Vibrant You

Reclaiming Joy, Awakening Aliveness and Embracing Your Desires (by Reviving Your Inner Teenager)

• Bindi Stables • Episode 23

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So you’ve done your inner child work... but how’s your inner teen doing? This is something that I’ve been deeply connected to the last year. It's connecting to this part of me - beyond my inner child and reconnecting to the energy of my inner teen.

Ever felt like you've got lost in the shadows of life's responsibilities and the seriousness of adulthood? The part of you that got lost in duty, obligation, prioritizing relationships, work and everything and everyone but your own desires and dreams.

By confronting our past and owning our desires, we make room for transformative experiences. This episode is your chance to reclaim that spontaneous part of your authentic self once again.

You'll learn:

  • The 'Desire Pulling' technique to call in your most desired "wants" in your daily life to spark joy within you

Find out more about ALIVE:

  • An exclusive 6 week, women's group coaching experience to Reclaim Your Joy, Awakening Your Aliveness and Embrace Your Desires  
  • Join the ALIVE program by emailing me at info@bindistables.com

Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be SO grateful if you could leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, that way we can inspire and educate even more people together.

I’d love to connect with you on IG: www.instagram.com/bindistables

Visit my website for more resources and ways to work with me: www.bindistables.com

Welcome to the Vibrant You podcast. I'm your host, Bindi Stables, and here we talk all things wellness and vibrant living. You'll learn about integrative health, functional medicine, and holistic biohacking and enjoy raw and real conversations on personal growth, mindset, and motivation. Raise your body and mind and become the happiest, healthiest, most vibrant. You Enjoy the show. Hey, and welcome back to another episode of Vibrant You. 

Today we are talking about something so dear to my heart and so alive for me over the last few weeks and months. We're talking about reclaiming joy, creating aliveness, and embracing our deepest desires. You have done inner child work right. There's a lot of talk about this. Inner child healing feels like a buzz term at the moment in the personal development and inner healing field. 

My question to you is: how is your inner teen doing? 

This is something that I have connected very deeply with over the last few months. I've been in this place of connecting to this part of me, going beyond my inner child, going to that very specific part of me, that energy of the inner teen. You know this part of you, this part of you that got lost in the shadows of responsibility and the seriousness of life, the part of you that got lost in the duty and obligation and prioritizing of relationships and work and everything and everyone else but your own dreams and your own desires, named and you abandoned as you learned what the world told you was important and what wasn't, and you made achieving that a priority for yourself and, I know, for me for many years that part of me died. You know a bit of my story and my relationship to my inner teenage hood and reclaiming this joy, this desire, this aliveness, this wonder for myself. 

My teenage years

You know my childhood and my teenagehood was amazing in so many ways and you know there were times and moments where there was a lot of fun and play and laughter. But a deeper theme was that I didn't have much of a teenagehood. I mean, I grew up really quickly. I moved out at 14 years old. I drank a lot. I consumed a lot of alcohol. I think I got alcohol and drinking out of my system before it was legal for me to drink. So probably from the age of 12 to, I don't know, 16, 17 years old, I drank. There was probably a year span where I drank on almost a daily basis. I remember having so many different numbing coping mechanisms. I smoked weed on almost a daily basis and I remember even going to math class with a plastic water bottle full of vodka and would be sipping on that throughout my entire math lesson, just quietly playing chess by myself in the back corner of the classroom. All of that to say that I numbed a lot of my teenage hood away and I did engage in very unhealthy, rebellious but also really unhealthy and like I didn't want to hurt anyone kind of ways. So you know I, at probably 16 years old, you know I started taking university-level courses in high school. 

Once I kind of got the rebel party vibe out of my system by like 16, 17, I became obsessed with learning and I would even skip high school to go take my exams for these university-level courses that I was taking, and in health and wellness and physiology and biology. And I even graduated from school early. I graduated high school early so that I could go to India as soon as possible and I was on a plane headed to India at 17 years old, as soon as it was legal for me to be able to travel by myself without needing parental consent. And I learned a lot about myself during those years. But then I spent most of my 20s as well in ashrams and meditating and living a very austere and very serious life, studying the meaning of life instead of truly living it. 

And even in, you know, my 20s, where a lot of people live their teenage years that, like rebellious, spontaneous, go with the wind. Follow your heart, follow your desires. You know, in some ways I did. I mean I travelled the world, but I travelled the world studying the meaning of life and studying health and wellness and all of these things that really, you know the spiritual path that really shamed or even shunned desire, that called desire the root of all evil, that made desire bad and wrong and that we should be content and we should be selfless.

Myself today

And now I am here, nearly 30 years old, really learning to reclaim this part of me, this part of me that was lost. This you know, this wonder. You know the part of me that had big dreams when I was young, that had powerful desires, that had curiosity and a deep sense of aliveness and wonder, that had big feelings and big pain, that felt playful and spontaneous. And you know, innocent in such a beautiful way, this inner teenager that felt so vibrant with excitement and silly with laughter and was spontaneous, that has such a wild and beautiful spirit. 

So at the moment, I'm really in this new era and I invite you into this with me, this era of reclaiming her right, this revival of our inner teenager, this spontaneous, beautiful, sacred, precious part of us that we may be forgotten along the way. And so I've been asking myself this question as I remember and reclaim this part of me that I didn't have the full opportunity to live out when I was 14 to 18 years old, you know, because I was working full-time and I was studying full-time and I was numbing in so many ways and living so many lives that didn't allow me to express those desires and live them fully. 

So I've been asking myself this question: what is my inner teen most want? 

And if I could give permission and live out nowadays the deeper desires that my inner teenager couldn't, or at least the part of me nowadays that embodies that inner teenager, which our inner teenager is simply a symbol or an archetype for this part of us that is spontaneous and wild and alive and curious and full of awe and wonder and that has big dreams and has big desires and isn't worried about time and isn't worried about money and just kind of goes with the flow of it. And what I have found over the last months of reclaiming this is that my inner teen and I'd be curious to hear what your inner teen wants as well but that part of me, wants to write poetry and make art, she wants to play the drums and she wants to start a girl band. That was a big dream of mine when I was a teenager and I had forgotten that, like genuinely forgotten that part of me, until I spontaneously came upon a drum kit here in Bali a few months ago. So random there's like an amazing drum studio, a music recording studio, literally three minutes from my house in the middle of nowhere. So that's a beautiful, spontaneous alignment there. 

But this part of me, you know this teenager. She wants to go longboarding into the sunset and she wants sleepovers with girlfriends, staying up late, laughing, and listening to music. She wants to go dirt biking, like she did when she was young, and climb mountains and travel the world. She wants to dance and sing, imagining that she's singing as though no one's watching and just singing at the top of her lungs and laughing until I snort and tears come out of my eyes. And all of these desires that I'm remembering for myself and reclaiming, like actively. I've started a drum practice. I found a studio and I'm going every week now and this weekend it was so beautiful. My partner and I just had this inner child play day and we went and went to the beach and had a beautiful little beach date in the sun. And then we went and made pottery. We went and found this pottery studio and made a mug and had so much fun and laughed and listened to music. And on our way home we went and one of his dreams was to learn the Rubik's Cube, and so we made it our mission to nourish that childlike wonder and desire in him. And we found a Rubik's Cube and we stopped on the way home at this paint art supply shop and I bought watercolors and things that I haven't done in over a decade and it's been so beautiful and in livening. 

What are your "wants"?

And I want this for you. You know I want this for every one of us. Our desires, both our teenage desires, that maybe weren't fulfilled or weren't lived out, either for external circumstances, it wasn't safe to, or you were judged or you were shamed for those desires, or life just got busy or you grew up too fast, right? Or the other side of it is that when we're young and we are that teenager, we often shame our own desires. And there are things that I didn't do. I didn't start an all-girl rock band because I was shy and because I didn't have those friends and those connections and I didn't make those desires a priority, and, of course, the people around me couldn't either, and right. And so it just wasn't made a priority. 

And I want to say as well, in these conversations that I'm having with people where I'm asking you know, if you allowed your inner teen to come fully alive nowadays, what would you do? 

  • How would you spend your day? 
  • What would your inner teen want more for you in your life nowadays? 

And in these conversations, I had a friend reflect to me the other day. She said you know, it sounds like you had such a beautiful teenagehood. I’d love to see you longboarding and swimming in the ocean late at night and doing all these beautiful things. And she's like I don't want my inner teenagehood to come back. Those years were really hard, they were really dark. I felt like she shared. You know, I was just numbing and drinking and drugs, and it was not. It wasn't a healthy time for me, so I don't wish that for myself. And so, if that's you and I can personally totally relate to that I know that I did so many unhealthy things as coping mechanisms to deal with the stress and like unsafety that I was experiencing around me. And yet, what were the deeper desires beneath the numbing, right? What were the desires that even the teenage you couldn't access because of the environment that you were in or it not being such a supportive environment to nourish and cultivate those deeper dreams and desires that you had? 

Reclaiming your true desires

And so now, at this phase in my life, I'm reclaiming the desire for the girl band that I had completely forgotten about, and starting a regular drumming practice and seeking that out. And you know I want to go dirt biking on the volcano soon here in Bali. I've done that a few times and it always lights me right up. So the question then is okay, what were the deeper desires underneath those numbing, underneath the drinking, underneath the rebellion and, and almost as like a resurrection of that part of you that died even when you were young.

  • How can we reclaim those parts? 
  • So that's the question, right? 
  • Do you remember that part of you? 
  • Can you remember that part of you? 
  • And what does that inner teen want? 
  • To awaken joy and aliveness and to embrace those desires? 
  • Does she want to ask herself right now?
  • Does she want to sing like no one's watching? 
  • Does she want to learn how to play the guitar? 
  • Does she want to dance on stage? 
  • Does she want to go figure skating, roll down a hill laughing her head off? 
  • Does she want to learn the piano? 
  • Maybe she wants to go rollerblading? 
  • Maybe she wants to learn how to hand-make candles or do watercolor painting?
  • She wants to write poetry. 
  • She wants to learn how to ride a motorcycle. 
  • She wants to, at 35 years old, go to the freaking water park on Sunday morning by herself or with a bestie or with your niece or nephew, just to fulfill that desire. 
  • Does she want to learn archery? 
  • Does she want to learn boxing? 
  • Does she want to play hockey?

That was one of my desires when I was. When I was quite young, I had to be a ballerina. I wanted to play hockey so badly, but ballet was my thing in dance. 

  • Does she want more sleepovers with friends? 
  • Does she want more girlfriends? 
  • Does she desire, that girl gang with her, those besties, that group of besties that she can confide in, that she feels safe with, that she can play with, she can go on adventures with?
  • What are those deeper desires? 

And so I want to share with you a little practice that I have used, that I have learned more recently from a dear friend of mine, two dear friends of mine to help me access those deeper desires. Whether they are your inner teenage desires, whether it is desires of the present that we have, knowing how to access them is such a big piece because there's so much. There's so much that we've done as a society to make those deeper desires unimportant, to kind of dismiss them. 

What's holding you back?

And I know, for me for years it was so easy to say I don't have time for that or it's too expensive, right? Spending one million rupiahs, which is like a hundred Canadian dollars that's the Balinese, Indonesian currency here. Spending one million on going paragliding on a Saturday morning, because I want to feel alive and I want to feel connected to that part of me that is spontaneous and does adventures and goes with the wind and flies in the air and feels my heart beating. It's too expensive to spend one million on paragliding. But it's easy to spend one million or like a hundred bucks on groceries for a week or something that I don't really need. Netflix and all these things that aren't actually essential and don't actually nourish my joy, don't connect me to my deeper desires, but just fuel the numbing, the disconnect from our, from our deeper desires. 

And so this becomes a beautiful technique that I'm going to share with you on how to connect to those desires when they feel far away, when they feel inaccessible, when they feel unimportant. Because I know, for me, for years I didn't even know what my desires were. I didn't even know that I had desires, I think, especially because I spent most of my teenage hood numb and disconnected and drunk, and then I spent my whole 20s meditating and detached from my feelings and detached from my deeper desires, because desire was the root of all evil and I should just be content, and I practiced that for a long time and there's value in that. 

I understand that as a teaching and as a principal, but as an addiction. It's not healthy to suppress our desires In the name of false contentment. 

So how do we connect to those desires? 

I want to share with you a practice two close friends taught me recently called Desire Pulling, and this is a practice that we can either do solo, with a journal, or it's a great practice to do with a girlfriend, or with a partner or a family member that is also on board and that you feel safe sharing your desires with that. The person that you're sharing your desires with isn't going to have an opinion on your desires, they're not going to have a reaction to it, they're not going to give you advice or feedback on your desires, but they will remain neutral in just hearing and celebrating the expression of your desires. So those are rare people to come by, but I truly hope that you have a friend, a sister, especially that you can do this practice with otherwise. Doing it solo as well, with a journal, is great. 

The Desire Pulling technique

So, desire pulling all that you're gonna do is you're gonna either write down this prompt or you're gonna say it to yourself or your girlfriend. Your friend's gonna say it to you and the prompt is…

  • “I want.” Fill in the blank. 

Okay, so this is the prompt that you're gonna keep coming back to again and again and again, and you're going to say:

  • “I want a warm cup of tea.” 

Usually, the desires start small, really simple, really super visual even, and then we just say okay, thank you for that desire. And then we come back to the prompt. 

  • “I want a decadent chocolate bar and I want to savor it and I want to taste the sweetness and the creaminess and the richness of it.” 

And when that kind of desire, you know, comes to its completion, then we come back, we say “thank you” for that desire and we come back.

  • “I want to write poetry and I want to lay under the stars at night and I want to hear the poems that come alive in my heart as I'm staring at the moon.” 

And when that desire finishes, we say “thank you” and we come back again to “I want.” 

Ignore self doubt

But the key in this is to stay in the feeling of it, not get caught up in your head. 

  • Is that a good desire? Is it a bad desire? 
  • Should I want this? 
  • Should I not get caught up in the story of it?
  • Should I not get caught up in why we can't have the desire if the desires are realistic or not? 

The practice of desire pulling is really to remain in the felt sense of the experience of that desire, to allow it to come fully alive in your heart, to bubble up through your body, to expand through your limbs, and to feel into the desires and what I found for myself. 

Whether I'm journaling this, I want to fill in the blank, or a friend will ask me “what do you want?” 

And I'll say “I want this.”

“What do you want?” 

“I want this.” 

“What do you want?”

“I want this.” 

And we just go deeper and deeper, as usually, it starts out like: 

  • “I want a warm cup of tea and a chocolate bar” 

And then it ends with like deep desires that have my heart pounding, that bring tears to my eyes, desires that I had no idea were locked away in the shadows of my own logic, what I thought was realistic for myself or not, and I found profound desires, beautiful desires, sacred desires that I want to write books that help people. 

  • “I want babies.. I want to be a mother… I want deep friendships that I feel so safe with and that feel like my blood, family, like beautiful desires that go a lot deeper than you know the surface.”

Go deeper with your desires

And so that is the practice, and I truly invite you to explore that part of you and to practice desire pulling, going deeper into your desires, knowing that your desires are sacred, your desires, your very joy is, is the life force that flows through you. It is this spark of aliveness. And sometimes, when we're new to joy which sounds funny, but I've been there where joy feels like a foreign concept because I'm so wrapped up in just getting things done, going through the checklist of the day, being responsible. And I'm sure that's not your experience to the degree that I've experienced it, but maybe there is a part of that's true for you and I know for me it's so easy when I'm disconnected to my joy to find it again and to reconnect to that. 

And I know for me that when I'm re-meeting joy and reawakening my desires that I've been disconnected from for so long, there's almost like an element of kind of needing to protect it, imagining our joy like light or like a spark, and when that desire or when that joy feels new, we almost want to protect it. Imagine that spark of joy like a little candle, a tea light candle, and that flame is very delicate that any wind of life, any waves, you know, any commotion around it can kind of blow that flame out. And so, at the beginning of reclaiming our desires. 

We may want to build a little fence around it, just like you would hold your hands, you know, around a tea light or around an incense if you're lighting it outside in the wind because it's so easy for the wind to blow that spark out. But as we kindle the spark of our desire and as we fuel it, you know, with intention, with practices like desire pulling, like writing the poetry, like singing in the shower, doing the things that connect us to our joy and our felt sense of aliveness, that light starts to expand, it starts to grow and eventually that flame of desire that burns in all of our hearts becomes so big and so strong that the winds of life no longer blow it out but fuel it. And instead of that spark of joy being the small little tea light that you need to hold your hands around to protect, becomes this blazing inferno, it turns into a forest fire that wind can only propel, can only fuel, rather burn it out. 

So this is the idea we don't need to burn down fires or burn down for us, but the idea is really to cultivate and nourish those desires, knowing that they are the very life force that moves through you and your joy, your aliveness, your desires are the very life force that keeps you well, that brings you energy, that brings you vitality. And I always say in my practice, as an integrative health practitioner, I say “joy is the greatest medicine.” 

Put yourself first

Yes, supplements matter, and yes, lab tests matter. 

Yes, your nutrition matters, but truly, are you connected to your very life force, which is your own joy, your desire is your own vitality? 

  • Are you connected to those things or are you suppressing them? Are you avoiding them? 
  • Are you pooing all over your desires and making them unimportant? 
  • Are you not prioritizing them? 
  • Are you saying that everything and everyone is far more important than your own desires? 
  • Are you unwilling to fill your own cup, which is truly what nourishes you and gives us the greatest thriving, most vibrant energy that we possibly can? 

And then, from that full cup, we can overflow and we can nourish our relationships, our business can thrive, our work can thrive, and our friendships can thrive from our overflow, not from an empty cup. 

So that's what I want to share with you today is reconnecting, reclaiming our joy, awakening our aliveness by embracing our desires. And I want to share with you a little invitation to a beautiful and spontaneous desire that's come alive in me as a result of just what's been alive in my world and me reclaiming this for myself these last months and years. 

New program launching: ALIVE

Even so, I want to share with you a new program that I'm going to be launching. It is a six-week group coaching program called Alive, and it is for the woman that desires to connect more deeply to her joy, awaken her aliveness, embrace her desires, and revive this part of her that she knows is still in there, to revive that spark of joy, through desire led living, to experience deeper creativity, to connect more to her authenticity and in sisterhood and really connect to that life force of joy that flows within her. So you know that that spark of joy is in you. It's never been blown out. You have kindled it enough and you have enough self-care and self-awareness to not let it blow out completely. But you know that there's more for you and it just needs the right conditions to be reignited and to really fuel that spark of desire so that you can feel truly vibrant and fully alive. 

Alive is going to be a one-time, exclusive experience. It is going to be limited spots available, so I'm hand-selecting the women that I think would be in the greatest alignment for it, for the experience, and I'd love to hear from you if this is an experience that you feel connected to, and if you know, you'll know, because there will be a spark of desire in you that feels maybe a yes, like, maybe oh, I'm a little scared. What is involved? What's this going to be like? And there's a deeper part of you that desires billing being pulled through. You desire more joy, you desire more for yourself, you desire sisterhood and connection and you really, truly desire to revive that life force of aliveness inside of you. If that's you, I would love to hear from you. 

Send me a DM on Instagram. I am @bindistables or send me an email info@bindistables.com. Would love to hear what in this resonated for you. Would love to invite you into this experience if it aligns and it's really it's an insane, you know, really valuable price point. It's a really affordable way of working with me. 

If it's been in your field for a moment to connect with me in this way and a really intimate setting to have actual one-on-one coaching with me inside of this group coaching experience. I think this could be a very beautiful experience for all of us, and I can't wait. 

Okay, my dear, so that is all for today. My wish for you is to reclaim your joy, awaken that aliveness again and embrace your deepest desires. I'm sending you so much love and I will see you back for another episode real soon, take care. 

Thanks so much for listening. If you loved today's episode, please spread the love by subscribing and leaving a review, or if there's someone in your life that you think could benefit from this conversation, please share this episode with them. I would love to hear from you over on Instagram @bindistables, or visit my website, bindistables.com, to connect and work with me. Thank you so much again for being here, and I'm celebrating you on this journey of becoming the happiest, the healthiest, most vibrant you.