love that you do.

And you will get to where you want to get to.

I don't care where you are now and I don't care what's happened before.

Do you think that's true?

Oh, absolutely.

Gabriella, I want to thank you for your light, your presence, the love that you bring to both your life, yourself and those that work you work with.

Thank you for being with us today.

Thank you, Kellen.

I want to, as we close, I want to tell you guys, each of you guys, gals, whatever, that loving yourself is not only possible, it's essential.

I don't care where you're starting now.

There is a path forward.

And checking out Phoenix Medicine me is a place to start to move forward and create your ultimate life.

Never hold back and you'll never act quiet.

Open your heart.

And this time around, right here, right.

Now, your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.

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