Rediscovering Connection with Shelley Doyle
Welcome to Rediscovering Connection, a Podcast where you'll hear from innovative leaders, researchers, community builders, and facilitators, on the frontier of connection.
Through soulful conversations, we explore new ways to connect, on-and-offline, to support our social and digital wellbeing.
I hope this podcast inspires you to rediscover connection in your own life!
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Rediscovering Connection with Shelley Doyle
#11 - Cindi Buckley - How Love Can Replace Fear
Cindi Buckley is the author of Love Awakens You.
In this heartfelt conversation, we explore how trusting your intuition and inviting higher guidance, can lead to a less lonely and more fulfilling life.
What if you could lift the veil of fear and embrace the transformative power of love?
Cindi graces us with a beautiful meditation practice from her book, to help you find inner peace and guide you towards your 'home'.
Mentioned in this episode:
Disappearance of the Universe
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/601004/the-disappearance-of-the-universe-by-gary-r-renard/9781401905668
A Course in Miracles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Course_in_Miracles
Find Cindi at https://cindibuckley.com/
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Episodes You Might Enjoy:
#4 - Kirsten Barefoot - How to Tap into Your Intuitive Genius
https://youtu.be/DSDyIRFIMv8?si=0FScnZKBDXx93q0H
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I hope our conversation inspires you to rediscover connection in your personal or professional life.
Subscribe now and let the magic unfold.
Love & sparkles,
✨Shelley
About Your Host
Hi, I'm Shelley Doyle, a Social Wealth Strategist and Connection Coach. I empower remote and nomadic founders and leaders who crave deeper connections to activate their social wealth, so they can feel trusted, supported, and truly connected—both online and offline—no matter where they are.
Discover More.
I combine cutting-edge research on social wealth, social wellbeing and social capital with two decades in corporate communications to deliver mind-shifting talks, workshops, and programs around the world.
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Hello and welcome to Rediscovering Connection, and I'm here today with Cindy Buckley and I'm super excited to welcome Cindy. Cindy is the author of Love Awakens you and she very kindly shared a copy of her book with me a couple of weeks ago, so I've had a really nice chance to have a look at it and have a look at these pearls of wisdom that Cindy has been collecting for her whole life and has put together in this beautiful, beautiful book. So welcome, cindy, I'm so happy to see you here today.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. Thank you, shelley, and thank you for inviting me on your show, and I'm excited to dive in and see where we go with this journey.
Speaker 1:So I'm really hearing through the book that it is really about that reconnection with self and I'd love to explore that concept with you and perhaps how this came to be. And I know we've touched on before this call the topic of loneliness and how, if we reconnect in with our self, how does that play into our feelings of loneliness?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things that the book does is let me just start with it helps you to understand and recognize the difference between love and fear, because fear is incredibly pervasive in our lives and we aren't even aware how pervasive it is. Pretty much all our lives are based on fear. Everything we say, do and think is based on fear. And what the book does is you read the book. It unlocks your true potential. The way the words are put together, it causes you to open up to a new way of thinking and when this happens, you learn to trust your intuition more Yourself. Holy Spirit I use that because I'm a student of a course of miracles. I don't mean it in a religious sense, I just mean it as a presence much greater than myself. Holy Spirit, higher Self, divine Source, god Pick a term, whatever you're comfortable with, it doesn't matter to me. Intuition I use intuition. Loving guidance, holy Spirit I use them all interchangeably. When you learn to connect to those, your life becomes easier, happier and, the big thing is, you will feel less loneliness.
Speaker 2:Now I'm going to tell you when I was 16, I got fired from a job. I was being sassy and I got grounded for the summer. And when I got grounded, I was only allowed to go to another small part time job I had, which was like three, four hours, three, four times a week. Other than that, I had to stay home. This is my 16th year. I spent a lot of time with Jesus and the angels. I didn't realize that's what I was doing, but a lot of learning happened to me at the time. But of course, I didn't embrace it till my early 40s when I actually found Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard and a course of miracles. So I read Disappearance of the Universe and a course of miracles and I did the workbook and a course of miracles all at the same time, and I would not recommend you do that because your ego is going to get challenged.
Speaker 2:Yeah me, I was in a rush. Don't be in a rush. Everything happens when it's supposed to happen. Whether you want to believe that or not, it's true. So we need to learn how to connect to our intuition and I you know myself have some physical ailments which are inspirational and hopeful. But it doesn't teach people how to connect to their intuition, and that's what the book does Love awakens you. It helps to teach you to connect to your intuition and as you're learning through that process, you become more aware of your higher guidance. And as you become more aware of your higher guidance, you don't feel lonely. Nobody is ever alone. Now, one thing I do need to say is your higher guidance and all the angels and whomever are here to help you can only help you if you ask you must ask.
Speaker 1:I've heard this, I've heard this. It's kind of like imagine that they're all just sitting there waiting for an invitation, but unless you invite them in, they're not going to be coming to help you.
Speaker 2:Ooh interesting and it doesn't take much for them to come. Generally, I like to tell people the way it starts is you have some sort of seed of discontentment or an idea that, god, there's got to be a better way? They're in, you've opened the door, but yeah, I ask all the time questions and to invite your guides in Always.
Speaker 2:And you know, different people will get visions, they will hear things, they might feel it in their body. There are many different ways. Dreams are another good way that they communicate with you, but you want to make sure that who you invite in is of a loving, kindness, compassionate way of being.
Speaker 1:Right and this is intriguing because I was just doing some like inner work a few days ago and they said consider some of the manifestations that have come to fruition and backtrack into how you went about them. So for me, I was thinking about some of the events that I've done recently, that I've presented, that went particularly well. I was like what was my preparation like? What did I do beforehand? And that was one of them I was inviting in my guides. So I actually thought that a couple of days ago I mustn't forget to do that and, like we did before this session, we had a little grounding and we did exactly that.
Speaker 2:So because eventually it takes time and it takes practice. I'm in my mid 60s and 64 and it's taking me quite some time to be able to listen to what they're saying at the same time that I'm talking to you. That takes a lot of practice. By the way. Usually people when they first do it there's a slight pause, as they're hearing. Let them pause, let them get their thoughts organized. Let it come Now. It just kind of flows through me fairly easily. Or sometimes I'll have to go I need a little help here or sometimes I'll go.
Speaker 2:I'm very clairvoyant, so sometimes I'll say show me and I get an image, and then I can make some thoughts from that image. But in general now it just sort of comes down. I'll just give you a little example. The first time it happened really to me, I had a workman at the house who was a young kid maybe early 20s, mid 20s and we were just chatting, talking about the changes that happened in the world and in the back of my neck I felt this pressure. And this pressure was to say love never changes. And I'm not saying that no, and I kept getting this feeling in the back of my neck Push, push, push. Finally I said it Love never changes. And he laughed and said oh, that's so good, I've got to tell my wife. So you don't know how you're going to affect people by what you say and it's not your job to care.
Speaker 1:Your channel, you're the channel, you're the channel.
Speaker 2:You're the facilitator and your job is to deliver the message. That's it. And sometimes I've had to say things and I thought it was quite harsh and they're like nope, you will say that and I said it, but guess what? It's how they needed to hear the message. You don't want to have any judgments, you just want to deliver the message. Judgment is a fear. If you think you're an individual, you're in fear. I mean it goes. The list is long.
Speaker 1:It's intriguing. I did a podcast with a friend called Kirsten Barfoot recently and when she started coaching she was at this point with her client that she was literally like I don't know what you need to do here. And what was coming through for her is say say I don't know. And for some reason her saying it enabled her client to have a realization.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You don't know. It's not your job to know. It's not your job to worry about how they're going to perceive it, or are they going to get the message? I have an interesting thing that happens to me is I will say something to someone. It could be day, week, years, later, months. They will repeat back to me exactly what I said to them and they will not know it was me that said it and oh, I got to tell you.
Speaker 2:For years I kept saying I want credit, I want credit for saying that, and I realized that's ego and I had to learn to let it go. Actually, what my guide said was to think of it as being an ascended master in training. The ascended masters help us. They tell us lots of things. We don't listen. Eventually maybe we do, or maybe it's a different lifetime, who knows? But you know what They'll get the message whenever they're supposed to get the message. The guides will work on getting the message to them in whatever way is appropriate. But I had to learn to let that go and sometimes I would say you know, I said that to you like a year ago Now you did it, and then I'd get in this big argument. I thought, okay, you know this isn't working. I can't be doing this, so I've had to learn to let go. I'm giving you the advice up front because you know, yeah, nobody's going to do it that way at first, but you know, eventually they will.
Speaker 1:And I'm managing my expectations. And expectation was one of the pieces in your book that really struck me, because in the work that I do, helping people to reconnect, there is an element of having to manage your expectations. Because when we're reconnecting with people, particularly if they're people that we haven't spoken to for a long while, but we're feeling the call to connect, we need to do so from a place of no expectation. If they come back to you, that means that they're meant to be coming back to you at this point in time, but they may not. They may not see the message, they may be completely busy and unable to be to be there. So expectation I'd love to delve into this topic with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't have any. That's the key. Seriously, if you have expectations, you kill your intuition. It stops. There isn't any intuition if you have an expectation because you've placed an idea of an outcome you want and you don't want to do that. You want to be open to whatever happens and, believe me, when you learn to be more open, what happens is more than you could possibly expect it is. It'll be like oh, I never thought of that option. It's not your job to think of the option, it's their job. They're the ones who know the whole picture, the whole story. We know tiny, tiny speck of it. Our interaction here is a tiny, little speck and we're hoping to share our wisdom with people who want to listen and who can accept, you know, and even if they can't accept, they'll hear it and one day they might be able to accept it.
Speaker 1:This view seems to contradict to a lot of other speakers who talk about manifestation and setting clear goals. How does that?
Speaker 2:play in. All right, let me clarify you can manifest by asking for something, and you may get it. But generally you're asking that of ego, you're not asking that of your higher self, because you want something, whatever that may be. You want that bracelet, you want a bigger house, you want that fancy car. That's not really manifestation. Manifestation is what's done with your guides, and it will always be what you need and what's for best for everyone else. That's what true manifestation is the idea that you want to have a clear idea of something you want. Yes, you can have that. You may not get that if you're in connection with your higher selves, and that's okay, because what comes is way better.
Speaker 1:In terms of the human connection, though, I had some experience of this over the summer. I'm living in a new place. I've moved around a lot since. I've been in Canada. I moved to where I am now in January. This is when I really started doing the work to intentionally build my own circles with people who I can really be my authentic self around. There's space in there. Still In the summer, I went to an event and I was setting intention. I knew where I was at and I went somewhere on my own to a festival. Two people that I met were exactly the people that I needed in my life at that time. It was really like. It felt like full alignment. I met one who was part of the business community here and I met another who was a speaker on stages around the world. I was like I really needed to meet both of these people. Is there a way that we can do this with intention?
Speaker 2:Yes, you asked your guides for help. I know we live here as humans. We have to do the human life, we need the human connection, whatever that is for people, but you always want to be guided by your guide, by yourself. I can't stress that enough because when that is, the synchronicities that happen in your life is stunning. Who you need to know will know what you need to know. You'll know it when you need to know it, not before and not later. It's amazing. I have things happen to me like that all the time now, and it's so much fun to be able to just say, oh, I'm supposed to meet that person, or if I get invited somewhere, sometimes I'm told no, but most of the time I'm like, would you go? And so I go to, because you know, I'm kind of a hermit. I like being a hermit. I've had so much guidance that the human connection is something I'm learning more about, and so it's not a bad thing, by the way, it is not a bad thing, but I need to get out there to share the message.
Speaker 1:Something that something I find is curious. So when I get invited to events, I do tend to have a immediate yes, you want to go, or no, you don't. There was an event I was invited to a few months back which was a full moon ceremony, and I was an instant no. I was like I don't want to go, and I said I said that I wouldn't go. And now, looking back, I'm like that would have been an incredible event. The group was really good and I'm kind of a little bit regretting the fact that I didn't go. So I need to say yes, more yeah, even if it feels like.
Speaker 2:Even if it feels like sometimes we have to get uncomfortable to get where we need to get to and that is that's not going to stop your whole life Sometimes we just get a little uncomfortable. Say yes, you know, of course the miracles teaches always say yes, unless, of course you feel like your life is going to be threatened. Then obviously don't. But say yes, there's no harm in saying yes.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:There's also no harm in saying no, but say yes.
Speaker 1:I would love to go into another one of your. Okay, so another one conflict says that conflict makes you feel alive. I'm quite a conflict averse person, so I was really intrigued to read this and go oh, okay, that's it, the conflict is not a good thing.
Speaker 2:You know mostly it's not a good thing. I should clarify that People like conflict because that's what makes them feel alive. They love the adrenaline rush that they get. They're knowing that they're going to be fighting someone in whatever way. It could be sports, it could be an argument with someone, it could be yelling at the TV over something who knows, but that's what most people get from conflict. I don't. I'm not really a big on conflict, but people love conflict.
Speaker 1:And you say that happiness is the road to recovery.
Speaker 2:It is whatever you're sad and not feeling well, being happy is what makes you feel better.
Speaker 1:And do you have some tools that have kind of helped you on your path to happiness when times haven't felt so good?
Speaker 2:I have a couple things, yeah, that I can share with people. One is a saying that I teach everybody I am always safe and protected. Now, say it when you're sad and say it when you're happy. Say it both times, because when you're sad it does really help lift you. It's simple, it's effective, and when you're happy it just reinforces the happiness. So it's a two-edged sword it does both things for you. I am always safe and protected. That's one of the things. One of the other things is take deep breaths. You'd be amazed at how much more oxygen in your body helps release stress from it, and it releases it from your mind as well, and as you.
Speaker 2:There are hundreds of different ways to do deep breaths. I mean, the one thing that's very common among all of them is to put your hand below your belly button and, when you take a deep breath, breathe in through your nose and make sure your belly is going out, and then, when you breathe out, hold it, pause for a moment Don't have to pause for a long time and then release from nose and mouth. And the reason why you want to do the nose and mouth is when you release from the nose, it does the upper chest, the mouth does the lower part. So if you just breathe in and out of your nose, you're only doing the upper part. Breathe in, and it takes some training to do that. And if you're not, if you're new to it, you might get lightheaded, and that's okay. Just keep practicing. Do three, four at a time, anytime, all the time. I do it all night long because I stopped breathing, you know.
Speaker 1:I really felt that when I did that, I breathed out the nose and the mouth, and I never do it.
Speaker 2:No, and it's. It takes training. Yeah, I thank you, and there are lots of different ways you can. You know this do counts pulling four hold. Four out four hold.
Speaker 1:I can't be bothered with any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do the square. There's the oval. You know that's all too regimented for me.
Speaker 1:So and I would love if you would grace us with a meditation from your, from your book Love Awakens you, Should we be willing.
Speaker 2:I certainly can. Let's see we have remembering home Beautiful and how should we be?
Speaker 1:Should we close our eyes? Should we have our hands anywhere?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should be sitting comfortably in a chair. You're not stressing in your lap comfortably, you don't have to. What I want is your body to be able to be relaxed and no stress. So lower your shoulders, because that's where we tend to lift our shoulders up. Okay, close our eyes and what we want to do now is we want to take a long, slow, deep breath. Take another long, slow, deep breath. Take another long, slow, deep breath. Relax your body by letting all thoughts of concern drain away from you. Your head, your shoulders, your arms, waist, hips, legs are relaxed.
Speaker 2:Imagine you are surrounded by a golden white light. This golden white light permeates your body. All parts of you are now a golden white light. Imagine, at your heart center, a flower bud. The bud is tightly closed.
Speaker 2:Slowly, one petal of the flower opens. As it opens, a small puff of air is released. You notice another petal is slowly opening. It also releases a puff of air. As each petal opens, a wave of air is created by the opening petals encompassing you in peace.
Speaker 2:The ruffled edges of each petal remind you of a soft, warm feeling of long ago. The ruffled edges gently sway back and forth. On each sway you see a flicker of light. The swaying becomes faster and faster, the flicker of light becomes more. The light is an open doorway to the inner recesses of your hidden soul. The doorway is open for you to walk through. Walk through to the remembrance of a long ago place where you know with all certainty you are home, enjoy being home, remember the joy and happiness you feel at being joined with all. Next, in the knowing you will return. Slowly, take three long, deep breaths, bringing you back to your temporary home. You smile, knowing you can visit at any time. Slowly open your eyes and see how things look different, notice how you feel different, know that things will not ever be the same. You remember home with each deep breath and the feeling of serenity.
Speaker 1:Thank you, cindy. I love just the idea of this coming home and how, whenever we go into meditation, wherever we are in the world, whatever age we are we are almost ageless and we could be anywhere but going into this space of home and remembering and coming back to our self, yes, we are.
Speaker 1:Thank you, cindy Buckley. I really enjoyed connecting with you today. Thank you For our guides, and let's encourage our guides to be with us on this day as we go forth. Are there any final words that you would like to share, or how can people find you?
Speaker 2:You can find me at my website. The link is on Facebook and the book is available on Amazon. Love awakens you.
