Meet Heather Spitzer

We were lucky to catch up with Heather Spitzer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Heather, thank you so much for joining us today. There are so many topics we could discuss, but perhaps one of the most relevant is empathy because it’s at the core of great leadership and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your empathy?

The ability to hold empathy, to understand and know what another is emotionally experiencing, comes from first gaining wisdom and understanding within ourselves and our own emotional landscape – without judgement.

In my life, I have a long laundry list of hard knocks – of trauma, of tragedy, and of deep losses. These experiences, along with my old beliefs and mindsets (super judgy ones!), created a cage in which I lived in for decades, believing that no one could ever understand the pain I knew so well. This cage had me living in severe depression, in addiction, in suicidal ideation, and kept me separated from true connection with others and with a struggling sense of empathy.

I didn’t truly understand empathy in this space because I only knew judgment. All I did was judge myself – my experiences, my emotions, my identity. So, I judged others’ experiences, emotions, and identities, which left little room for true empathy and only served to create greater separation and loneliness.

It has taken me decades to really understand that we humans are emotional beings designed to experience life through our feelings. How we feel gives us the material in which we build our stories on; the good, the bad, and the ‘meh’. How we tell our stories can set the stage for real connection with others or set the stage for loneliness. At the end of the day, it’s our choice which stage we set.

What finally set the stage for my developing true empathy was when my life came crashing down around me (again), and I was confronted with a choice – to keep on as I have been, or to learn how to love myself and change it.

I finally made the choice to love myself. This choice put me on the path of understanding my own emotional landscape and enabled me to extend that understanding to others; it created the conditions for me to develop true empathy. It has been quite a journey of ups and downs and many misunderstandings along the way. I am by no means “perfect” in my ability to empathize with another, but I continue to learn; I’m still healing in many areas myself. However, as I have learned to better understand and hold grace for my own emotional landscape, I am better able to do the same for others.

There is a lot of truth behind the concepts of not being able to give from an empty well and that our outer world reflects our inner world. We can’t understand someone else if we don’t understand ourselves first, and when we misunderstand ourselves, we misunderstand others.

In the end, it’s when we stop judging ourselves that we can stop judging others. We all feel life. We all experience the gamut of emotions. When we let go of judgment is when we can begin to recognize that we are all in this together. This is empathy.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I began Rebel Hearts LLC because I wanted to help others find their way out of fear and into love. This world is far too entrenched in fear and it is far too easy to live by its rules; I know this because I lived it for a very long time! To me, the Rebel Heart is the heart that says “no more!” It’s the heart that chooses to follow the soul’s voice that calls us to love, and reminds us that fear is often an illusion that our minds create limitations around. We are meant to live empowered lives; in freedom, not judgement. This new way of living all starts when we begin to choose love over fear, taking our power back moment by moment, heeding the call of that Rebel Heart.

I am a Soul Coach; a guiding light for those learning how to navigate out of dark spaces as they journey out of fear and into love; into healing and evolution so they can live truly empowered lives. I work with a mixed modality of tools and practices, finding what works for each individual. One of those modalities is through oracle/tarot cards; it is a practical and fun way of helping them dive into the depths of their heart to find clarity, insight, guidance, and discover their own inner wisdom. It’s great way of working with our shadow and discovering our healing medicine.

I am open to virtual work with clients and I also meet in person. I feel very fortunate that Rebel Hearts works collaboratively with The Healing Portal locally here in Tucson, AZ. We have workshops, women’s circles, and various activities, like yoga, paint nights, and even adult proms! It is a place where people come to feel at home, to belong, to create soul connections, and to find their healing as we all heal together as a community.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Belief in Self; Acceptance of Self; Confidence in Self; these are what I would consider the three most important qualities on the journey. I believe we come into this world with these fully intact; however, as we go through life and experience the world’s judgment, we begin to lose these attributes (that naturally create authentic and joyful living) and replace them with unhealthy “survival skills” like people-pleasing, manipulation, and masking.
These learned survival skills cause us to lose faith in ourselves, reject and condemn ourselves, and hide our true selves from the rest of the world. We learn to become inauthentic because our authentic selves don’t quite fit some standard that our families, loved ones, communities, work places, and society place upon us.

By learning to observe ourselves from a place of nonjudgment, we are able to recognize where we aren’t believing in our own truth, where we don’t accept ourselves fully, and where we have lost our confidence in our ability to navigate life. We cannot get where we want to go if we do not hold belief, acceptance, and confidence in ourselves. Without these qualities, we will continue to move through life feeling unanchored, unfulfilled, and without direction.

Building these qualities up requires that we truly learn how to release fear and step into a radical acceptance of all we are. It is a process, a journey within itself. Practicing being present with the truth that “I am enough!” is one of the greatest things we can do for ourselves. It sets the stage for learning how to journey through life with complete faith, acceptance, and confidence in our true selves, without feeling like we have to be something else. These qualities are built up, or destroyed, based upon our moment-by-moment choices. How are we thinking about ourselves? Where are the roots of those thoughts? Can we recognize our power to change them; to shift the energy? We are what we think we are and it is 100% in our power to choose who that is.

Believe in yourself! Radically accept yourself in all that you are! Be confident in the amazing person you are!

These are the qualities that will carry us forward as we follow our heart, go after our dreams, and create the empowered life we long to live.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

Depression; this has been a recurring challenge for most of my life. Once upon a time, depression left me suicidal and practicing self-harm; it left me believing such horrible things about myself that I created the life that supported the lies. It left me so depleted of any positive thought or feeling that I remained stuck in a depressed state, usually for years at a time. Thankfully, through my dedication to loving myself and healing, these severely dark times have passed.

I still go through episodes of depression, though. They do not look anything like they used to, and as wonderful as that is, it has created a different kind of challenge because I haven’t always recognized depressed episodes and seasons for what they were. These challenging times left me in a space where I was failing to nurture myself in ways that would allow me to move through it with grace and ease. I couldn’t see clearly, so I was finding myself in these shadowed places unsure of how to move through them, often finding myself stuck for weeks and months at a time.

Very recently I had an episode of depression that I didn’t recognize very quickly. With Rebel Hearts, I was feeling like all I was trying to accomplish was for nothing and my thoughts were getting hung up in “failure” mode. I was feeling like I should “just quit” because I wasn’t seeing any “fruits of my labor.” I was feeling like a complete failure as an entrepreneur and as someone who was putting herself out there in the world to be an aid in another’s evolutionary process. The thoughts started to run away and when biological and environmental conditions aided in pushing me into a deeper downward spiral, I struggled to move. I got stuck. I felt defeated.

I was feeling it all, but instead of recognizing it as an episode of depression, I just beat myself up over all the heavy feelings. I blamed myself for all that wasn’t working and compared myself to others who were successful as just not being “enough.” I was trapped in old patterns.

It wasn’t until about a month ago when I sat down to read a good book before bed and simply burst into tears over it all that I finally recognized it for what it was. My outburst of tears made me realize that I missed something vital along the way. This is when I started to look back and to recognize where my thoughts were slowly building those supporting stories that were telling me I wasn’t enough, telling me I should just quit, and only adding fuel to the fire where biology and environment were the initial driving factors.

As I finally hit my “aha” moment, that was when I was able to start to take empowered steps forward to help me move through the depression with grace. I knew that even though I had those biological and environmental aspects that were affecting my state of being, I also knew that I still had influence and control over other aspects of my being – like my thoughts – that could support me and allow me to move through the heaviness and all the feels without being trapped and stuck in them. I started to become much more observant of my thoughts, my feelings, and my physical well-being – without judgement. I paid closer attention to the times when I was exhausted and worn out; I became more aware of how my thoughts behaved when I was tired and I reinforced simple practices that would help me to move forward. Awareness and nonjudgement became my friends again as I consciously moved through this latest episode of depression.

Yoga, journaling, drawing cards, speaking affirmations, chatting with friends, doing simple tasks around my home, and allowing myself space to simply be creative without a goal or purpose helped to support my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. These allowed me to become empowered again. Each practice was a reminder to myself that even though depression is still a part of my life, it is no longer the dictator of it. I am an empowered being. We all are! If you find yourself struggling through a mental health challenge, remind yourself that you have the power of awareness, consciousness, and choice. We may not choose the challenge, but we can choose our path through it. That’s empowered living.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rebelheartscoaching.com
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• Youtube: @rebelheartscoaching