Speaker #0Welcome to the episode 1 of Cosmic Flowers podcast. In this very intimate episode, I'm going to share with you one of the most difficult chapters of my life. A period connected to my Saturn return. I could also call it the dark night of my soul, the destruction of my ego, or simply the worst year of my entire life. Welcome to Cosmic Flowers Podcast, the podcast for women's empowerment. I'm Hélène, a modern-day fairy, healing soul, coach and therapist, guiding you to release childhood trauma and create heart-led projects. Through this podcast, my intention is to help you reclaim your personal power, embrace your vulnerability and reconnect with your gifts, so you can fall deeply in love with yourself. and become who you truly are. So take a breath and get ready to radiate your inner sound. So why am I sharing this with you? Because I truly believe the lessons I receive through this experience can deeply help others. As human beings, we all go through periods of transformation. And very often, those transformations arrive through painful experiences. Experiences that ask us, like the phoenix, to rise again from our own ashes. These moments reveal our capacity to overcome obstacles and remind us that there is always life after death. Always life after death. Of course, we can also grow through beautiful and joyful experiences. Thankfully. But... I believe the deepest transformations happened through the uncomfortable places, the places we were never wanted to visit. And this is where personal and spiritual rebirth begins. So my Saturn return became a catalyst for a deep realignment and for empowering the woman I truly am. In this episode one of the English version, of Cosmic Flowers podcast, we are going to talk about heartbreak, toxic relationships, self-love, accountability, healing, transformation, and flying toward a new life. And at the end of this episode, I will share with you the three life lessons that stay with me ever since. So let's begin. Prepare yourself. to receive flowers in your ears. So before diving into the heart of the story, it feels important for me to explain what a Saturn return is according to astrology. Because every single one of us goes through a Saturn return in this lifetime. And honestly, it shakes everything. Saturn brings what we could call a deep identity shift, a major turning point. in life, sometimes even an existential crisis. It's a demanding cycle, but also an incredibly powerful one for inner growth. And through this podcast, I will often speak about planets and the impact they have on our lives. Because honestly, I just love it. According to Indian astrology, Jyotish, which means Lord of Light, Your birth chart is like a map showing the field of possibilities for your life. Its purpose is to help you know yourself and therefore understand universal laws and navigate this human experience here on earth. Because let's not forget, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Your destiny is not written in stone. Your chart gives direction but you still have free will. You are always free to choose your own path. According to Jyotish the human being is like a crystal with nine facets and each facet must be polished to reflect universal light as purely as possible. This light can be associated with pure consciousness. or the soul itself. And each facet of this crystal corresponds to the energy of a planet. Do you see where I'm going with this? Saturn is one of those nine planets. Saturn is the planet of yogis, ascetics, sages and philosophers. A severe planet, austere, disciplined. Saturn is about returning to your true nature. And yes, Saturn brings reversals, big ones, big reversals. It's the planet furthest from the Sun, receiving the least warmth and light from it. Saturn is a little bit like the rejected child of the Sun. Its movement through the sky is slow, and around the ages of 27 to 30, Saturn returns to the exact position it occupied when you were born. This is what we call the Saturn return. And boom, everything explodes. It often brings huge life changes, but also a deeper awareness of our real needs and the life we truly desire. Saturn places us face to face with difficult situations so we can evolve, so we can transform. It is associated with death, separation, illness, poverty, but also contraction, depression, anxiety, fear, doubt, melancholy, destruction that allows rebirth. Saturn can make us doubt ourselves and even dubbed our own divinity. What a mischievous planet, right? Spiritually, it represents discipline, solitude and asceticism. Saturn brings the greatest challenges, but also the greatest rewards. Independence, boundaries, inner sovereignty. It exposes our weaknesses so we can conquer our own nature. And when the lesson is finally understood by the soul, peace arrives. So let me tell you my story. A few years ago, I could never have spoken about this experience. I felt so much shame around it. So much. And yet, today, I see it as a true source of inspiration. Because it reminds us of something deeply human. We all have wounds, weaknesses, blind spots. And the experiences we go through are here to help us become conscious of them. So we can transcend them and become who we truly are. In January 2017, I turned 24 years old. After completing a master's degree in economics and management and working one year at Microsoft in human resources, I decided to follow one of my biggest dreams, traveling the world solo, doing volunteer work with children and wild animals, monkeys, jaguars, crocodiles, turtles, tropical birds. So I left for Central America. For eight months, I lived between Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Cuba. And maybe in future episodes, I will share more about solo travel and how to trust, how to listen our intuition while traveling the world and all the magic hidden inside those adventures. So in May 2017, I lived for three months. inside the spiritual community in Nicaragua. And this is where my connection to the invisible world and the spirits of nature became stronger and stronger. And this is also where I met my so-called Prince Charmant, Prince Charming, or maybe the Poison Gift. At first, it felt like a fairy tale, homemade, candlelit dinners, flower necklaces, falling asleep in a hammock under the stars, talking all night while watching the sky, horse rides through nature. The fairy tale phase lasted for almost two years. September 2017. We moved in together near Paris. September 2018, I left alone for India. We were still deeply in love, but the call inside me was stronger. I went to study yoga, Ayurveda, meditation and Buddhist philosophy. What was supposed to be a three-month trip turned into a year and a half in India. In April 2019, I had to leave India. temporarily to renew my visa. My so-called Prince Charming joined me in Nepal and together we trekked the Annapurna mountains on foot and by motorcycle. And this is where I slowly started noticing the manipulation, the control and the power games. I didn't recognize him anymore. And I started questioning our relationship deeply. December 2019, I returned to France. We saw each other again. And this is where the nightmare truly began. The entire year of 2020, I lived inside a deeply toxic relationship. A relationship built on unstable foundations. There was... emotional violence, constant power struggles and contradictory messages. I felt like I was losing my mind. One day it was, you are the love of my life. The next day, I'm moving back to Nicaragua to create a spiritual community, but I don't want you there. Then, I miss you, come now, join me in Nicaragua. And once my suitcase was ready, Everything will shift again, hot and cold, hot and cold, again and again. My nervous system was exhausted and still I believe I could save him. I believe he was the man of my life. Little by little I lost trust in myself. I lost connection with my intuition, my energy, my joy. I think I was depressed and honestly that's okay because my body was speaking to me loudly. I would wake up in the middle of the night vomiting as if my body was trying to expel the situation itself and it took me time to accept that the only person I truly needed to save was me and maybe the universe had you orchestrated everything from the beginning. Maybe three and a half years earlier, life already knew. Among all the women in this spiritual community, I was the one who ended up with him. Because apparently, this was my path. The path from dependency to independence. The path back to my personal power. I believe the universe works with us in two ways. First, through mirrors. People who reflect our own wounds back to us. The people who trigger us. Often reveal parts of ourselves we still need to heal. And second, through opposites. People who are the complete opposite of us. to show us the extremes we have been living in. At that time in my life, I was what one of my therapists called a distorted empath. I was giving too much of myself, living for others, ignoring my own needs, making everyone more important than me. And deep down, I think I was terrified of fully taking responsibility for my life. Terrified of making mistakes, terrified of trusting myself. So instead, I gave my power away. And maybe, unconsciously, I was benefiting from staying in that dynamic. Because if someone else controls your life, then you don't have to fully face your own freedom. I would like to share with you a quote from the poet Rumi. This is your path and only yours. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you. And as for my so-called Prince Charming, looking back I would describe him as a narcissist with a deeply toxic personality, meaning someone who only thought about himself. as if only his needs and emotions truly mattered. And in truth, we were both living in extremes, both unbalanced in our own ways. We were the perfect match, the perfect match to shake each other's belief systems, to challenge each other, to evolve, the perfect match to force mutual transformation. In my life, I have always had a tendency to live in extremes. Food, sport, work, sex, emotions, the full spectrum. And honestly, it's still a part of me. But slowly, gently, I'm moving towards the middle, towards balance. And you, do you also feel that pull towards extremes sometimes? Just to find yourself again. Because when I'm not aligned with my inner flower, with my soul, I attract difficult situations. Situations that bring me back into alignment. Because spirituality is a journey back to your original source. A path where reconnecting with your inner child is essential. During a period... of about one and a half years in 2020 and the beginning of 2021, I went through what we call the six stages of grief. First stage, shock, denial. I refused to believe I was in a toxic relationship. I simply could not see it. Second stage, anger. A deep sense of injustice. Third stage, bargaining, negotiation. Because I still had hope it could change. Fourth stage, depression. A deep sadness, where I lost trust in human beings, and even in life itself. And I didn't believe I had the inner resources to get through it. Fifth stage, acceptance. where I was less and less obsessed with the story. I accepted what had happened, even the violence of it. And finally, the sixth stage, the integration, the transformation. And that's why today I can speak about it freely and share the lessons I have learned with you. If I had truly loved myself back then, I would have left the moment abuse appeared. But apparently, I needed to go through this experience to become aware of my limiting beliefs and break them open. So I'm going to share them with you now. And I invite you to notice whether they resonate within you. You can tune into your body, your sensations, your inner responses. Trust yourself. Small disclaimer here, these were unconscious beliefs, meaning I could not have verbalized them at the time. I wasn't aware they were ruining my life. It was like they were part of my DNA, an inherited pattern, transgenerational, or maybe even from another life. So let's begin. First, belief. If I am not in a relationship, I have no value. I truly believed my worth depended on whether a man chose me or committed to me. Second belief, I cannot build a business without a man in my life. I believed I needed a man beside me to support me emotionally, to believe in me so I could believe in myself. And here I was completely giving away my personal power. Third belief, I cannot live abroad without a man. Traveling solo was fine, but settling abroad alone, I believed that was impossible, that I needed a partner for it to be valid. You can tell me if any of this resonates with you. I would genuinely love to know. And if it does, don't worry. There are many tools. in coaching and therapy to release these patterns, to reprogram your subconscious mind. Now let me share what helped me come out of this spiral. So first, support therapy. I worked with a therapeutic coach for six months and it was a real commitment emotionally and financially. But if I had to do it again, I would. Because it helped me to regain clarity and reconnect with my needs. Second, emotional support. Friends, family. People outside of the situation who can see more clearly what is happening. Because when you are inside, inside of it, you are emotionally entangled. But from the outside, clarity is easier. And I want to take a moment here to thank my childhood friend, Maya, who was a true support during this time. I will never forget your love. And thank you to my mother who was there for me when I could no longer eat, drink or sleep. You helped me when I could not hold myself. Third, support. Continuing to share my purpose. At that time, I was deeply connected to yoga. Even when I felt lost, I kept teaching. And something interesting happened. During those classes, something higher would move through me. As if I was channeling something beyond myself. And those became some of the most powerful teachings I ever gave. Fourth, support. Theta healing, the theta wave. My first experience, I will never forget it. It felt like a quantum shift. In an hour and a half, I understood things I had been stuck in for over a year. It is a practice that combines talk therapy and energy work, working directly with limiting beliefs, stored in the subconscious mind and something Unexplainable happen it felt like my anger my pain simply dissolved My mind didn't understand it, but my soul did It was as if my soul met his soul. And I suddenly felt not anger anymore but compassion. Not justification but understanding. And I remember holding him and saying goodbye with peace. Not because everything was okay but because I had been freed. So now I want to share the three lessons I carried. from this experience. Lesson one, your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. The only true toxic relationship is the one you have with yourself because when you love yourself deeply, you no longer allow manipulation or abuse. The outer relationship simply mirrors your inner relationship. So instead of blaming, you begin to see and you begin to transform. Lesson 2. Prioritizing yourself is essential for healthy relationships. This does not mean abandoning others. It means honoring your needs so your energy remains balanced. And what remains? You can offer to others from a full place. Your body is your greatest guide. Your sensations, your emotions, your signals, they are always communicating with you. Listen, always. Lesson 3. Discomfort is a portal to transformation. What if... everything happening to you was actually a gift. Even when it looks like chaos, it is still life working with you, not against you. Every challenge is a doorway to your next level. If you are facing something difficult, it is because you have the strength to move through it. Otherwise, it will not be here. Chaos, breakdown, darkness, these are resets. They strip away what is not a line, so something truer can emerge. So I invite you to ask yourself, what is the hidden gift in what I am living right now? What would love do here? What would courage do here? And finally, this experience led me to become a coach and a therapist, guiding you to release childhood trauma and create heart-led projects. But that is a story for another episode. Until then, thank you. for being here. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye. Bisous. Thank you so much for listening. If you love this podcast and would like to support me and help spread my message, feel free to subscribe. Give me five glowing stars on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and a sweet little love note. I read all of them, you know. You can also tag me on Instagram at cosmic.flowers. I'm sending you lots of love and sunshine.