Journey to Iconic Podcast

Choosing You: Even When the Blessing has a Sting

• Kirsten Barfoot • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What if the moment that stings is the blessing you asked for? We dive into the messy middle where frustration, failure and tricky people become teachers, and we show how to meet them with clean honesty, strong boundaries and calm observation. Instead of chasing feel-good moments, we practise seeing every experience as information. That shift—from polarity to equilibrium—returns agency, raises our signal and opens space for solutions that force can’t create.

We talk about owning emotions without shame, because the avoidance of feeling drains more energy than the feeling itself. From there, we get practical: claim quiet space, disrupt overcommitment, and stop wearing “Yes” as a badge of honour. Real leadership removes tasks from the basket so excellence can breathe. We also challenge a common myth: you are responsible for your emotions and actions, not anyone else’s. Let go of managing other people’s moods and watch your clarity return.

To ground the mindset, we bring in the Gene Keys—moving from Shadow to Gift to Siddhi—using examples like control to trust, and corruption to equilibrium to harmony. Behaviour can look similar across these states, but intention transforms everything. The goal is the middle path where life is neither good nor bad; it just is. From that centre, intuition finally has room to speak, and answers often arrive in ways logic could never design.

If you’re ready to choose yourself, start by asking: where am I contributing to what isn’t working, and what is the gift wrapped in sandpaper here? Press play, share this with someone who needs a reframe, and tell us the gritty blessing you’re recognising today. Subscribe, leave a review, and join the conversation—your story may spark someone else’s breakthrough.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, hello. And to today I wanted to give a follow-up to the Choosing You episode that I did a while ago and I never published it. So I was listening to it and and I was thinking, wow, there's some really important information there, but I also wanted to follow up about, you know, will we choose us when the blessing comes? And I really wanted to speak into the the blessing part of it, you know, because we usually I think when we are talking about a blessing, we see a blessing as being this really positive experience, right? Where you think, oh my gosh, I've just received a whole bunch of money, or I, you know, something really good happened. And so you're like, yes, that's my blessing. But I really, really, really want to speak into a blessing being like potentially a negative experience because I believe inherently that our blessings come in all shapes and sizes, all colours, all variations possible, and it is how we think about the experience or feel about the experience as to the truth of it. So there's our truth, there's somebody else's truth, and then there's the truth, and the truth is capital T, and we may never ever know what the truth is, because you know, life is a little bit wild and crazy at times, and it's really hard to see these potentially negative experiences in a favorable light or to see them as a blessing. However, if we can start to see these experiences in our life as blessings, we are going to change everything. We are going to change the way that we experience life, the way that we experience seemingly negative experiences, and how these experiences, no matter how they come across, how they could be gifts for us. Now, Lisa Nichols has called them gifts wrapped in sandpaper, and I think that that is a few very beautiful way to describe it, because these experiences are gifts. They are, but they will, you know, rub us like sandpaper at times or grate on us like sandpaper, because when we're in that moment of frustration or in that moment of difficulty, or in that moment of inadequacy, or whatever it is that we're experiencing that we see as not great, we can be in that victim space. It's it's like this this experience is happening to me, and I don't know why. Why is it happening? And it's this is not good, why is that person treating me like that? And all of the things like we can look at it like that, or we have a moment to take some time to reflect, have uh, you know, reflect. It doesn't mean that we have to respond or we have to be any other way, other than what we are, and I think this is what causes even more frustration is that we're seen as like, oh well, I'm frustrated, or I'm feeling self-doubt, or I feel fear, or I feel all of these experiences, and then it's bad. No, no, no, it's not. All of these feelings, emotions, things that are happening are very real, and it is about accepting that these things are real and not giving ourselves a hard time about feeling the way that we do. I believe that owning the fact that we are frustrated when we are frustrated is a frequency of truth, and that is a very high frequency. However, if we're feeling frustrated and trying to ignore it or feeling shame or guilt or whatever other emotion about it, that is when we take our frequency down. That's when the frequency moves into that unconscious realm and we allow all of those emotions to just take over and it just becomes a thing that we try to ignore or put away. But if we are in a in a frustrated space, it's like, yes, this is how I feel right now. I feel quite frustrated, and either I'm going to remove myself from a situation or I'm just going to take a little bit of time for myself. I can go for a run, I can do whatever, you know, whatever is the thing for you because I know we're all different and we all channel our energy in different ways. And I would never want to rip you off of your experience because it's finding out what how do we want to be in those moments. And for me, it is about getting some quiet space, like trying to find a space that is just for me so that I can have some quiet. I find that the world can get very noisy and it's very difficult at times when I'm in those heightened spaces to just find out where I'm at. And so a quiet space of stillness, uh if it's a walk or if it's just you know being somewhere reading a book or just listening to some music or listening to something that is empowering, those things can really help me shift into a space where I can then be in that creative zone and then really understand or listen to my intuition when it comes. Because half the time, if we are in these heightened states where we're trying to think in a logical fashion and usually very myopically, which is like there's only one answer for this, uh, and not the optimal frequency for us to be in solution seeking, right? Getting back to the point is that we so we when we talk about so when we're talking about will we choose ourselves when the blessing comes, I believe this is a moment-by-moment thing. I we are so used to seeing the world through other people's eyes. Well, uh you know, I'll speak for myself here, like I am so used to being in that space and offering some solution or or or whatever in accordance with how somebody else might like to receive that information, and so I have become so well-versed at figuring out other people that at times I'm like, what would I actually choose in this moment? Like, what do I want to do? Because you know, you find yourself being this yes person, yes to this, yes to that, and and it's it's exhausting. And Eva Papalopara, she's one of the CEI, CIA agents, she has become like this voice or influencer on on Instagram, and she says some very powerful things at times, and she was like, you know, as a leader, we can't be saying yes to all these things. We go around and we are agreeing, but as a leader, as a strategist, as a person who needs to be on the spot thinking about things and making decisions, we actually need to be taking things out of our basket, out of the things that we need to do, off our to-do list, not putting more things. And I think this is a real shift in uh the modern world because, especially women, I'm just gonna call it how I see it. This is just my uh uh you know experience of how I see the world, and women wear the yes as a badge of honor. We are so used to picking up the pieces of the things that get dropped by other people, whether this be in a work environment, whether it be in a home environment, whether it be in a in a relationship dynamic, we are so used to picking up the pieces and then exhausting ourselves with all the yeses and how strong we are and how amazing and super sonic hero, like we can just do everything. And and I swear to god, like we we we are that. I I know that because I experienced this in my life, but I also see the exhaustion, the pure exhaustion that comes from just saying yes to things and being the one who can handle it, and and you know, you're like, okay, you're not gonna do it, okay. I'll do it. If you're not gonna do it, I'll do it. This is not great leadership. This is really not great leadership because it's not showing other people how to show up in their potential, it's just allowing people to be mediocre, it's allowing them, and then we become mediocre because we say that's okay for you to be that way, and I'm going to do it, so therefore, I'm going to deplete the energy that I have available and do a mediocre job of the very many things that I have instead of choosing very consciously where I am going to put my energy and ensuring that everything I do is done with excellence. Now, I'm not saying that that's not how I like to carry out my life, I like to be in excellence in all that I do. So, what I what I work on is that when I am doing a particular activity is doing the thing consciously. What am I doing? I've got many things on my plate, like I have I am the multitasker of all things, like you know, but I see where things start getting missed or things start like not being excellent, and I think, whoo, hang on a second, that wasn't okay. Like that that wasn't okay. That was a legitimate criticism or feedback back to me of where am I overcommitting and not being able to follow through on commitments, whether they are explicit or implicit, meaning whether somebody, whether I have directly agreed to do something and not done it, or whether it has been implied that I would do it and I haven't done it. And and recently I have missed a couple of things, which brings me to that self-reflection place. It's like, where am I overcommitting? Where am I not utilizing the resources that I have? And I look at the the the superhuman in me is like picking up all the pieces of people who could be doing it themselves, and then you end up being people's babysitter, and people come to you for things that really are not in your remit, but because we're so used to just handling things because it's so efficient, it's like we're not teaching people to handle them. So getting back to the blessing, what is the blessing in this? Is the blessing is that where are we contributing to the things that are not working in our lives? Because what I see in the world is that everyone is very good at blaming other people for the things that don't work in our lives, and I do not believe that this is a responsible thing to do, nor do I believe this is a conscious thing to do. I believe that this is a very unconscious and a very irresponsible way to walk through life. And does that mean that I don't go into the blame sometimes? Oh, I'm a good one at that. It's it's addictive to just blame somebody else for things that do not work. Very good. But I saw something the other day that really got me thinking, and it was saying, you know, about um the women were saying that they carry the energy of the family, and so when they're not feeling very good, then then the rest of the family uh feels that energy, and then everything is a bit off. And I was like, Yeah, like I noticed that too. And then they were going on to say about you know, just another thing for women to feel guilty about, and I was like, Yes, you're right, like we that's what we do. However, for us to sit there and say, we are the ones who are responsible for the energy of the room is actually a really arrogant way to look at it. Because it's basically saying, I'm responsible for my own emotions, and I am now responsible for everybody else's, and that is total BS. We absolutely are responsible for our emotions, but we are absolutely not responsible for others, and this is the problem in society is that there are so many rules and regulations and things that we just get caught up in. We are so rule-bound that we forget that we actually have our own responsibilities in life, like we actually have an ability to be conscious about our choice of emotions, our choice of thoughts, our choice of actions, how we behave, how we allow people in our lives to behave towards us or towards other people. If we do not like something in our lives, it is our responsibility to either make a change within ourselves or to speak with another person and say, now, if that is still met with uh you know dissatisfaction, then guess what? It is our responsibility to remove ourselves away from that situation. It is not up to us to blame another person and say they have to change because other people are not our responsibility. I know that is a news flash, going to be a news flash for some people because that is how I hear, like on social media, so it's all the narcissists, it's the you know, the people who you know toxic. Blame, blame, blame. It's blaming other people. Meanwhile, we have a responsibility to ourselves to say, well, actually, how am I contributing to this? Because it's all very well for us to label somebody else, but why are we, why is that in our force field? Why have we attracted that into our lives? Either we have put up with it, or on some level, we operate it from that same frequency, and I'll be the first to admit I have a very controlling nature, 100%, and that has to be kept in check for sure, because there are certain times that I want to control things that I really need to be let go of. 100%, and that that takes that takes courage to acknowledge that, it takes a lack of wisdom to understand that there are certain times that control is a very, very helpful thing to do. There are many areas in my life that I have to have control over. I have to have control over my finances, I have to have control over, you know, certain um meeting requirements, I have to have control over uh certain, you know, the way that my business is handled. I I have a lot of areas in which control is a very helpful thing to have, but there are also other areas where I need to release that control and let others step into their power. I need to empower other people to step into their greatness, and certainly when it comes to clients, that's that is a very uh safe space for people. They have constantly uh the feedback is that I allow space for people to grow. I I think that that is actually my claim to fame, is that that is what I do offer people is that there's a safe space for you to grow into your potential, but we're not going to grow into our potential if we are constantly looking outside and blaming the external world for how things are not working in our own life. So getting back to choosing you when the blessing comes is like where are we going to choose ourselves when it comes to these negative situations, these perceived negative situations. I always say perceived because it is always a perception. In reality, it is only one side of the coin, and it is neither bad nor good. We will talk about things as positive and negative, good and bad, and yet really the whole point of life is to come to that place of observation, to see things as neither good nor bad. Now, I'll tell you what really helped me to um because I know that these uh concepts can be like really philosophical at times and they're not tangible because we have grown up with things being positive and and negative and good and bad, and there's that constant polarity. We have been trained our whole lives to think polarity, and then there's that sweet spot in the middle, which is like I say, you know, there's there's our truth, there's that truth, and then there's the truth, which is right in the middle, and that's where we aim to be, is in that middle because when we are in that middle space, we are in that harmonic place, that's where things are neither neither good nor bad, they just are, and it's information and it's looking at things and going, okay, right, what what what what is the information presenting here? And if I wasn't attached to it being good or bad, I'm coming to that place of acceptance, and then it's that place of understanding. I just want to understand the information, that's all I'm doing, and then it's like, how can I move to that next space of understanding? And so you're constantly that's that evolution, that's that transformation, and that can happen in an instant. You can actually change your life in an instant by virtue of the way that you think about it. It is really and truly that simple. And yes, I have experimented with this a lot of times, and it is correct. Uh, you know, you can change your life in a second by virtue of the way that you think about it. Um, but one of the tools that I find exceptional for this particular thing that I'm talking about is the jean keys, because the jean keys talk about um they have these spheres, and they talk about the challenge, and then they talk about the gift, and then destiny, which is what I would call the enlightened version. So for a particular sphere, let's just call it selfish, selflessness, and then the the gift is altruism. So we are very good at looking at selfish as a negative thing and a challenge, uh, and then altruism is like that, it's like that real giving out without that expectation of return, and then there is that selflessness, which is really um it's a next level enlightened version. And when I did some research into this, because I do have it in my gene keys, is this is this one, is um that when you do some real integrating into this one, is that when you understand it, there's not a heck of a lot of difference between selflessness and selfishness other than the intention. What do I mean by that? Is that if I am going around thinking about not thinking about other people, and I don't care about other people, and I just care about myself, we would call that selfish. Then there's that gift, which is the altruism, which is like giving out to other people without the expectation of return. We go into the selflessness, and it is understanding that people can take responsibility for their own lives and actions, and we do not have to be the fixer for everything, and that is an intention of uh owning my energy, seeing my energy as high, but also entrusting that energy as whole and complete. I think when we come to that place of feeling whole and complete within ourselves, we can acknowledge the wholeness and completeness in another being, and therefore we can allow them and their journey to unfold as it does without poking into it and trying to manufacture certain results for other people when it's none of our business. And that would be my favorite, one of my favorite examples of it's not negative or positive, selfish, selfless, kind of the same thing, except for the intention. One is I don't really care about other people, and the other one is I care a lot about people, but it's the same thing, we're leaving them alone. So, anyway, I I hope that is a a picture, but you know, have a look, have a look at the gene keys because that control and that trust is the same thing. Control shows up in my gene keys, which is probably not surprising, and and you know, and and that was another thing because there's that on the other side is the city, which is valor, which to me in my little brain needs to understand it. There's trust, which means that there's that trust element that goes, Okay, the control in me is like letting go and trusting the process, however, also the trust in the process understands that there are certain times in my life that I need to control my environment. So, you know, that's gives a real tangibility in terms of seeing this whole positive and negative. And so my invitation is to if you haven't had a look at your gene keys, is go and have a look. There's you can do your free profile, it's going to come up with these amazing words, and you will see that there are certain words that are really challenging. Like there is there is one that's corruption, but I can't actually remember at this particular moment what I think it might be. Oh, it is it's corruption, is the challenge, uh, the gift is equilibrium, and the city is harmony. And so people, when they see these in their charts, they're like, but I'm not corrupt, but everyone is corrupt because when you think about the corruption in our brains and what lies we tell ourselves, or what lies we buy into, like you know, I'm not good enough, or I'm not this enough, or this doesn't work, and those that is a corrupt way of thinking, and so at the very minimum, we can all acknowledge that we do have a corruption within us, and it's not about going, oh my god, I'm so corrupt, and seeing it as this negative thing, it is looking at it and going, huh, that's really interesting. Wow, yep, I never thought about it like that. But then it's coming to that place of equilibrium that I've been talking about. It's like it's in the middle, it's in the middle, it's from the observer's perspective, it's not good, it's not bad, it's not negative, it's not positive, it's not either, it just is, and it's that acceptance point of coming to that place of equilibrium, that place of observation, looking at the information as it is without having that emotional entanglement, and that's when you get the harmony. That's when you get the harmony. You're like, okay, right, it makes sense. I get the clarity, and when you're in that space of clarity, that's when the answers come, and that's when you can see the things for what they are, and that's when you can see that that perceived negative experience is the blessing, and so the choosing you in those moments is the choosing the equilibrium, is the choosing of that moment of being the observer of it's not good, it's not bad. And if I was to see it from that place of observation, what then can I get from that? So this was a pretty wild, crazy ride. But this this part is really, really important is to really just see through see life through that lens of acceptance, of equilibrium, of observation. It's not good or bad, and if we can see every situation in our lives as like that gift wrapped in sandpaper, because honestly, there's not one situation in my life that doesn't come to the clarity at some point, and and yes, I'm gonna be honest, like sometimes it's years, where you really get that clarity of like, okay, that all made sense why that had to happen the way that it did. And I have not met one person who hasn't been able to find the gift in the situation that they have once thought was negative, and even my hardcore client who was like, No, there's not going to be a positive, and I was like, Okay, but can you be open and willing to see it? She was like, Yes, I can do that, and I said, Okay, well, that's okay. Allow it to come to you. You do not you, and I'm saying this to you guys as well, like it you do not have to force the answers, the answers will come to you, they will for sure, 100% they will come, and you just have to say these words. I am open and willing to receive the answer, and you allow that you allow that answer to come to you, and when it does, let me know. Like, send me a message and go, I just got that. How cool! And if you want to share the story, that'd be amazing. So, my invitation today is start to notice the things that are not going right, the things that are not working, the perceived negative experiences. Maybe there's a person in your life who is not treating you appropriately, maybe there is uh a situation that you you know that it's been easier to blame. You know, it's been easier to blame the external or whatever, this the external circumstance, whether that be the a person, uh a situation, an event, whatever. Just notice the things. Don't give yourself a hard time about this, by the way. This is this is calls for kindness, gentleness, and love towards yourself, okay? Because we are whole and complete the way that we are, and really what we're doing is we're sort of peeling off these layers of like of film that we have allowed to be placed on us that are just a little bit sticky and a little bit muddy and a little bit dark and dingy, and we're just sort of cleaning ourselves up a bit, you know. All you're doing is sort of shining, shining it up a bit because it's all within us, everything we need is within us. We're just not used to trusting ourselves enough to know that we have the answers, and and what we're coming to is greater levels of trust within ourselves, greater levels of um understanding ourselves, because when we understand ourselves, we understand other people better, or or at the very minimum, you can accept that everyone is on their journey, and they may not get the information at the same time you do, but guess what? There's somebody else who's getting information at a different time to you as well. So, like, what there's this is there's no one better. No one worse, it's just we're all on our own journey figuring stuff out on the timeline that we individually have, and we have these blessings in our life that come to evoke that next transformation for us, that next level of evolution. Whether they may rub you the wrong way, and you know what? The people who rub you the wrong way are your biggest angels. Don't worry, I don't say things like this lightly. Okay, it's not like you know, I don't have these uh people in my life who have rubbed me the wrong way, and there has been some real soul reflection on these people and situations, and yes, I have had those. Woe is me, how could this be? Why what did I do to bring this on to me? And yes, I've had those moments, and this is why I can I can share this from that that deep level of like allow this space, allow the space for the answers to come, allow the space for the clarity. And this is not going to be that thinking exercise or that logic exercise. You know, something I say about intuition all the time is your you know your intuition is speaking to you when it is the most random, most ridiculous thing. There are certain times that I have followed my intuition and just gone, oh my god, like my logic would never have taken me there, but then my logic would never have led me to a place that I am, that I go, holy cow! I could never have foreseen this, I could never have realized this if I had just followed my brain or not followed my intuition. So if I didn't follow the thing that actually made no sense whatsoever, then I would never come to this place of clarity that I have at the moment, right? So, um, and that's for a different uh session. We will go into that a little bit deeper, but for now, will you choose you when the blessing comes? And it's like really having a look at the blessings, the people who rub you the wrong way, the situations that felt like they didn't bring a win for you, the failures, like the failures. Look at the failures, not in a place of like, oh, I didn't make it, it's like, what did it bring? What was the gift wrapped in sandpaper that it brought to you? And just be open and willing for the answer to come to you in a way that you least expect. So I hope this has been helpful. I as I said, when you get that clarity, message me, let me know. Uh, I want I I love hearing your stories, they are always amazing, and um, you know, they provide food for thought, and your your your wins and your clarity also produces like inspiration for other people too. So never forget the impact that you create in the most ordinary ways. Alright, with that, I love you. Have the most wonderful day, and until next time, see ya. Bye.