Episode 008: Joie Cheng: The Healing Power of Self-Love
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Dawn Gluskin: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Bare Naked Radio. I am your host, Dawn Gluskin, and I am so excited to be with our guest today, Joie Cheng. Say “Hello”, Joie.
Joie Cheng: Hi Dawn.
Dawn Gluskin: So good to have you here. Joie is the self-love transformation queen and she’s passionate about helping people love themselves so they can live their best life possible. She’s a certified coach and author, speaker, mentor, healer, Circle Facilitator, and a trained yoga teacher. She’s also the best-selling author of “The Naked Truth: A Woman’s Journey to Self-Love”, which is about her personal journey of healing herself naturally from deep depression and suicidal thoughts through self-love. So we obviously share something in common with the Naked Truth, Bare Naked Radio. We have a similar mission in the world, so I’m really excited to talk to you today and have you share your story.
Joie Cheng: Yeah, thank you so much for having me on your show, Dawn.
Dawn Gluskin: Absolutely. So I have a funny story real quick before we get into Joie’s story. We were both actually at The New Media Summit in San Diego last September, which is an event for podcasters, so it’s kind of like speed-dating style.
We were both participants and we got to pitch, like, 40 podcasters so it was kinda crazy. We were both pitching these podcasters and she was doing her Naked Truth pitch and I was doing my Bare Naked Radio pitch and I kept hearing, “You know what, you’re the second “naked chick” to come through this line today.” And I was, like, “Oh I have to meet the other “naked chick” and then we never actually met at the event but here we are, full circle, and you’re on my show today so it’s great to have you here.
Joie Cheng: Thanks, Dawn. I know, I love that story. I didn’t know that until just now. So I love that. We’re both the “naked chicks”, right?
Dawn Gluskin: We’re on the same wavelength there which is cool. I mean, it’s really something that needs to happen in this world and “naked” obviously as a metaphor, but it’s such a great one because that’s kind of how it feels to be who you are in the world is, like, “being naked”.
Joie Cheng: Right. If you’ve seen my book cover, but I am literally naked. That’s the funny thing where I had a lot of people tell me, like, “Wow, that’s so brave of you to put yourself naked on the cover.” And I tell them “Honestly, it’s actually scarier for me to be naked in the book.” It’s really just a reflection of what the book is.
Dawn Gluskin: That’s a great point. And sometimes it is scarier to bare your soul than it is to bare your naked body because we carry around so much shame sometimes in our stories and we don’t want people to find out who we really are and people want us to be a certain way. So we wear these masks and I think we both stand for the same thing, which is taking off the mask, taking off all of the stories and just being the truth of who you are. I’d love to hear about your story. Especially how you were able to heal yourself naturally. There are a lot of people that go through rough patches in life, depression, and sometimes when that does turn into suicidal thoughts and not necessarily loving yourself and seeing yourself for the divine being that you are. Tell us a little bit about that journey, how that looked and then how you were able to transform it and turn it into your message.
Joie Cheng: When I was in my twenties, I went through a period of deep depression and suicidal thoughts and it was really hard for me to get out of bed. I couldn’t even imagine getting old because I couldn’t imagine living that long. And there were times where I would cross this bridge on my way to work and just think, “I wonder what would happen if I jumped off this bridge?” It was obviously a really sad time in my life but it was also really confusing because there was nothing to me that would make it seem like I should feel that way. I didn’t have a traumatic experience, I didn’t have someone close to me die or a horrible breakup or anything. My life, on the outside, looked good.
I mean, I had a good job, I had family and friends that cared about me, I had a boyfriend and everything was fine in my life. I just felt this way inside and I didn’t know why. What really helped me – Oh, and then to make things even worse, I was in an abusive relationship. Thankfully it was only emotionally abusive the time. But who knows if it could have become physical. Oftentimes, it starts that way. But it was when I was in that relationship that I realized that I didn’t love myself. I said to myself, obviously if I did love myself, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I continually put myself in the situation.
I dated that boyfriend for four and a half years on and off. At some point, I actually went to a seminar for the healing work that I do, the energy healing I do now, called Matrix Energetics. And it was at that seminar that I really started to see these beliefs that I had had that were holding me back, that were putting conditions on my happiness. For example, I had a belief that if I got married, I’d be happier. And another belief that if I was single, I’d be miserable. So, I just started questioning. I said, “How do I know that being married is going to make me happy? I’m sure there’s a lot of married people that are not happy. How do I know being single is making me miserable. What if being single was the best thing that I ever did.
So, I had this pattern of being in long-term relationships, going from one relationship to the next because I was afraid of being alone – with stuff from my childhood. I realized in that moment that when I asked those questions, that it really created a space for something else, for a different possibility. That gave me the courage to say, “You know what? I’m going to end this relationship and I’m just going to be by myself for awhile. I’m going to learn how to be single and be happy being single and learn to love myself because that’s really what I need”, you know? So I made a decision and from then, I started attracting opportunities and things into my life to support that decision that the universe brought things into my life.
Now looking back, there were two things that really helped me. One was learning to love myself and the other, I think you spoke a little bit into this, spirituality is understanding that we’re not our thoughts. The thoughts that we have, that negative critic in our head that’s constantly telling us we’re not good enough, that those thoughts are not true, right? Those are the thoughts that we’ve been conditioned to believe about ourselves because the truth is we’re spiritual beings having human experiences right now, that we are eternal souls and that truth of who we are is perfect and divine. And I truly believe that we all are healers. We all have the ability to heal ourselves and heal other people. And when I understood that, I was, like, “How can I not love myself?” When I really got that that’s the truth of who I am, then there’s no way not to love myself. Especially as women, too. We literally bring life into this world.
Dawn Gluskin: When peel back all those thoughts, all those things that we’ve been conditioned to think about ourselves and just get back to the truth of who we are – we are all walking miracles and just these amazing souls in these human bodies. You mentioned that it was from childhood and that’s kind of how it happens for all of us, whether or something we learned through our homes or through our schools or people in our lives that have certain beliefs. Then we take them on as our own so it can be a little bit confusing because at our soul level, we might have one belief, like, “I can be happy alone” or “I don’t need anyone else to make me happy.”
But somewhere a five year old or a six year old girl got the idea that, “No, you have to be married to be happy.” Then we go our whole lives doing that and people do that with their careers. “I would never make money as an artist, so I ended up going to school for business”. People all have these versions of that. But it’s so beautiful when you can peel back and sort through it and figure out, “Okay, what do I really believe and what are all these other people’s beliefs” and that’s part of the getting naked too, is peeling off all those things that don’t serve us, that really aren’t true to who we are and which is, I’m hearing, is what you were able to do. The process you used was really just looking and examining everything? Or was there anything else that kind of helped you peel that back?
Joie Cheng: Like I said, the first thing that really helped me was the understanding first, the awareness of the beliefs that I was having that weren’t serving me, the limiting beliefs. And then flipping those so that they could become more empowering by just asking the question, “How do I know that this is true?” Right? And that’s a lot of what I do with my healing work, too, is that it’s asking these questions, open-ended questions and the beautiful thing is that just asking the question creates space for different answer, possibility. You don’t even need to know the answer in that moment to create a miracle.
Dawn Gluskin: I was just hearing the listeners – I was hearing some of them thinking as you were saying that, “Well, what if I ask and I don’t get an answer?”
Joie Cheng: That’s okay. You don’t need to know the answer. The answer will come and it may not come right away. It may come months later or something. The universe works on its own timing. We tend to be like, “I want something now” or “I want something yesterday.” But it’s like the universe doesn’t work that way. And that’s the beautiful thing: you don’t have to have the answer. Marianne Williamson says that a miracle is a shift in perception from, fear to love. That’s really all it is. Right? So we have a choice to create miracles in every single moment of our life.
Dawn Glusin: Yeah. So, all my super analytical people out there that are listening right now: you don’t always have to have the answers. There’s just so much magic. And just being curious and, like Joie said, creating space. Just by asking the question, you’re creating an opening for something different to come in. And it might not happen instantaneously, but it could be one day you just jolt up in bed and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I get it now.”
Yeah. I had a similar experience like that. Many, many years ago I was on a retreat. A healer asked me a simple question: “Who are you?” And I started going into my spiel: “Well I’m a mom and I own a business and da da da. And he’s, like, “No, no, no, no, no, who are you?” And I’m, like, “I’m trying to tell you.” “No, who is the real girl?” And I was, like, “Oh.” And it just struck me and it was such a simple question and I didn’t know the answer. But I knew that that question was creating something in me and I sat with it for many years and that’s really what opened my spiritual journey. It was just that one question about it. That’s how powerful curiosity could be in asking the questions. So when did you decide to start writing the book? Were you healed and the depression was in the rear view mirror or how’s the timeline for you showing up?
Joie Cheng: Honestly, up until a few years ago, if you had asked me if I wanted to write a book, I would have said, “No.” I had no intention, no idea, the thought of writing a book, um, desire. And then three years ago, four years ago I think it was like the end of 2013. Um, yeah. Or maybe 14 I think. Anyways, I went to a seminar and there was a speaker, James McNeill, and he was speaking on a stage and he was talking about how when we die, if we don’t write our story down, it gets lost in the world forever because nobody could tell our story the way that we would. And that really touched me, you know? It made me start thinking about what’s my legacy, what do I want to leave behind when I die?
So that planted the seed. Then I was going to have my book out in 2015. I put May 15th, 2015, I thought five, one, five, one five. That’d be really cool date to have my book launch. So I put that on my Google calendar. The day it came and went and I didn’t really have a plan. I was, like, “Oh yeah, I was going to write my book then.” I hadn’t. So then last year, I did the same thing where I said, “Okay, July 17, seven one seven, my book is going to be published. But this time, I actually had a plan. I hired an editor so I invested money and time and I had a lot of support to make sure that it would happen. Honestly, I do believe that there are no accidents.
Everything happens for a reason and there were things that happened in my life between 2015, 2017, that needed to happen to be in my book. So I wasn’t ready to share it with the world until last year. And then I couldn’t get it to not come through me. Like, it came through me in three months. It just was mostly effortless. I kind of equate writing a book to the birth process. I don’t have kids on my own, so I can’t speak from personal experience, but what I can imagine as far as having a child, where there’s times where you have to really push, there were definitely moments where there was one day that I spent, like, 12 hours, editing my book.
I just had to like push through and get it done. There was another moment where I didn’t think I could do it. And I reached out to a friend, a sister of mine, and a group of them actually, and said, “Hey, I’m really needing some support right now.” And one of them sent me a message back and she’s, like, “I know you can do this, you’re inspiring me.” And I was, like, “Oh fuck.” That’s what I live for is to inspire people. I just knew I had to push through and, honestly, everything I called upon, not only the physical people, angels in my life, but also the divine angels. At some point, I feel like we can really do anything when we just say, “Okay God, I know that this needs to happen, but I need your support and all the angels.” I call out everything, divine and physical beings. And, I don’t know if you know about different archetypes, but I called on my warrior goddess archetype that just gets stuff done. So I called on her, too, and got it done.
Dawn Gluskin: The whole Dream Team on board. I love what you said, too, about how you wanted to write it for so many years and it just wasn’t coming out. For all of our listeners out there that want something on your schedule, sometimes it’s actually a blessing when it’s not happening. Things aren’t happening for you on the timeline that you had imagined. There’s gotta be a balance of the push and putting it out there and also the ebb, letting things happen and unfold naturally because it sounds like that’s what happened with you. Then all of a sudden, you had no choice but the book was coming through you. All in perfect timing, all after the lessons that comes through everything. It would’ve been a totally different book if you had published it a few years earlier. You have to find the flow in that. So that’s not an excuse to sit back and not write a book if you’re called to. But it’s also, letting yourself off the hook a little bit and knowing that you’re co-creating. The universe has a say and then you have your say, too. When you work in balance with both, things just flow all in divine timing.
Joie Cheng: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely agree.
Dawn Gluskin: That’s beautiful. So, a lot of times on this show we like to talk about fears: the obstacles that come up in life and overcoming things and turning our mess to our message. Fears come up and I’ve talked to people from just starting out in their businesses to multi-millionaires, highly successful. One thing that everyone has in common is we all have that fear voice that pops up and sometimes it’s more prominent than others. But even if you do all the work in the world and you do all that mindset work and it still will come up from time to time. But it’s actually a little bit of a blessing because when it’s coming up, it’s telling you something and there’s a gift within. So I love to just bring fear out and let’s just talk about it. What’s one of the fears that, either that you’ve overcome in your life or that you’re working through, and how are you working through it or how did you work through it?
Joie Cheng: I would say – they say that the public speaking fear is the number one fear. People fear speaking over death, right? That is also my experience. I definitely have that fear. My heart races, all those physiological symptoms that happen before I speak. And I know that speaking is what I’m here to do. That’s one of the things that I’m here to do. How I deal with it is just like continued to lean into it, right? Because the more that I speak to them, the less nervous I think that I will feel. That’s one of the fears that I’m working on right now. It’s just continuing to speak. I’ve got a couple speaking events coming up this month and so I’m excited. I have one that’s a couple of hundred people, that’s my biggest audience so far at the end of the month. I’m going to be a on a real stage. I’m sure I’ll be reflecting back on our conversation then.
Dawn Gluskin: There’s such an up leveling that happens, too, when you step into your fears because you have two choices. You could just back away from it. You can be, like, “You know what, I’m just gonna hang out. I’ll promote on Facebook and I can do podcasts”, which is still public speaking, but it’s a little bit more chill. You’re not in front of a group of people live. And you could probably be very successful that way, but I love that you’re pushing yourself because you see a bigger future and a bigger vision where you’re, like, “No, I need to be on these stages. I’m here to shift something on this planet” and you’re pushing through it. And I know from my own experience just how much you uplevel your confidence. You turn into a different person as you continue to put yourself out there and do those things that scare you the most. Has that been your experience as well?
Joie Cheng: Yeah, I was going to say that actually, fear to me is a representation that I’m on the right track. I’ve done things where I purposely, I’m, like, “Oh my gosh, I would be so scared to do that” and then I’ve actually been, like, “That is the reason I need to do that.” Here’s a little examples, kind of a silly example.
A friend of mine, several years, ago asked me if I wanted to go to pole dancing class. At first, I said “No.” And then in my head, because I was thinking, “I don’t know, that sounds like something totally out of my comfort zone. I would not do anything like that.” And then I’m, like, “Actually that’s the exact reason that I should. Actually, yeah, I will go to a class with you.” So, I went to a class with her. Actually did several classes with her. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be.
I think that’s actually a guidance to know. To me, when you’re, like – the level of fear that you feel is also equal to the level of growth that you’re going to experience from that fear, right? So in my experience, when there’s been something – even my book for example. There’s some sexy pictures of me in my book and when I posted those on Facebook, I had so much fear come up, but I was, like, “Okay, now I’m logging off. I’m never going to look at Facebook again.” What was amazing was, I was actually ready for the negativity. I was, like, “Okay, I’m ready.” It actually never came and it was actually uncomfortable, how it didn’t come.
It was almost like I was, like, “What’s going on?” And it really never did. I only had a couple of friends that just asked me why I decided to put the pictures in my book. But it was still coming from more of a curious space and not – And I knew it was about that. It wasn’t about me as their own level of discomfort. I truly think that when we step into things that scare the heck out of us, that’s how we grow the most.
Dawn Gluskin: That’s such a great lesson, too, because a lot of time, whatever the fear we have only exists in our mind. We create this story – the fear of public speaking, what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? You’re not going to, like, die on stage.
Joie Cheng: Even if I trip and fell or something, I don’t think anyone’s going to throw stuff at me. They’re not going to be, like, “Get off the stage!” They’re going to be, like, “Oh my God, is she okay?” That’s probably not going to happen anyway.
Dawn Gluskin: And even if you say the wrong thing, you will live another day. But we just create the worst thing. There’s actually some psychological things going on with that because we need our tribe to stay alive. It’s rooted into our DNA, like the survival instinct. And so if we get ostracized, if we do so bad on that stage that we bomb, that all our friends will diss us and then we will die. It is kind of connected to that. I read this whole study on that. But it’s just so ridiculous that when you break it down and you’re, like, “What’s really going to happen? What’s the worst that’s gonna happen?”
But then what’s the best is going to happen? You can get your message out there to so many more people and grow as a human being. There’s just so many beautiful things from facing any fear and it just gives you that confidence that you can do it. And “I was afraid of this and I did it.” And then “What else can I conquer” and “What else?” Then you just kind of keep on taking the bigger fears. So, I love that you did that. Then for anyone else is listening that has the fear of speaking, which I’ve had as well – one thing I do before I get on stage, I always shift it and I say, “This is not about me, this is about whoever in that audience, I don’t care if it’s one person, but whoever needs to hear this message today I’m doing this for them.” And it kind of takes the pressure off. You can just show up for the people. Do you have any tips or any practices that you have been using?
Joie Cheng: I really love that. And actually that’s what I did with my book when I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I just remembered, “Okay, what if there’s someone out there who is suicidal right now, is really depressed, is going through what I went through, my book could save their life.” My intention in my book was if one person’s life is saved because of my book and if that one person is even me, that’s worth it. To me, that was my intention because it’s so easy to overwhelm ourselves, to think, “Oh my God, I want to change millions of people’s lives.” I don’t know about you, but I have a huge vision because who knows how long we’re here.
We might as well make the biggest impact we can make. But that can get really overwhelming. So if I think, “Okay, if just one person in this audience, if their life is saved or their life is better because of something I said, then it’s worth it.” I love what you said about that. It’s really about the other people and getting out of our own way. I say a prayer that I said also when I was writing my book. Before I would sit down every time I’d write, I would say, “God, allow divine wisdom to flow through me. Allow me to be a channel for divine wisdom.” I say that because I truly believe that we are channels and that we just need information and nothing is really ours. I mean, really, we have this information that’s given to us and we are just the transmitters of it.
Dawn Gluskin: Yes absolutely. I love how you said that. It really does take the pressure off when you get into that place of service and you’re just, “How can I serve, how can I be the conduit? How can I get this information out there so it can help someone.” It takes the pressure off. It’s not about me anymore. And then it just – all those crazy voices in the head die down and you can get in and do what you have to do. I was laughing earlier when you were talking about the Facebook post because I’ve done that many times. Sometimes I post very vulnerable, open things about my life because I try to walk my talk. If I’m going to talk about being bare naked and baring your soul, I do that often. I usually try to do it from a place of inspiration, but then there’s still that part of my brain that’s like, “Oh my God, they’re going to judge me. They’re going to think I’m insane” like all those voices in my head and I had someone say something like, “Oh you have no fear, you just post whatever.” And I’m, like, “Oh my God, you have no idea.”
I am having this conversation with myself, like, “Do it! Just do it… no, they’re gonna – well, I can delete it, nobody saw it yet.” And like you said, just log off and walk away. I’ve done all of that. It’s so funny and it’s always well received. I mean, I can’t say you’ll never get a hater or a criticism when you’re putting yourself out there because that just comes with the territory. But when you’re being true to who you are and true to yourself, overwhelmingly, you’ll have more people drawn to you that love you and support you and want to see more. So do it. You have nothing to lose. That’s my advice for the day.
Joie Cheng: That’s good advice. I agree. That’s the movement that I am creating and starting and inspiring people to share their naked truth. I think that we need people in the world that are sharing their truth that want to make a positive impact in the world that are coming from that space because we have so much power and influence.
Dawn Gluskin: Yeah, absolutely. The show’s gonna be wrapping up here in a minute. And I’m loving talking to you and I would love to talk to you all day. I’m like that with all my guests, like, “Can we just talk for, like, three hours?” Let the audience listening know a little bit more about how you work with them, if they’re wanting to get their story out and how you work together and also where they can find you on social media, online and all that good stuff.
Joie Cheng: If anyone is out there listening right now and feeling like, “Wow, that’s so amazing what you’ve done in your story that you’re sharing, that you’re sharing with the world” and I truly believe that we all have our own unique story and the world needs to hear it. There’s someone out there that needs your stories. So if you feel inspired, I would love to get on a phone call with you and you can go to my website at www.joiecheng.com and you can set up a complimentary 30 minute Clarity Breakthrough Call and we can talk. If you know what your story is, we could talk about what that would look like, if you want to write a book about it. Or if you’re not sure if you have a story, I can help you with that as well. I would love to support you in that.
Dawn Gluskin: Awesome. And I will have all of Joie’s website and social media links on www.barenakedradio.com. So just go to the website and click on her show and you can get in touch with her there. It was so nice, getting the two “naked girls” together today.
Joie Cheng: I’m glad we finally got to meet.
Dawn Gluskin: Our goal is to get the world naked. It’s been a pleasure having you on the show and you have such a great inspiring story. I’m rooting for you. I know you’re going to kill it on your speaking gig and just get on bigger and bigger stages so I’ll be watching you grow, so thank you so much for being with us today, Joie.
Joie Cheng: Thank you, Dawn. It was such a pleasure to be on the show with you.
Listen to the episode and access the show notes here.
