#44 - First You, Without Guilt: Reclaiming Your Energy and Inner Peace

If you’ve spent years fixing, organizing, and caretaking before you even check in with yourself—this one is your homecoming. We name the quiet ache of overgiving and replace it with a grounded, guilt-free “first you” practice that turns scarcity into overflow. Through simple morning rituals, energetic boundaries, and self-honoring choices, you’ll feel how awareness shifts your entire day—and your life. We talk midlife empowerment, identity shifts, and the standards that rise when you finally remember your worth. By the end, you’ll know how to set your tone for the day, protect your energy like it’s sacred (because it is), and move from reaction to creation. Come breathe, recalibrate, and choose yourself—so the ripple you send into your world is love, joy, and alignment. 

✨ In This Episode You’ll Learn

• How a 5–90 minute morning ritual shifts you from reaction to creation. 
• Why “first you” ends resentment and fuels overflow for everyone. 
• What happens when you protect your energy with boundaries and breath. 
• How to return to center fast when life wobbles you. 
• The truth about worthiness: higher standards change your world. 

🦋 Reflection Questions

1. Where am I still overgiving from emptiness instead of overflow?
2. What would shift if I woke up for myself and not for everyone else?
3. Which boundary — with myself or others — would honour my energy right now?

First You: Boundaries for Joyful Holidays

As the holiday season begins, join this sacred space to prepare, ground, and protect your peace.

You’ll learn how to set loving, guilt-free boundaries that help you enjoy the holidays — with presence, joy, and ease.

🗓 Thursday, November 20
🕒 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT
💻 Free Online Event

Sign Up Now! http://midlifebutterfly.ca/firstyoumasterclass

👉🏼 And Invite your besties!

Song: Reborn by Alexander Nakarada

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Core Promise
• 0:45 Why Self Comes First
• 2:28 Morning Practices That Ground You
• 5:27 Fill Your Cup To Avoid Resentment
• 6:31 Energy, State, And Reflection
• 7:52 Boundaries And Protecting Your Energy
• 9:52 From Reacting To Responding
• 12:18 Compassion For Learned Patterns
• 13:30 Worthiness And Rising Standards
• 15:45 Creator Mindset And Transformation
• 17:54 Emotional Range And Returning To Centre
• 20:19 Three-Day Activation And Invites
• 22:09 Closing Gratitude And Reviews

Transcript

Kena Siu: 0:18

Welcome beautiful soul. This is Midlife Butterfly, the space where you remember who you truly are beneath all the world's responsibilities and expectations. I'm your empowerment guide, Kena Siu, and I hold this space for women in midlife who are ready to rediscover themselves, reclaim their joy, and live fully aligned. If you are new here, welcome to our cocoon. You've just enter a place where choosing yourself isn't selfish, it's sacred. In today's episode, You First, Without Guilt, we'll explore how awareness transforms overgiving into overflow and how putting yourself first becomes the most loving thing you can do for everyone around you. So take a deep breath, drop into your heart, and let's dive into this truth together. If you listen to my previous solo episode, which it was episode number 42, I talk a lot about the myths of putting yourself first. And yes, I know I said a lot of fuck that. But the truth is, it's finally time to shift the paradigm. It has to be about the self first. Okay? Because let's be honest, how many times had you found yourself running around for everyone else, giving, fixing, organizing, and realizing halfway through the day, you haven't even checked with you. You haven't even checked, you haven't even checked in with you. Right? So no, we gotta start with the self. With the self. And when I'm saying starting, I'm aiming from the moment that you just wake up. And even if you can do it before, when you go to bed, also do that. So you go to sleep in a better state and get to sleep the best that you can as much as possible, right? But I'm gonna start with in the morning. Why morning practices are so important, and I'm focusing on this because it changed my life. When I start doing that morning practice, I felt more grounded, I felt more aware during the day, I felt less triggered, you know, and I was able to handle much better my day. And since then, I've been it has shifted for many years. I mean, it keeps shifting still. Like some of the practices that I do now is meditation, journaling sometimes, not every day, but then I have movement, I'm doing breath work, sometimes it's just yoga. You know, it's whatever it is that you can do in the morning, but is focused in you, in stillness, or even if you're going for a walk, it's you and your thoughts. You are not listening to something, to somebody. That time with yourself is such a precious gift because then from there you can set your day with intention, you know, because from there, from your morning practice, you uh literally set the tone for your day, and you set the state that you want to fill in instead of reacting all the time. So I highly recommend you to start with a morning practice, even if it's five minutes. I promise you that it feels so freaking good that you're gonna keep increasing it, increasing it, and increasing it. Like seriously, I remember I started meditating like for 10 minutes. Now my average is 20, but my morning practice itself during the morning, it's of minimum one hour and a half. And yeah, I freaking put an alarm in the morning, so I have the time, the precious beautiful time to nurture myself first before everything else. So, this is really about filling your cup first. Which are your needs as soon as you wake up? How is it that you want to feel during the day? Which are the goals or the tasks that you're having during the day? That hopefully you look at them the night before just to have a quick idea of how your day is going to be, right? But then you know, okay, so this is what I'm expecting to have tomorrow. So I'm filling up my cup. So then you don't run up on an empty cup and then burn out. Because the truth is when we give from an empty cup, we give from scarcity and resentment. Have you ever felt resentment towards someone because you actually did or didn't do something that you wanted or you didn't want to do, and then you blame the other person? Like, really? No, it is your responsibility, my love. It is yours and yours only. So fill up your cup so you give from a place of love and overflow. And the cool part about this is that when you put yourself first, these create a ripple effect in your exterior world. Because since you when you are waking up in the morning and having that morning routine with you, and already, I don't know, having again like meditating, probably you also reading something that is nourishing you. You probably have affirmations, right? You already set the tone over there of how you want to approach the day. And the thing is, we are energy, you are energy, everything is energy, so it depends how we act outside, how we are living outside. That's the energy we're going to get back. Because if you have noticed sometimes that you are grumpy, you're gonna notice that everything, everyone around you is fucking grumpy. And is it them or is it you? There's just it's it's it's a reflection. So really, really, is again when you fill up your cup, when you have that full cup with the overflow, that effect of joy, of abundance, of peace, of harmony, or even if it's neutral, that's what you're gonna get from the external world. And yeah, this is about energetics. What can I say? I'm still kind of like putting all these things together, you know. But well, so this is what it is, and then the other thing when you know how you wanna feel, what your state is, and if you already know how your day is gonna be in general, if you're gonna know who you're going to approach, uh you don't know, at work or a family member or whatever, you can prepare ahead of time by setting boundaries. Yes, it's up to you to set those boundaries, to put limits before somebody else crosses them. So if you know if you're gonna meet someone that triggers you, then be mindful with that. Meaning, and this is one of the things that I tell my clients, really kind of practice. Because if you know how more or less how the situation could be with this person every time you interact with them, just be prepared. You know it's gonna happen. So, one of the things that you can actually do is when you are meditating, when you are in your space of stillness, imagine that you have either a shield in front of you of or like if you put yourself in a bubble, imagine yourself that you are protecting your energy. Your energy is precious and it's up to you how you want to keep it. Yeah, life is gonna continue to happen and people are still gonna be there. But the thing is, the more aware you are, the better you're gonna be at protecting your energy, and the better you're gonna be at setting your boundaries. Okay, so that's why it's important also to put yourself first. Because, yes, like I just mentioned, there's gonna be situations where you're gonna be wobbling, you know, that probably things or circumstances that you are more used to react. The cool part is when you have already a morning practice where you feel grounded, instead of reacting, you actually act, or even if you are on fire inside to the other person or to the circumstance, you're gonna show up in a calmer way, you're not going to explode, and even if that happens, I mean, so the idea is yes, you're gonna wobble. Yes, things are gonna happen outside that it might trigger you, that it's gonna be like, what the heck is happening right now? The thing is, it's up to you to have that awareness to come back to center as fast as you can. Or if you can, there's a situation and you can actually walk away from it and say, you know what, give me one moment, I'll be back to you. You know, freaking do it. It is your right. You can go away, go to the washroom, scream over your arm, or to a pillow if you if you find it, you know, just to process that uh anger or frustration that I can come come through to you. Okay, because this life is a roller coaster and it's gonna continue to be like that, the better you get a grounding yourself in the morning to get into that alignment, into that force that is within you, and more when you are grounded to Mama Gaia, and also you know you are grounded and connected to Source, to God, to the universe, the easier it's gonna be for you to recalibrate every time there is a situation, there is someone who is just getting into your nerves. And at the same time, it's very important that just notice that you are the observer. Okay, so observe those emotional fluctuations with compassion and with kindness. Because sometimes a lot of these reactions that we have, they don't even come from us, they don't even come from you, they come from the collective, you know, from the news, the bad news that are always there. They can come from the reaction of your mom, you know. And I'm giving this example because I remember I used to be a very grumpy person to get triggered very fast. And it's something that I learned unconsciously from my mom. Right? So that's why it's important that compassion and that kindness towards yourself when things like this happen. But again, the more you have, the more you put your first first by filling up your cup, the better you're gonna be at coming back, you know, to that alignment within you. The other cool part is the more you take care of yourself, the more you start loving yourself more. Your standards are gonna start getting higher, and you're gonna be clearer on which your standards are. And yes, I'm talking here about worthiness. Because unfortunately, most of us we think that we are unworthy, which is also a fucking program that we have been given, because just by existing, just by being you here alive right now, you are already worthy. And even when you might not believe it, I know I've been there, it's about remembering, it's about healing those layers that doesn't allow you to see who you truly are at this at the core. Because the more you get to know you at a deeper level and get to love yourself, you're gonna notice how those standards are going to keep increasing and increasing and increasing. Because you're gonna want to keep your energy and being more aware also with whom you are spending your time, right? I assure you this is gonna happen because this happened to me, and a lot of women that I talk to, they are like, oh yeah, I used to go out with this bunch of people very often and stuff, and it's like, I'd rather don't go. Exactly. Because you know at a deeper level who you are, you're taking care of yourself. So of course, you're not just going out there to talk to known on people or acquaintance when you know that it's not nourishing, that is not supporting your lifestyle anymore. So, yeah, that's that's a really cool part of putting yourself first, let me tell you. Because then also from there comes this creator mindset, which means when you actually make choices from your deep consciousness. I mean, because we are all conscious, right? So that's what I mean, is a deeper consciousness because the more you're taking care of yourself and nourishing yourself every day, filling up your cup, being more aware, noticing how your energy shifts, then you experience life at a different level. It's so fucking cool. Because you don't have time to waste, you don't have energy to waste, not in drama, not in victimhood, not with other people that might be draining you, because at one point you're gonna be setting better boundaries, as I mentioned before, actually. And those boundaries are with yourself and they're also with other people. And the cool part about this creator mindset that you grow the more care you have about yourself, is that you recognize that that awareness that you have by prioritizing you, by putting yourself first without guilt, without shame, this precedes transformation. It transforms you. It transforms your world in such a magical way, then you're gonna understand what I'm telling you. Why morning practices and filling up your cup? It's essential, it's gotta be part of your day today. Because first, you sister, first you once you put yourself first, the rest follows. It follows because you stop living in autopilot, because you have that awareness of what is happening in your day and what you can create in your day, and you understand that life doesn't happen to you, it's actually happening through you and for you, because you are in a better state of being, you know, in a better emotional from the emotional scale, you you scale, you are on the highest levels. More often, I mean, on the positive emotions that we call between codes, because they are not good or or bad, they're not positive or negative, they are just there to show us where we are, but then you are more aware where you want to be. Because yeah, yes, I mean, again, I mentioned before, life is a roller coaster, and sometimes you might be in a peak and high a lot of joy, and something's gonna happen, it's gonna bring you a moment of sadness or grief. But again, it's up to you to, with that awareness, with that structure and groundness that you're gonna build in the morning to come back to that alignment, to come back to that peace, to that moment of neutrality, if that's what you need. Because it's not also about being like in this, I don't call it like in this happy excitement all the time. No, we cannot live there either. I mean, like we I mean, that's that's what I think emotions are so beautiful, because if we will not have sadness, we will not have, we will not know what joy is, what happiness is. And if we will not have grief, we will not know how precious it is to be able to love someone because grief is another kind of love, you know. So sorry, I guess I deviate a bit, but my point is here. First, you that's the only way that you can come home to yourself, and that's why I created a three-day activation from November 18th to the 20th to help you come back home to yourself. It's important that you come back to you to fill up your cup, so then you can transform your life, and from there you can create that ripple effect of joy, of abundance, of ah, bliss, pleasure, peace to everyone and everything around you. And once somebody comes to you and tell you, oh wow, your energy is different, please come and tell me. That keeps happening that to me often and often, and it's just so fucking beautiful to experience that. And I want you to do it too by putting first you. So come and join me at the activation. I'm gonna be sharing the link in the show notes. I hope to see you there. And please DM me in Midlife Butterfly, tell me on Instagram, tell me what you think about this episode, tell me if you're already doing some morning practices, which is your morning practice. Yes, I would like to know that. And since I'm also a coaching habit, not only well, it's part of my empowerment guide, you know, tools that I have here. I'm a coaching habit, so I would be happy to help to guide you how to actually create a morning routine that it fits to your needs, to your lifestyle, because everyone has a different type of lifestyle, and I'll be more than happy to support you with that. Thank you so much for being here in the Live Butterfly Podcast for listening. I hope to see you soon. And if you feel like writing a review in Apple Podcast, that would be more than cool. And if you want to write a comment and Spotify, you can do that too. As usual, I send you a lot of love. Take care.