Anne: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Anne, and I'm Helen. And welcome to Metaphysical Street Smarts. What is Metaphysical Street Smarts? Helen 

Helen: Physical is everything you can see with your human eye. You can see, touch, feel, taste as a human. Metaphysical. Is that what you cannot see? Wifi microwave energy. When you feel somebody staring at you, you can't really feel eyesight.

Helen: So metaphysical is that what you can't perceive with the human eye? Street smarts means let's take the woowoo, the energetic, the airy fairy, and add it to logic so that you can have a better experience of yourself. In this one. 

Anne: As always, we invite you to take what blesses you and leave the rest. We're so glad you're here.

Anne: Let's jump in. Alright. Hi Helen. 

Helen: How are you doing this week? I'm doing very good. I'm looking forward to our [00:01:00] question, and first, you know, one of my favorite things is hearing your cosmic nudge of the week. I love that. 

Anne: I love that you let me do that. Thank you. Oh. So this week I wanted to ask on a, this is mostly for me, but I think that I'm probably not the only one.

Anne: Um, I wanted to chat about obsession or hyper fixation on or with something as. A form of self-medication, whether that's food, romance, relationships, cleaning, exercise, shopping, gambling, anything that could be taken to the extreme and become detrimental. If someone found themselves spiraling, avoiding life, truly self-medicating, what would be your advice?

Helen: Well, my first suggestion would be what's the payoff? So sometimes our self-medication in any of the forms you [00:02:00] mentioned is so that we're distracted from spending time with ourself. Other times, like for somebody like me who has a, a life challenge of guilt, it's so I can feel guilty. It's always a side effect.

Helen: Does that one zing ya? 

Anne: I think so. I gotta find something to feel guilty about. Okay. Anyway, keep going. Yeah, and 

Helen: you know, if I overeat and feel gross or overindulge in sugar or wine or yard work, or too much sun, the payoff is always some kind of version of a hangover, right? You can get too much sun and feel horrible too, or too much gardening, which I love gardening, or too much painting, which I love painting, but too much puts my body into pain.

Helen: So physical discomfort is always the expression of guilt. I. And somebody, you know, chronic pain is the expression of an unresolved guilt. And then there's the other type of [00:03:00] addiction that some people do it, it's not all the way into guilt, it's just plain distraction. 'cause they can't bear to be with themselves.

Helen: Those are people who are chronically busy. They just cannot bear to be quiet and alone with themselves. So those two different paths, you know, would call for different journeys with it if you just can't. Bear to be with yourself. You wanna find help, join a group meditation, get a new hobby where you can have some quiet mind time where you can direct the mind outta busy, busy craziness into some calmer state of being would be the first good step.

Helen: And then finding out what is it you're so afraid of and quiet or stillness. What's really going on? I would, I would always suggest you find somebody to help you with that. And then if it's guilt, that's a very personal journey you wanna look at, you know, is this a soul challenge that I came in to explore?

Helen: How, who do I wanna be in it? How do I show up in it? What's the [00:04:00] opposite of guilt? How do I resolve guilt? You know, guilt and blame are two ends of one stick. You wanna give up guilt, you gotta give up judgment and blaming others. To stop making yourself feel bad through physical, over action or indulgence, you would have to quit wanting other people to feel bad for their behavior.

Helen: It's a big one. Yeah. 

Anne: I'm being destroyed over here. I always thought it was the distraction part, but I, at the same time, never, like, none of that ever clicked for me. 'cause I'm like, well, if it was, I feel like I don't do that anymore, or it's not a big challenge for me right now. But yes, keep going because this other part is killing me softly.

Helen: So distraction again is just from a busy mind and not enough guidance in how to find inner peace and and be okay. And it's hard to find your intuition or your gifts or your sole [00:05:00] purpose in that busyness. And it probably means you're either just in a community that you know, you've just been raised with overthinkers or you struggle with perfectionism, so it's too painful to slow down.

Helen: Or no one's ever even given you a clear direction to enter peace, and so you don't even know where to start. Right? That would feed the distraction energy and then the guilt energy. That's a spiritual journey that's about, you are called to a spiritual path of acceptance and trusting God and feeling safe with life exactly as it is.

Helen: That's a real calling 

Anne: because none of these things, I mean, in my, everyone's allowed to have their own opinion, but none of those things are. Are bad in and of themselves. It's we're talking about the, the extreme or pushing our, our bodies to pain. These are just side effects. 

Helen: Yeah. These are just side effects and you can push yourself into pain.

Helen: You can be the runner who runs so much, they blow their adrenals. Right. [00:06:00] It, it could be, I call addiction something that's pleasurable that you go overboard on until it's not pleasurable. You could clean your house so much that you neglect having fun with your kids. You know, you can gossip so much. You ruin friendships, you can get addicted to anything and just do it excessively.

Helen: And all of it's just side effects of the human psyche consciousness, wanting to awaken, you know, because if you're not on a, if, well, listening to this podcast means you're wanting very much to awaken and evolve and form. And people who don't listen wouldn't think any of that's a problem. 

Anne: Mm-hmm. My word for this year is success.

Anne: And so of course at the moment I'm just having all these different aspects of, well, it's really this that's kind of like coming up and I'm being shown all the different ways that I [00:07:00] use all these different things to apparently make myself feel guilty and. Right now it would be like reading. I. Re rekindled my love for reading and taking it to the extreme where it's pretty much all I wanna do.

Anne: I still make sure I get my stuff done, but I'm definitely, and I'm making sure I'm playing with my kids, but every spare second I possibly can. I'm reading and I, that's just not, it doesn't feel balanced to me and I'm finding a difficult time figuring out if it's just like Anne Chill. You're still living your life.

Anne: It's not getting in the way of your, you're getting enough sleep, you're getting all these things done. Are you just wanting to feel bad about something and feel bad that you're enjoying this or are you really doing it too much? It's. It's really hard to know. 

Helen: It's not, uh, for me to hear in the way you [00:08:00] just expressed that.

Helen: And so I would offer to you because, you know, I've had a lot of experience with it since the gratitude is alchemy. Work, uh, you know, I looked up well. What's the message behind guilt? Well, guilt is man, ego, uh, manufactured, you know, because real guilt, if you look it up in the dictionary, it's you do something, you break a law, you hurt somebody's feelings, you break an object, you just make amend.

Helen: So when I experience the energy of guilt, I always ask, are there amends I need to make? And you just described to me that there isn't, your kids aren't neglected. You're housework your job, you're. Life is not being neglected. You might be wanting a new level of success that includes more balance. That's entirely different.

Helen: So for me, the shortcut with guilt is, Hey, are there amends I need to make? Is there somebody I need to apologize to? Is there something I need to replace by buying a new something? Or is there a [00:09:00] fine or a fee I need to pay? Because I missed a deadline, and when it's not those things, it's just this vague, horrible energy of feeling bad.

Helen: I would say that's the spiritual invitation I. To transform that energy and choose love and stuff. Like, oh, I get so many cool books, there's so much entertainment. You know, my ancestors lived so many lifetimes where they worked from sunup to sundown, and then at sundown they sewed or cooked by the fireplace, right?

Helen: Like I'm living off of their dreams that their rockets of desire. They sent up into the matrix, and here I get to watch. Or read so many different entertaining things and still show up at a hundred percent. For my family and myself, it's pretty awesome to be me. That would be the opposite of guilt. And if you were to do that and transform that guilt energy over and over and over, remembering that you're not the only one who feels this, that this [00:10:00] could be your big spiritual contribution of transforming the energy of mother guilt.

Helen: Female guilt. I mean, women, we resonate with guilt. Look at the whole Adam and Eve story. They blame the feminine, right? We are. We have guilt in our DNA. If you ask me Yes. Doesn't mean it's true. It's a made up man concept, right? When I say man, I mean mankind, not men in general. Oh, it's um, and women, we project guilt on others too.

Helen: Right. It totally, it exists here. We drown in it. Right? So you really wanna look, are there amends I need to be, that need to be made even with me for my definition of balance or success? Then what are the amends? Figure 'em out. But don't stay in this vague fog of guilt because it, it literally hurts your body.

Anne: Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna do a, what, why, how, how, with my reading. Yeah. And then I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be upset about it. I'm gonna just enjoy 

Helen: it. There you [00:11:00] go. And I think you said something very profound when you said, am I just looking for something to feel bad about? Well, yeah. Right. That's the norm on Earth.

Helen: We have as, as a species, we have not yet evolved to true happiness. 

Anne: I do like to check in with Caden and I kind of use him as my measuring stick, and on this, he's like, yeah, I think you're reading too much, but I'm like. But I don't, so why did I ask you if I wasn't actually gonna listen to you in a partnership?

Anne: Do I prioritize my opinion and that as long as I'm getting everything done by the book of what I think needs to be done, but maybe I've got headphones in while I'm doing it and so I'm not as present as he's maybe used to. Me being, is there a, a moral requirement to how present I'm supposed to be, to be good enough?

Helen: It's only by your definition, and yet I would never ask a partner romantic or otherwise if, Hey, am I doing this too much? If they said yes, I would say, what is it you need that I'm [00:12:00] not providing? 

Anne: Yeah, 

Helen: okay. Where can I make amends? Where can I show up better for you? Okay. And then I'd keep reading. Yeah.

Helen: Right. Or even with kids, it's like, Hey, did you get enough mommy time? What do you need? Yeah, and then if everybody's happy and the house is good and the bills are paid and there's gas in the car and the laundry's done, then immerse yourself in the gratitude for time to read. 

Anne: I know it feels like after that there's not much, not much time after that, you 

Helen: have to be the one who defines am I providing what makes me feel good as a wife and a mother and a partner.

Helen: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: Yeah. It's, again, it's the, um, it's a little bit the ego, like wanting to, to feel justified and approved of little drama. Yeah. Little intensity. Yeah, 

Helen: for sure. And so always the ego too. We wanna evolve the ego to [00:13:00] serve our spiritual growth and so. When the ego's looking for that drama fix and that intensity and that guilt or that feel bad, or I wish they would feel bad.

Helen: That's where. You might wanna practice the skill of what, how can I choose love in this instead? Mm-hmm. How can I be in the higher frequencies of gratitude and transform guilt because so many people are trapped in it. Mm-hmm. Male and female. But yes, we have mommy guilt. We have, you know, there's just, it's just one of those weird energies that the mankind ego has created.

Anne: And uh, I think, I think the way that you described it, there's a different way to ask. The question I wanna ask. You know, that still allows for me to have my own definition and my own comfort of what I'm providing because at some level I feel like my kids would never say I've played with them enough.

Anne: Then you would ask that question differently. Yeah. 

Helen: So how would [00:14:00] I ask it? Did we have a good time today? 

Anne: Okay. That's beautiful. I love that, right? Yeah. Do I get, that's great. One hug 

Helen: or two because. Because I was a rocking awesome mom today. And they'll tell you they'll love you. How many hugs? Answering the affirmative if you ask in the joy of it.

Helen: Mm-hmm. And then with a partner, you said a really good word that I would offer, uh, to bring your attention to is opinion. Mm-hmm. Do you want to Opinions or of the ego and they are all about drama. If you go to what's my target, what's my goal in marriage and balance and life and entertainment and work life balance?

Helen: Mm-hmm. Whatever that you define, well then you look at, here's my target, is this serve the solution or support what I want? That's not an opinion. That's a strategy, a skill, and I, you know, a concept that can be followed through and opinion opinions are just opinions and they can cause a lot of drama.

Helen: Okay. Like you'll [00:15:00] notice, I love it when I talk, I, we say, oh, this is just a Hellen opinion. Mm-hmm. Right. It means it doesn't really have great value. Um, 

Anne: it has value, 

Helen: truth on earth. There isn't one truth on earth because everybody is having different experiences and they have different opinions and different levels of consciousness.

Helen: There are spiritual truths, and those are what I mostly teach and align to. Mm-hmm. But I am human and I do have Hellen opinions too. I just let you know. 

Anne: Yeah. Which is what, which is great. Um, okay. We ready for our question for the week? Yes, please. Awesome. Well, our listener, Vanessa, set in this question and she asked, can you talk about the difference between spiritual bypassing and genuine peace?

Anne: Sometimes I wonder if I'm being truly centered or just avoiding hard feelings. Ooh, 

Helen: wow, Vanessa. Thank you for the question. Uh, so spiritual bypassing is [00:16:00] quite the buzzword lately, and, and what I've noticed, um, I wasn't familiar with it before the last few years, and the way you ask the question, your answer's actually in there.

Helen: If ever you were avoiding hard feelings. You're spiritually bypassing because spirituality is not about not feeling bad. It's not about avoiding, repressing, negating, ignoring, hiding any feelings, and then acting all positive. That will never bring you peace. True spirituality is about bringing truth. A higher eternal truth of of love that's beyond human understanding into form, form on earth.

Helen: Absolutely 100% has ego trauma, big emotions, and it's difficult. So spiritual bypassing is when you negate ego and you negate emotions that [00:17:00] exist. Real spirituality is, I can feel human emotion. And not be reactive and cause more trauma from them. Meaning if I'm gonna deal with my fierce, fierce, traumatized emotions, I'm gonna set myself up for success and safety.

Helen: I'm not gonna wait till they spill over and I bite somebody's head off. Hmm. Right. So really embodying higher consciousness of truth and love and light in these crazy human bodies. And our really busy lives is about having healthy, wholesome relationships with everything, including money, including health, including deadlines, including community, including the emotional body, and all of its growth and evolution too.

Helen: So it's about parenting as a [00:18:00] loving, intelligent, evolved parent. The emotional body by giving it safe parameters, exploring the emotions your soul came in to learn through without letting it run the show. The only thing I ever teach about emotions, and I get misquoted all the time, is. Do not make decisions from the traumatized emotional body.

Helen: And so that looks like, oh, I feel so good about this, so it must be spirit. I'm gonna say yes and do it. I would say first run through principle-based thought. Does it make sense to you and all your loved ones and your time and energy to say yes to that? Or mm-hmm. I'm so mad. I'm never gonna let them have that.

Helen: That's, that's being reactive or I'm impatient. This has just gotta happen now I'm gonna make it happen. Now that's reaction to negative. When I say negative, I don't mean wrong or bad. I mean a fear-based emotion. Mm-hmm. [00:19:00] And yet a love-based emotion, you can go too far too. Right. Because humans, we don't really understand the broader spiritual love that is not codependent.

Helen: Or manipulative. We're learning. We're just learning here. And so be the loving parent of higher consciousness, the observer self, the soul self, the higher self that would make time for the hard emotions in a safe way so that they could be transformed and not cause more trauma. So you wanna be able to feel your feelings.

Helen: You just don't wanna run your life or let them run your life. Yeah. Huge distinction. It's kind of like what you were saying with the. Binging on reading. You've really gotta look at it from a broader perspective. When is it safe? How do I deal with this to get an end result? I want, if you're reactive to emotion, your only end result is, let me feed the ego so it'll shut up for a minute.

Helen: That would be spiritual. Bypassing true [00:20:00] spiritual work is, let me learn about this emotion, let me learn about my past trauma and how do I get through that well, and what is it? I'm wanna get through it for. What's the benefit? What's my end in mind? What's my target so that I keep evolving into the best quality of life experience for me.

Helen: Here's another way to say it. I love this. I just heard this. I met a man who is a seventh grade teacher and he, he says what he teaches his kids all these years he's been teaching, he says, I always tell them. I think all the spiritual and religious teachings come down to one succinct teaching. It's that seek joy in your life and you'll know you're on the right track if it doesn't harm anyone else's capacity for joy.

Helen: Isn't that great? That's so great. So if you're joyfully reading and it's not harming your relationships or your finances, you're good, right? Yeah. Read [00:21:00] and enjoy. Yeah. If you're. Hiding from hard emotions and it's costing you an integrity in relationships, and then you're exploding inexplicably in different areas or self-sabotaging or overmedicating.

Helen: Mm-hmm. Then it's time to look at your emotions differently and learn some new ways of, of transforming them. Hmm. I'm hoping this makes sense 

Anne: to you, Vanessa. I feel like it makes sense, but I'm not Vanessa, so yeah. I also hope it makes sense to Vanessa. Um, do you have a question for Vanessa on 

Helen: this one?

Helen: Yes. It would just be, Vanessa, what hard feelings are you trying to avoid and have you learned anything about what those emotions mean or the potentiality? Because you can mine them for gold. Spiritual gold and inner peace is a. It is a continuous journey. It's not a one and done ever. So if you think of inner peace as everything else, that's [00:22:00] true.

Helen: It's always about the expansion of good. Your capacity for inner peace today is not what it will be later. And how do you keep developing inner peace if you don't face the hard emotions at a new level of consciousness? Ideally, you can hold peace in the worst time of your life because you practice through hard emotion often.

Anne: That sounds like a, a nice place to be. It doesn't mean you skip anything. You don't skip anything here. 

Helen: Yeah. You know, inner peace doesn't mean you don't cry when things are sad. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And somebody else is in pain or your pet dies. You cry, but you cry and the energy flows through you and then you're fine.

Helen: Yeah. And you have peace at a broader sense of I got to love this animal or person. Yep. Inner peace lets you feel anger like, oh, I need to pay attention. What can. Where can Amen be made? Where's trust broken? How can I help somebody who's having an unfair experience? And then you do it, and the anger flows through you, right?

Helen: It's always about, [00:23:00] the emotions aren't bad. They're not here to punish you or trick you. You have to get educated on what did these emotions mean? What's the invitation? What's the gift of this? How do I utilize it? So that I evolve my mind and my heart to a new level of inner peace of. And what is inner peace?

Helen: Inner peace is loving kindness, patience, forgiveness, inner peace is real love in action. And real love doesn't make anything wrong. It may choose to not engage with certain things, but it doesn't make hard emotions wrong at all. 

Anne: That's a beautiful way to put it. Alright, well that's another one. I appreciate your time, Helen, and going through all of that with us.

Anne: Thank you for sending in your question, Vanessa. 

Helen: Yes, Vanessa, appreciate it so much and I hope you find your way to great information on those emotions. Again, I highly recommend even just Google her website, Carla with a k, Carla [00:24:00] McLaurin. She really teaches that all these emotions have beautiful invitations and messages for us.

Helen: And the other one is the, um, she wrote the book, the Language of Emotion, and then there's also Banyan who's a hypnotist, and he has some cool stuff on his website too. He wrote the book, the Secret Language of Feelings. Okay. And between those two, there's a lot of information of how to deal with the hard feelings and the everyday feelings too.

Helen: Because you know what? You live in this dense plane, you're gonna feel 'em. Oh yeah. You just wanna have choice in how you show up in your experience with the emotional body. 

Anne: Well, and the opportunity to, to receive the messages that come. Totally. It's uh. It's a whole new way to play. It is a new way to play 

Helen: and it does pay off well.

Helen: Alright, so we thank Vanessa. We thank everybody who sends in questions. We appreciate you contributing to the show by listening and being with us, and we love this opportunity to play and co-create [00:25:00] together. Thank you so much. 

Anne: That's all for today. We'll be back next Thursday with our next episode. You can subscribe if you'd like to get new episodes when they drop.

Anne: And reviewing and sharing the pod will help others find our community. We love getting your questions at Hello at Metaphysical Street. smarts.com and enjoy connecting with you on Instagram or wherever you've found us at Metaphysical Street Smarts. You can leave comments or questions there, which may be featured on our rapid fire segment.

Anne: For information on upcoming events and consults with Helen, please visit Helen Rays. Dot com. That's H-E-L-E-N-R-A-C z.com. 

Helen: We invite you to re-listen. Join us on our next episode, send us questions because it is our intent to support you at this tumultuous time on Earth into the best experience of you.

Anne: Thanks for being here. Until next time, stay [00:26:00] grounded.