My superpower as a woman of power is listening, and I'll say it, I am a fantastic listener.
People can tell when you're really listening and not just hear that listening part, but I hear what you have to say, there's a difference.
Yes, we can all listen, but can we hear what is said, and listen really truly, deeply. You can also hear what is not being said.
I think Maya Angelou says it best people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, they will never forget how you make them feel.
And this is my superpower, to be with a person and let them know in that moment they are number one, in their world and mine they're number one, and people just remember that.
I think sometimes there's a true art to listening. As far as when you're with someone and they're telling you a story or they're talking, check in with yourself, ask yourself am I thinking about what I'm going to have for breakfast?
Or am I actually listening?
Because listening is what builds connection, everyone wants to feel connected it’s an innate human desire to connect and feel that you are a part of a bigger whole. Having this as a superpower means listening to myself as well, that's where it really starts.
As your doula for grief, it happens that as I'm talking with somebody they will share their grief and loss. I had a conversation with a gentleman about two weeks ago and he shared that he had just lost his wife about a year ago and he was really just missing her, he was in tears. And I just put my hand on his and said I'm sorry. I just allowed him to continue and he said thank you so much. He said I feel so good talking about my wife. And thank you for listening.
So we parted ways and that was that.
And Wednesday night we had a big soiree at a different event, and this gentleman was there and he came running over to say hi, and it was him! And he was overflowing with gratitude, I feel it's so wonderful to know that he was moved by our conversation. listening is my superpower I'll give you an example back in 2020, we were living in San Francisco, California Bay Area, and the beautiful house we were renting was put up for sale. Of course my landlord gave me the first dibs. It was for sale for a million dollars.
I asked myself do I want that kind of heaviness at this stage of my life to be in debt for a million dollars? Is this the best for me at this time?’
And it came to me that it was a no. As much as I love that house and I say that house loved me, but it was clear that this was not for me. It was the middle of the night. I was up and I got that intuitive hit that said give everything away, move to Ireland with your daughter and be in the Irish countryside.
It was just so so clear. It's like you and I were talking! I was only looking for whatever in my closet late at night and it came to me loud and clear. I went to bed, I woke Tito up, I said
Honey, how would you like to Ireland? and he said you know, baby, let's do it.
And we did it, it was just such clarity that I knew it was a direct experience, everything was just in flow.
It was just a continuous flow.
I can't remember any real hiccups or glitches but it took about three months to make it happen. And so that's it for me, when it is my intuition it is just spot on, it's clear, I can't even argue with. I can't even say what did you say move?
It's a visceral response
Yes, my intuition is always spot on.
When I was guided to make that home move I listened to my intuition which I said is directly connected to Spirit. I've many times been asked how do you know if it's your true intuition or just my ego. How it works is that if it's my intuition and it says, oh, it's time to move, it's time to move to a different city.
If it is consistent it is always a yes, it's time to move. Always.
Yes, it's time to go where you're moving. Yes, it's time to grow. When it's my everyday Bonnieism,
When it's should move or not move? Oh, what am I going to do about this? or when doubts come into play it is no this is not for me now, and then generally it’s difficult to make things happen. I remember my youngest daughter at a time when she was ten and I was telling her all that I was going to try to help make changes for a friend and I said you know, I've tried this, I've called, I've gone over there, I've taken this to them. I just went down this laundry list of all these things that I had done and tried to make the situation happen with this person. And my ten year old daughter said, Oh please stop. You're doing too much. You're doing it as if they are a child.
Wow.
So I think when it comes down to trying to make things happen, if you're doing too much it's time to stop, pivot, reevaluate and come back to do what it is that you want to do. I was a single parent with four kids. And that was a lot, you know working full time.
And I always, always checked in to say Bonnie what do you want besides being a nurse? Because that was my dream, my passion my lifelong passion. Being a parent was just over the top important, but I still carved out time for something for me, if it was a chakra reading intensive workshop that would last for six months, or if it was a retreat. I was still finding time to do what my heart was calling for. And the way that I did that is always checking in with myself and asking is this what you want to do?
My husband Tito is a musician and innovator, and I was the manager of the band for even until now. Sometimes that would be so intense and require so much time, but I would still check in with myself and ask what do you want to do?. Because if I was giving too much to being a band manager and not giving to me, that set me up for a lot of resentment in our relationship.
This is how I have been able to keep that balance while still supporting me and really checking in with acknowledging what I want to do right in the moment, and to do it.
I feel that I'm following my life's path by continuing to check in with me and to question what is this giving me Bonnie? Where's this growing me Bonnie? Is this about expansion for me today?
Right now I am expanded to the next level by being here in Mexico finding different paths that I had not thought of before. I am expanding, by being open hearted.
This is my year of saying yes.
I find that yes is an expansive word, it is so expansive. As soon as I say yes it opens a part of me that is just lying dormant. Sometimes I'm shocked when I say yes. Have you ever had this happen? It was so funny. just with the opportunity of speaking at the recent Vista conference.
Last year I was invited to be a presenter at the conference and I just said yes, I filled out the application form, I didn't even think any more about it. Months later I received a reply; yes we would love to have you to present at this conference. I just had a blank sheet of paper and no idea what I would present. I mean I had only a few ideas and I wrote them on the application. A friend was so encouraging, she said Bonnie, that's how it's done. you put it out there then you get the details to fit, so it's an outline of a picture then you paint it.
And that was so encouraging. Never let money be the reason you don’t do things. Many people say ‘oh, well I would start my whatever if I had enough money. Oh, when I get enough money I'm gonna have this organisation.
Oh, when I get enough money, I'm going to teach this workshop.
Never allow money be the reason you don't choose to go ahead when you have that strong heart desire to do whatever it is. Know that once you say yes to that the universe moves heaven and earth to make that happen. So many miraculous things have happened with my declaring what it is that I want and not letting reality be the reason to not allow my desires to manifest. Yes always opens me up for receiving.
I was a Buddhist leader for many years. I'm still practising now with a group of people that I work with to facilitate our meetings I help with what they call spiritual guidance I facilitate our meetings and send students to teachers to get guidance. I know from my own practice that trust and faith are two sides of the same coin, this is the key in whatever your practice is, even if you're practising worshipping doorknobs.
I'm not here to sound, a particular philosophy. But whatever your faith is having 100% belief in it, because the more you can build that faith, having faith, having prayers answered, then you get to that level of having an unshakable trust that you know that what you've been practising works. So that practice allows me to trust and go out and try something that I'm shaking in my boots around. But that's how it works. Just by having a spiritual practice and really having faith in that practice will build your trust.
When you are ready to step out and do things. I really feel that when people are saying it's about the money, it's really just looking at what is the real block? What is the real block, if you could say to yourself, okay I've got a $100,000 or whatever amount you need, now what am I going to do?
Because if you can remove the block, then you can get to the core core beliefs.
Often we are more afraid of being successful than of failing. And so I ask myself how would I handle success? How would I wear it?
I love that Tony Robbins says, show me how you’re going to a walk when you stand in the world with your ideas and dreams, show me how you're going to stand correct when you're rocking the world with your dreams!
When we put up roadblocks we can then look at what we do and what we can release and ask what can you let go of?
It's not always about money, it could be time, I don't have time to do that. I've recently had to say
I can’t continue to do that. It's taking up a lot of bandwidth to do that. Whatever it is, we all have different reasons why as I said time, childcare and it’s really about just really looking at what's holding you there, because the world is your oyster to be enjoyed.
I want to share that I stuttered a lot as a child, I stuttered so badly. Yes. I had speech therapy. So as an adult, I found that I really wanted to be an advocate for nurses.
One time I wanted to give this hour long presentation of something and I really wanted to do it, and you know what, I just looked fear in the face and I did it anyway. And that was just the beginning of me opening up.
As an adult, I found a speech therapist and worked with him. I know that if your heart is there, there is a way and I found the perfect speech therapist. I still have moments of not being super fluent but it's okay. I've offered this to say that this is a real excuse. I could believed that there was not going to be enough money or there's no babysitters available. I refused to let that stop me and the perfect teacher appeared!
Talking about grief- I define grief as events that change your life and you can't go back to the way life was. Of course, to witness the death of a loved one is the biggest cause of grief and we have divorce we have relationship issues and letting go of our children. Graduation can be a part of this and the loss of promotion, a life change in geographic location, health issues, so many things that put us into a state of grief.
Grief encompasses emotions of sadness and it can be anger. It can be just that loss of desire to be motivated and sometimes this brings on depression, but if it's depression, then we need to go another direction.
You know when they say we are the people we've been waiting for well grief was just waiting for me to grab onto and lead me on saying I'm gonna take you out of the closet and bring you into the middle of the room because grief is just another human experience. I feel like this is what I was made for. Grief is a human experience that can open you up again and you really can be very restricted and shut down by not exploiting the grief and by not saying Wow, I'm just so sad today I am just so sad I don't want to get out of bed I'm so sad I lost that job. How am I going to feed the family?
Instead of saying oh, you're getting the job or that's not that important’ I would say ‘just sit with it and say that was difficult.
Or you can say I don't know what to say I wish I could say something to make myself feel good.
Because grief really needs to be validated, grief needs to be heard and it needs to be shared. It's time to move away from putting the blinders on, you know how horses have those blinders having myopic vision not seeing everything around.
Grief can even be beauty that excludes a part of yourself that you then discover, a part of someone else that you've discovered. It could be that you have a friend who is more compassionate than you could have ever thought. I love grief because so many people that I talk to are in grief around various things that have nowhere to have it shared, heard and validated.
The last of my superpowers to be able to embrace grief and also death and dying, these hard subjects I have no problem with them. It's like the eye of the storm, I’ve looked them in the eye and they each have gift. It's about being open to see the gift of it and it can be life changing, profoundly life changing. Find someone that you can share your grief with. Find a friend that can really listen, even if they don’t give advice, find a friend that can listen. If you can’t find a friend there are support groups, grief coaches and professional help such as myself and remember not everybody can hear your story so don’t put yourself in that position to be hurt further or shut down further.Remember don’t do grief alone, it’s to be shared.
If you're really grieving something that you can't move forward with life, that you feel really stuck and really paralysed, that is the time to get support. Because it's okay to feel stuck for a short period of time, it's okay not to feel motivated to do anything for a while and that's okay. But if those things persist, then yes get support.
Sometimes when we grieve it’s good to take it apart to see what's really there. It can’t grieve if you never really want to dive in. But you'll never know until you grieve and don't be afraid to grieve it's a friend who will just teach you, and teach you to teach.
Lean into it.
Lean into that fear with I feel so disappointed about this or I really, truly sad, because all of those emotions want to be heard. That is what grief is just a tonne of emotions that will come through and the idea is the more you lean into it. it passes, it really passes. As women let's be in that sisterhood of friendship where we encourage each other.
I know we're talking about the divine feminine and even with the divine feminine, men have that divine feminine energy also, so embracing, really embracing each other and supporting each other is vital. And having that sisterhood of friendship and support of being there and really, really monitoring your own self talk.
As I talked about listening is what we say to ourselves when no one else knows and no one else is there.
What do you say to uplift yourself?
That's how you can move forward with this divine feminine energy and know that this energy is loving, supportive, receptive, and that we all are this not just by gender, we all are this.
Bonnie Gonzalez is a Registered Nurse, a spiritual practitioner RScP, professional Life Coach, Soul Collage facilitator and Your Doula for Grief founder and coach.Bonnie specialises in grief, supporting clients one on one and in group settings.
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