Leading from Within with Heidi Metro

Episode 16 Description

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Episode 16 Show Notes

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Key takeaways

Strategies with the soul, discovering your core values

As a BodyMind Coach, Heidi Metro works with high-achieving women, helping them move towards their goals and vision. A key aspect of this work is helping her clients identify and lean into their core values.

Often our society operates from a “should” standpoint, or a “have to” mindset. For example, “I should value financial success” or “I have to be a good parent.” These perspectives become tight and heavy in the body, and often feel restrictive.

Heidi’s brilliant work helps folks weed out the “shoulds” and the “have to’s” they are holding onto in order to unearth what they truly hold as their core values. As a person shifts into their true values, they discover the magic of freedom, space and lightness.

This process of discovery is not easy or comfortable. Many women come to Heidi wanting clarity, confidence, and direction, and as she explains, these things cannot happen without confusion, feeling ill-prepared, and allowing yourself to feel lost. Heidi notes that these emotions are uncomfortable to feel, yet they are also sacred. This discomfort reveals areas of incongruence within a person’s life and their values.

The gift and discomfort of setting boundaries

As Heidi’s clients begin to navigate the world through their core values, they tend to quickly discover how poor their boundaries are. Boundaries are a marker for how to stay in integrity with your core values. Heidi describes it as, “this is as far as I go.”

Just like living in your core values, your body will tell you if a boundary is crossed. As you explore what it feels like to be present in the moment, you will likely begin noticing physical sensations.

When you cross your own boundary, it may feel like resentment or irritation. When you are within your boundaries, it may feel like a deep exhale and calm.

Navigating when a boundary is crossed, either with yourself or in a relationship, is an opportunity to get back in alignment with yourself. As the body signals resentment, bitterness, discord, anger, or any number of other unwelcome emotions, Heidi recommends first telling yourself the hard truth.

Put everything on the table – your whole entire heart, and give a voice to what needs to be expressed. Write through an unfiltered lens and think of it as an email you’ll never send. 

The second part often lies in an uncomfortable conversation with someone else. This is often about reconciliation, which isn’t always necessary when evaluating your boundaries. However, resolution must always be present because it keeps you in communion with yourself.

Cultivating a community of integrity and values

Heidi lives in the Midwest with her husband Mike and her children. Mike is Black and her children are mixed race. 

After the murder of George Floyd, which took place 25 miles from where Heidi and her family live, she and Mike recorded a YouTube series called Continued Conversations, discussing his experience as a Black man living in America, structural and systemic racism, and their community.

With honesty and vulnerability, Mike’s experiences began enlightening their friends and their community. Mike took it upon himself to cultivate relationships with their town police department, their city council, and their library board, among others.

Inspired by all of these new friendships and conversations, Heidi and Mike launched the Keystone Collective, teaching people how to fight for social justice and racial justice while observing their core values of action, contribution, rest, and health. Week after week, meeting with these humans on a regular basis, while focusing on their shared mission and shared goals has been profound. Heidi notes that especially doing this work in a place that often doesn’t believe that systemic racism is real.

Focusing inward, the group is taking the time to strategize, looking at the way they each experience the world differently. As they create a plan, their next outward facing goal is about serving the community so the people who want to do the hard work of creating change have access to it.

From a micro-level to communal-level, change requires showing up and a willingness to be present. It’s okay to not be good at something at first. You will figure it out, learn, and grow. The willingness to be present is a catalyst for change.

notable quote from Heidi Metro

“Most women, they come to me for a couple of things: they want clarity, they want confidence, and they want direction… you don’t get clarity without confusion. You don’t get confidence without feeling totally ridiculously ill prepared. And you don’t get direction until you really allow yourself to feel lost.”