“Life starts and ends with you, change your thoughts, work on your internal turmoil and the world around you will change” with Dawn Burnett and Fotis Georgiadis
People stay in mediocre relationships due to a limiting belief system, they don’t believe they deserve better or can find better. What they are really looking for is self love, when you are fulfilled on the inside everything else is a bonus. Life starts and ends with you, change your thoughts, work on your internal turmoil and the world around you will change. That’s when you begin to shift and all that you desire begins to fall into place.
I had the pleasure to interview Dawn Burnett. Dawn is founder of A New Dawn Natural Solutions, a Transformational Divorce Coach and Wellness Expert for women through every life change and the host of the radio show Wake Up and Listen. She provides wellness strategies to those who are frustrated with their current health situations and are ready to embrace alternative healing solutions, healing their bodies — and their lives — from the inside out. She has an impressive roster of television and speaking appearances including ABC, FOX, TBN, and WKGB and is a regular contributor to the Thrive Global and Huffington Post. Dawn is the author of True Confessions of the Heart, Connect How To Know If He’s Really Your Man, Connect How To Love And Accept Yourself After Divorce and is co-author of Jack Canfield’s The Road to Success, Vol. 2. She is a songwriter, actress, speaker, radio host, TV Producer, and inventor.
Thank you so much for joining us! I’d love to begin by asking you to give us the backstory as to what brought you to this specific career path.
After surviving 3 near death experiences and a 15 year toxic marriage I knew there had to be a better way to life. I had raced back to college when my son was 2 years old due to a compromised immune system from vaccinations and in Alternative Medicine college I learned all about mind, body, spirit connection. That started the ball rolling from there I hung out with yogis and embodied a more mindful way of living. I learned that the ego mind causes us to seek for answers and pleasures outside of ourselves which ultimately leave us feeling bankrupt. By connecting within and finding a true lasting, meaningful love for self that’s full of joy and gratitude, everything else in life positively expands as you open yourself up to infinite possibilites.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you hope that they might help people along their path to self-understanding or a better sense of wellbeing in their relationships?
The number one project I am focusing on now is the SHERO project for Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global platform. The SHERO project features women that have been abused, they are thriving instead of surviving and have made their pain their platform and they are positively impacting the world in a big way. By featuring women as heroes instead of victims it inspires and empowers women around the world to say, Yes I can!
Do you have a personal story that you can share with our readers about your struggles or successes along your journey of self-understanding and self-love? Was there ever a tipping point that triggered a change regarding your feelings of self acceptance?
I have always been an inquisitive person, I follow trends and ask myself why things are happening in patterns. After being verbally, sexually and physically abused and working in environments where men were not supportive, plus experiencing a 15 year toxic marriage I started questioning why I had been experiencing this pattern in life for 40 years. After receiving an honors degree in college, fleeing from a toxic marriage and lots of research and mindful living I uncovered that everything I need to be set free is within me. This would involve dumping the old belief system and toxic past experiences that were stored in my subconscious mind. After meditation, healthy eating, yoga, mirror work, tap therapy, hanging around positive people, imputting positive information, energetic clearing and body coding I was able to align my subconscious mind with what my conscious mind was desiring; self love. This eradicated self sabotaging behaviors and now for the first time in my life, turning 50 years old I am at peace with self and thankful for my journey. I no longer care what people think of me, their opinion doesn’t belong to me. I operate my life from a place of gratitude and I am open to all the magic that the universe has to deliver. By having self love in a non-egotistical way, I am able to energetically transfer that love abundantly to others.
According to a recent study cited in Cosmopolitan, in the US, only about 28 percent of men and 26 percent of women are “very satisfied with their appearance.” Could you talk about what some of the causes might be, as well as the consequences?
The causes of dissatisfaction stems from the subconscious mind; the old belief system of what has been programmed in their minds. Our media is a big influence growing up of how someone should look, we are brainwashed into thinking that if our thighs aren’t thin and our nose isn’t perfect then we are not OK and that’s the furthest from the truth. Stack on top of that the biggest culprit, our upbringing, abuse or a parent who suffered from anorexia etc. the list goes on and on. Everything that we experience as an interruption in our authentic behavior always stems from our past that’s why its essential to connect from within and take the time to experience the journey of healing with no judgment. Everybody’s journey is different. If we don’t take the time that’s needed then we self sabotage the very thing we are seeking.
As cheesy as it might sound to truly understand and “love yourself,” can you share with our readers a few reasons why it’s so important?
Well let’s first start with finding a partner, we attract a mirror image of where we are at on the inside. When we don’t love ourselves we can’t love others, you can only give away what you first have yourself. So without self love it leads to a lot of destruction and added self-doubt, lack of belief in ourselves, shame, guilt, and a distorted perception of our true beauty. Lack of love can lock us in fear. We communicate in the manner we have been raised.
The best relationship is the one with self in a non-egotistical way, it makes you feel free and helps you love others with no attachments which is the true vehicle for internal fulfillment.
Why do you think people stay in mediocre relationships? What advice would you give to our readers regarding this?
People stay in mediocre relationships due to a limiting belief system, they don’t believe they deserve better or can find better. What they are really looking for is self love, when you are fulfilled on the inside everything else is a bonus. Life starts and ends with you, change your thoughts, work on your internal turmoil and the world around you will change. That’s when you begin to shift and all that you desire begins to fall into place.
When we talk about self-love and understanding we don’t necessarily mean blindly loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. Many times self-understanding requires us to reflect and ask ourselves the tough questions, to realize perhaps where we need to make changes in ourselves to be better not only for ourselves but our relationships. What are some of those tough questions that will cut through the safe space of comfort we like to maintain, that our readers might want to ask themselves? Can you share an example of a time that you had to reflect and realize how you needed to make changes?
It would have been easy in the beginning to sit and blame my ex for where the marriage went wrong but the reality is it takes 2 to tango. I was toxic from an abusive past and I carried that into my adult life attracting a reflection of that. I had to take full ownership for all that happened in that relationship. Not that I was 100% wrong but I chose to bring that man into my life, I chose a toxic man and I delivered toxicity right along with it. This is a hard thing to come to terms with but when you come to that place you open yourself up to healing and that’s where forgiveness begins. I had to ask myself, “Why am I repeating abusive patterns? What could I have done differently to avoid the situation? What happened in my past to cause the belief system that I was holding? What was I prepared to do different next time? Why did I feel I needed someone in the first place? What was I missing and searching for? Dawn had to learn to love herself first, although I loved my ex it wasn’t in a non judgmental way as true love should be. I jumped from one relationship to another, searching for something nobody else could give as well as I could give myself. Now I am truly satisfied and filled with joy. That doesn’t mean I stop working on self, it means I live the authentic me and accept myself for the beauty that I hold inside and give to others.
So many don’t really know how to be alone, or are afraid of it. How important is it for us to have, and practice, that capacity to truly be with ourselves and be alone (literally or metaphorically)?
It’s extremely important to learn how to be alone. If we are constantly with someone that means there is lots of chatter. When there is lots of noise you can’t hear the internal still voice speaking which holds the answers. This is where meditation comes into play, there is power and peace in a pause. The more you practice being in silence the more you crave it.
I just got back from an amazing trip to NYC, visiting celebrities and as awesome as it was, the best part of my trip was taking 2 hours to walk the streets by myself, hearing the birds chirping in Central Park, watching the street vendors working, the clouds passing by in the sky and feeling the incredible energy of the city. By doing that and remaining in silence with my own thoughts, I was able to raise my vibrational energy, I noticed I felt refreshed and full of gratitude and others smiled as they made eye contact instead of looking down as they passed by. The magic of passing energetic love to others is priceless.
How does achieving a certain level of self-understanding and self-love then affect your ability to connect with and deepen your relationships with others?
By being connected from within you accept others for where they are at on their journeys instead of judging them without mercy.
In your experience, what should a) individuals and b) society, do to help people better understand themselves and accept themselves?
It’s really all about each and every person taking responsibility for their own lives and working on their own internal disrupts, shifting the focus off others and onto self in a positive way. One by one in doing that, the world automatically becomes a better place to live in as the judgment filters are melted away.
What are 5 strategies that you implement to maintain your connection with and love for yourself, that our readers might learn from? Could you please give a story or example for each?
1. Practice gratitude on a daily basis. The more grateful I become the easier life flows. When you have gratitude without expectations and you surrender to what is that’s when the magic happens. I was in NYC for an important event, I could have carried expectations that would have gone unmet and left me feeling disappointed but by making a conscious decision to always stay in gratitude incredible moments happened at the event and I returned feeling satisfied because I was open to the amazing opportunities that the Universe had in store by me being open to flow.
2. I give myself permission to put myself first. I have been working a lot of hours with the SHERO project and the release of my new book Connect How To Love And Accept Yourself After Divorce. Tonight I had the opportunity to meet up with some friends for play and laughter, I could have said no due to the work load but by saying yes to me, we enhanced our friendship and my happiness tank is full.
3. Surrender. This is very important. When we are out of control we tend to control life in any way possible and that leads to destruction. When we learn to surrender, to all things that are out of our control, with the understanding that everything that shows up in our life is there to teach us something, life becomes easier. I had to go through what I went through for 40 years so that I could grow, become a better person and fulfill my life’s purpose which is to inspire the world to thrive.
4. Continually check in with self. I now ask myself is what I’m about to do feeding my history or is it feeding my destiny? This keeps me on track to be my best self, so I don’t fall back into old destructive patterns.
5. Meditation and prayer. I am always working on silencing my mind, I can’t find the answer and hear the small still voice if there is constant noise. At the event I just went to in NYC I had the opportunity to constantly be in a state of chatter with others. Instead I took pockets of time to connect with spirit so I could receive and seek out the direction I was being led to take. For that time I connected with the right people by positioning myself in the perfect place at precisely the perfect time.
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources for self-psychology, intimacy, or relationships? What do you love about each one and how does it resonate with you?
I don’t get a lot of time to read or listen to podcasts due to my busy schedule so I’m very selective of how I spend my time. However my biggest mentor in life is Jack Canfield, I have a lot of admiration for his hard work and how he excelled in life. So his Success Principles book is an excellent read as well as all of his other books. Jack truly believes in and sets a great example that Happiness Is An Inside Job. In the way of podcasts I listen to The Sheri + Nancy Show it’s great authentic fun.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? Maybe we’ll inspire our readers to start it…
The most important movement is the Connection Challenge. Unplug for 1 hour per day. That means no electronics whatsoever. Take a walk about in nature and connect, is it the sounds of the birds chirping or the croaking of the frogs that you notice? Are you looking people in the eyes with love and joy as they walk by? Perhaps you are playing a board game with your children and soaking in their laughter, or are you taking a yoga class or meditating in a sauna? Soak deep within the silence. Whether you are connecting with yourself or others notice how your life begins to change in a positive way.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote” that you use to guide yourself by? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life and how our readers might learn to live by it in theirs?
Everything in life is happening for you not to you.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change — Dr. Wayne Dyer
I realized that by shifting my perception of things, I changed the energy I was emitting from my body and that’s when the things around me changed. It goes along with the saying, you get back what you put out. So if you send love and gratitude into the Universe more greatness shows up, everything is a mirror reflection of what we believe. When things turn up that we don’t wish to have in our lives, it’s a gentle reminder that we are off track and there is something inside of us that needs attention and fine tuning.
Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiring insights!
“Life starts and ends with you, change your thoughts, work on your internal turmoil and the world… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
