Wendy Peterson had to earn being around. Watch the kids, do the dishes, be a good girl, cause no static. "I would earn the love. I would be okay."

Wendy is an author, a metaphysical teacher and an intuitive energy healer. She spent twenty years in IT before any of this got named, and she built the Empower Method the way she used to build systems: test what works, keep it, structure it. Her premise is that confidence was never something you built. A three-year-old in a Superman cape already has it, right up until the world gets hold of her.

Lori answers with the chaotic alcoholic house she grew up in, where she made herself as small as she could, and with a meeting room years later in corporate America where saying her own name in front of colleagues made her heart hammer.

The middle of the episode belongs to Lori, and it's about a bag of salad. A food bank shift, two salads left on the shelf, and a man behind her holding a grocery basket with three well-behaved boys and exhaustion all over him. She hands him one. He says, "thank you so much, I'm just trying to make it through the day." The salad is beside the point. A few years ago she'd have walked out of that store without ever seeing him.

The back third is about carrying other people's energy. Wendy pulls the cord out at the source rather than cutting it, sweeps clean, then fills the space. Lori has four words for the same thing and she learned them the hard way. Observe, don't absorb.

Hosted by Tammy Green Mitchell and Lori Walpole. Guest: Wendy Peterson, founder of Radiance Restoration and creator of the Empower Method.

0:00 Cold open

0:36 Welcome to Episode 17

2:20 Meet Wendy Peterson

3:49 Superman cape confidence

6:28 Leaving a 28-year marriage

8:38 It is safe to shine now

15:12 I will never do that again

16:48 Yesterday, at the food bank

17:45 The man with three boys

24:44 The blessing jar

29:28 Lori's father and gratitude

37:04 I taught the world to treat me

37:43 I would earn the love

43:32 Observe, don't absorb

47:32 Pulling the cord at the source

52:24 We walk each other home

Nothing in this episode is medical advice. Wendy, Lori and Tammy speak from their own lives, not as clinicians. Lori's account of stepping back from alcohol and from prescribed medication is her own experience. Talk to your doctor before changing anything, and never stop a prescribed medication on your own.

A note on this episode. It includes discussion of growing up in a home with alcoholism, and of Lori's own drinking and her decision to stop. If any of it lands close to home, reach out to someone you trust. US listeners can call or text 988.

Wendy's book Quantum Leap Into Authentic Confidence for Empaths & Lightworkers is on Amazon, and it contains the full seven-step Empower Method. Her site: https://myradiancerestoration.com

QHHT is Quantum Healing Hypnosis Technique. Lori is a certified Level 2 practitioner and sees clients professionally.