Awakening Your Superpower: The Transformative Journey of Self-Compassion with the Founder of Eternal Empath and Author, Karen Blaine

In this heart-centered episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca sits down with author, retired hypnotherapist, and speaker Karen Blaine to explore the beauty of imperfection, the practice of self-compassion, and how reconnecting with your passions can transform your life.

Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

• Personal journey from motherhood to hypnotherapy to writing seven books that empower others to heal.
• How loss and grief can become catalysts for creativity, purpose, and deeper self-connection.
• The importance of reframing negative thoughts and cultivating compassion for yourself in moments of doubt.

About Karen

Karen Blaine is a published author and certified hypnotherapist specializing in conversational hypnotherapy. An intuitive empath, she writes to educate, enlighten, and inspire readers to embrace authenticity, self-love, and gratitude.

Connect with Karen:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram       
• TikTok

Learn more about Karen Blaine’s work and her books at eternalempath.com

Useful Links:

·      Watch Full Episodes on YouTube

·      Becca’s Website

·      Follow Us on Instagram

·      Connect on LinkedIn

·      Find Us on Facebook

·      Get Becca’s Book: A Return to Radiance

·      Book Becca to Speak

Podcast Produced by Jen Kourtei at Savvy Edge Marketing

Transcript

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Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of The Empowered Half Hour, and I just had such a wonderful pre-conversation with seven time authors. She's about ready to release her seventh book, retired Hypnotherapist, speaker, podcaster, and just an amazing human, Karen Blaine. I can't wait for the audience to get to know you more, but welcome to the Empowered Half Hour.

Karen Blaine: Thank you. It's just so nice to be here. I'm so happy to talk with you. 

Becca Powers: Yeah. When we were talking, before, I just really loved your energy and I'm like, I know we're gonna have a good episode and that the audience is gonna love it. Yes. So you spent a career as a hypnotherapist. Mm-hmm. And now you're currently speaking, writing, casting.

Talk to the audience a little bit about. I wanna hear two things like what is your heart center right now? Like, what is your biggest passion? what are you writing about, speaking about, and podcasting. And then I wanna hear your background to, you know, how you got into hypnotherapy and then transitioned into what you're doing today.

So, but let's start with your heart center. what's your passions and 

Karen Blaine: what are you doing that My heart center is to try to help. Others, of course, and help them see that everybody has a superpower. I know self-love can be a buzz word, but so many people still don't have it from the heart.

So one of my goals is to use everything possible that I've learned and that I've written about, to help with that self-love and self-worth and self-compassion, and let them find their own superpower. I 

Becca Powers: love that. I love that. And I think, you know, self-love can be kind of a buzzy word, but obviously self-worth, self-love is so important.

But you added a third one into your summary there, which was self-compassion. And I would love to, to expand on that before we hear more about your background because I personally feel that. As I've worked with clients and have spoken and taught to large groups that self-compassion is sometimes missing or oftentimes missing, so I don't know if you'd like to talk about that.

Sure, 

Karen Blaine: absolutely. I totally agree. I think that people are so hard on themselves and they get really critical in a business environment in a lot of different areas, and so I feel like. From the heart, they need to be compassionate with themselves. They need to say it's all right. And that the last book I published is called The Illusion of Perfection.

And it's about not wanting to be perfect, not needing to be perfect, and it's really relatable to self-compassion because we need to accept ourselves and love ourselves and be compassionate with ourselves and know. No one can be perfect. We're human and it's really important to love ourselves through 

Becca Powers: it.

I think that's beautiful and so important. I think too, reason I feel that it's an important message is because, well, a, none of us are perfect, but we typically, especially when you are empathic, which a lot of the listeners are, I have a lot of high performers, but we're also a very empathic audience.

They  have a lot of like leaders and coaches and things like that that listen to this podcast, and I find that they really wanna serve and they really wanna help. And sometimes their compassion is so outward to the world or to their business, or to their clients, or to their loved ones that they.

 realize it. So that's why also I was like, Ooh, she mentioned self-compassion. Like I think it's sometimes a missing ingredient completely 

Karen Blaine: too. I agree. I agree. if everyone had that, then they'd be able to more freely give from the heart.

Becca Powers: I talked ironic how that happens, like, yeah. So, well, let's talk a little bit about your background. We can start wherever you'd like, but I know you had a full career as a hypnotherapist and a conversational hypnotherapist, so let's talk a little bit about that and then how you transitioned into writing and speaking.

Okay, sure. Well, I was a mom of four. Oh, I got four too. I have two mine three. Two mine. Two his. And they're all young adults, so I did it. We raised them. Yeah. Same here. Same here. A lot of 

Karen Blaine: connections. Yes. Um, so, but I knew I wanted to write from the time I was five and I knew, wow. Another connection. All these, and I.

Sort of pushed it down because I knew it was about these kinds of topics and it was about sensitivity and, I was always told that you're too sensitive. And so I knew that from my background and from the society I was around, you needed to be external and, I wasn't that way. I was an internal person, so I pushed it down and pushed it down.

Got married young. Had kids and then I turned around. I'm just giving you a quick overview. Yeah, sure. Turned around and became a hypnotherapist. 'cause I just knew this, I had to go deep. And then after that, I felt like it was time to start writing and my dad passed and then that was an inspiration for me.

Yes. After that I started to write. And then at some point during the writing, my best girlfriend passed too. So I then just, all of it continued along. That path, that journey. Yeah, 

Becca Powers: it's, 

Karen Blaine: it's 

Becca Powers: not funny in the sense of what's happened because I've, but funny in the sense of the connections we've never met before and my writing journey started well.

Two things is one, it was my dad's passing, was a catalyst for my writing. And when I wrote my second book, my brother passed away and it brought me deeper into my soul and deeper into connection with spirit. And it was just like. I felt and still do, but it just deepened me so much as a person.

Obviously there's been a grieving process and stuff too, but I think that it's just wild to meet someone else who is a writer that had similar catalyst that also had four kids. Anyway, it's so cool. Yeah. So cool. 

So in your career as a hypnotherapist and whichever part of your career you wanna pull from, but what would you say was some of like your biggest learning lessons or an aha that you have taken from that career into what you're doing now? Because I'm sure you saw a lot of patterns of the human psyche and different things like that.

So if you wanna just share some wisdom from your career, that would be really nice. I'd love to hear it. Right. 

Karen Blaine: Absolutely. What I did during the, I did conver, I specialized in conversational hypnotherapy too, but let me talk about it to you for a minute. I'd love to hear more about it. Yeah. Ended up doing, was talking to the client for like 20 minutes before we even got in that place, that zone similar to your yoga place where you could just kind of bring it down.

And, that's what we do. Uh, get in a nice soft, comfortable chair with candles and just bring it all down and breathe a lot and get as close to being under as we can, but not, not full hypnotherapy. Then we talk and how 90% of the time it is about things like that self-compassion. And it ends up being things like self-love, self value, all of those things.

It's like people are so critical. They have these negative looping tapes. And so my, what I wanna do is turn that negative loop, reframe that, and make it stop it and make it more of a positive loop for them. And then we focus on what is their superpower, because I truly believe everyone. Is born and has a superpower.

We're all unique, we're all special. And I believe all of us, they're different, but we all have a superpower. So 

Becca Powers: that's how I feel. I agree with that so much. So I wrote a Return to Radiance and Kundalini teachings like Radiance is our final expression. Or like self-actualization, right. but within our radiance is our superpower.

It's, our uniqueness, it's our gifts, it's our talents, it's our strengths that are unique to us. That when we are tapped into them, life is in alignment. Life is more joyful, life is more fulfilled, life is more, you know, you talk about service and impact, which a lot of people wanna make. You don't have to try to do that.

You do do that because you're in your, so like, I'm picking up what you're putting down. I'm like, yes, this is so cool. 

Karen Blaine: So much. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. So. That's, yeah, I think that, and as people feel comfortable, in the book, you Are Not Alone that I wrote, I talk about at the end first gratitude, because that really helps people to get out of that critical thinking.

And then if you're grateful, it's hard. It's really hard to say, oh, I'm not enough. Not good enough. you say, I am good enough. I can do this, and I'm gonna be as good as I can be at it. You know, you don't have to win all the time. And then I also go to passions. Because I feel like in passions, there are so many, and I, I kind of list them figuring that someone can pull a superpower from one of them.

I must have 30 in there. And, everyone has something that they're really special and good at. So What are some examples of some of the passions it can be anything. It can be art, it can be sculpting, forgetting art for a minute. it can be Gardening and making a beautiful flower garden. I say the same stuff all the time.

This is so wild. That is so wild. Yes, and it can be cooking.

Meditative while they cook. They love it. And so it can be just so many things. 

Becca Powers: Yeah. I say that all the time too. I'm like, I think passion is a gateway to your higher self. You know? I totally agree. Yes. and so oftentimes, you know, when we were in our pre-conversation, I tell you that I work with corporations a lot and leaders and high performers and stuff, I enjoy working with them so much because, A, I am one, I've lived that life a long time, but b, like my impact as a leader and as a sales professional.

I became so much more when I tapped into my passions, and this is going back 10 years ago. I started writing again after years of not writing. That's what I'm saying, like I always knew I was a writer. I've been writing since I was a kid. Whether it's short stories or poems or when you're a writer, you just know you're a writer.

 And so, you know, here at Rewind 10 years ago, I was still raising kids and you know, like I couldn't abandon my job and my responsibilities for my passions. But I realized that there was a world where I can have the, and I could have my career and be a mom and do all that societal standard stuff.

And then I could also. Invite my passions in. I could carve out time to write. I could carve out time for the things that really filled me up, and I needed it too because my dad had passed away and all sorts of things. So I really needed to be reconnected. with that, but I am vibing with what you're saying because I think that at a certain point in life, a lot of people, and I would love to hear maybe you expand upon this of as far as what you've seen with your clients and with your readers and stuff like that too, but they get so lost in just becoming an adult and doing the mold of what we're supposed to do that because there's no longer a, well, I'm not going to be an Olympic gold medalist, or I'm not going to have.

To win the award. There's no reason for doing it. No, do it because it's joyful. Do it because it lights you up. So, I would love to hear your take on that. Just talk a little bit about passions and without it having to be tied to anything, 

Karen Blaine: you know? Yes. 

Becca Powers: Gold Star on the war, I feel so 

Karen Blaine: strongly about that because I really, for me, I've always thought about just enjoying myself.

Mindfulness, which you've learned in yoga, is enjoying that moment. And for me it's definitely each day. I've always been, I have always been someone who does do that mindfulness all the time. However, I have in the past had negative looping, so I can't say I haven't had self-love issues where I needed to.

Okay. But what I was gonna say about passions is in the book, my book, the Illusion of Perfection, I really do talk about it almost is not good. Try. I mean, if there's nothing wrong with reaching your pinnacle, that's a good thing. But it's nothing to like make everything about that. It's more important to make it about your heart on how well that you feel about how you're doing, not not the results, but how well you feel.

Are you doing your best and that's all you can ask for. Yeah. 

Becca Powers: And I have seen such a, positive side effect for people just allow like gardening or cooking. Yes. Going back to dance. They're not trying to be an award-winning dancer or anything like that. They're just back to the ballroom, you know? Right.

Karen Blaine: There can be anything. Anything, 

Becca Powers: yeah, anything. And I have seen their sales go up. I have seen their relationships improve. I have seen them heal from like. Autoimmune diseases and stuff like that. I think I just love that you talked about passions. Obviously you could tell that I was like, woo, let's go. Yay.

I think it's so underrated, like passions are so important and they have such a play, such a critical role in 

Karen Blaine: our health and wellbeing. I so agree. And like you were saying, it's part of our journey. Just, and, and the more we can relax with it and know, like I know a lot of corporate people just wanna get ahead maybe, but if they can stop and read books like mine are yours, then they can see that it's very important just to have, good vibes along the way and just stop and let themselves, 

Have the, I do affirmations when I do do that, and I do, all of the other things such as I do, mantras, different ones, American mantras, I'll take, and and then the mindfulness. So those are some of them, but I do the reframing too, which is part of that. alternating changing.

So let's 

Becca Powers: talk about the reframing. Let's just say that our conversation has someone like lit up on the other side. They're like, whoa, they're talking about passions. They're happy. I'm feeling that I wanna tap into my passions, but maybe they are stuck in a negative loop. Like where if a listener is dialed in right now, it's like, yes, I wanna know more, but I need to start changing that narrative in my head.

Like what type of advice would you have for them? 

Karen Blaine: Okay. I would tell them first and foremost to step away from whatever it is that's bothering them at that moment that they're in that negative loop. Say they're in a business meeting that's just bothering them. I'm gonna give you an example. Sure. They can excuse themselves and just.

Be alone for five minutes, 10 minutes, and reframe that event and say, well, what is it trying to tell me? Why am I getting negative looping from this? How can I look at it from a different perspective? How can I relax through it and come out the other side so that it's not hurting me? I love those 

Becca Powers: questions 

Karen Blaine: then so much.

You kind of answer it in your head and you go back in and you're a new, you know, you're kind of like, okay. Yeah. 

Becca Powers: That's beautiful. I love that you started with just like self-talk and like an exploration, like remove yourself because I think that is in the hustle and bustle that I see of everyone today.

That pausing doesn't happen very much. And that self-discovery of like what triggered this negative thinking, why did this loop get me? 

Yes. 

What is it trying to tell me? Like those questions that you offered are really beautiful, so I thank you for sharing that. Absolutely. Yeah. let's talk a little bit about what's a good lesson that is up for you right now, or an aha.

Karen Blaine: The aha moment. Yeah. I would say when someone realizes they're talented, they're okay. Something really, like we were talking, hits them in the heart. Not necessarily the mind because our minds can be wonderful, but when we connect our minds to our heart, that's just beautiful. So kind of got the feeling you garden.

Becca Powers: Did you? I don't actually, but I want to. So my grandma was a great gardener and so I have a lot of good green thumbs in my family. Nice. And right now I am looking out the window right there. I have successfully kept two plants alive. Great. Elvis and Lisa Marie. Oh. And I'm very excited. So even though it's not pure gardening, I have a cup, two plants alive.

And I used to be a plant killer. Not on purpose guys, so don't come at me, but it's interesting that you say that 'cause it is something that. not right now because I've got a lot of projects and stuff, but I'm like, you know, maybe one day I'll garden and I did buy a little like bigger pot so I could put some flowers in and tend to them and stuff.

That's 

Karen Blaine: great. Yeah, and that's how I feel. I, thought I was a really bad artist, and then I started sculpt. Randomly, I just thought, I really wanna sculpt. I don't care if I'm bad at it. And what I realized was I did a sculpting of one of my dogs and it turned out so nice. And I was like, maybe I'm a good artist.

Maybe I'm so everyone should. The aha moment was, you might not think you're that good at something, but then you try it and you find out you're good at it and you love it, and that would be an aha moment. Yeah. So I might be a good gardener. Yay. 

Becca Powers: You might be a great gardener. Yeah, I'm a great gardener. So we've talked about this and especially since we talked about passion, but I do wanna ask you directly, why are you passionate about your work?

Karen Blaine: Well, mostly because what I have gone through in my life, which was I felt misunderstood. So I wrote a lot of books that kind of. Talked about being misunderstood, but got through to the other side, sort of like you've talked about going a little bit from trauma, but from going from trauma to strength. Yes.

And so it was very important. And what's important to me is that my books help others. If they can help others, that's it. My sole purpose. if somebody gets helped, that's all I care about. I don't care for me, I don't care about the money at this point. So yes, I care about helping another person maybe get healthier, more powerful in their own right.

it awesome when you can contribute 

Becca Powers: to that? It's just Yes, totally. It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Best feeling ever. So, you know, as we talk, you mentioned a little bit about the trial to triumph. I'd love to maybe if you can share some of your knowledge, either from your own experience of a trial and triumph or helping people since you do that.

What could you say to empower someone that might be, in a little bit of a troubled spot right now? Right. I would 

Karen Blaine: just say. Make sure make that they always stop in the morning. Maybe let's start from the morning. They get out of bed, but we're starting from the beginning and they do some work.

They look at the mirror and they say to themselves, I love myself. I love and accept myself. I am more than good enough. I am great. Just the way I'm, and they keep saying that, then they can do some of the mantras. If they have five more minutes, say, I hope, and they can sit their cross-legged, maybe they could do yoga like you do if they can have the time to go to a Kundalini yoga class.

 changes your mind frame no matter what it does really. So by the time they're through that and doing the breathing exercises, that helps. Another thing I didn't mention is singing, because singing you have to learn how to breathe and so you could take singing lessons and just find, you might have a great voice or not, but you might like to sing.

 But to turn that around is a matter of just, you feel those negative loopings, but then you do, even when you're alone, start to reframe that it's kind of an optimist versus pessimist state of being. And you say, I'm gonna be an optimist. I wanna look at this glass half full, and so I'm going to make sure that I stay in this place and move it into passions.

And gratitude. 

Becca Powers: I do love that so much. not only because I practiced it and practiced it today, but because I know that was my lifeline when I was in my lows, And you talk about the negative looping, like. When you're in your lows, you're gonna be swarmed with negative thoughts, fear, and anxiety and worry.

They love to hang out and you have to give them a pattern interrupt, right? Yes, absolutely. And, and so that's what I love about what you're saying is so many times, especially since I, you know, I'm a, a pretty great blend of like corporate and woo woo. But this stuff really isn't woo woo. It's science, right?

You have having negative loop going on and then you're in, insert a positive practice like, and it's not like fake positive. The stuff gets you back into alignment with who you are, 

Karen Blaine: and you can call it the philosophers Did. Yes. Like Socrates was the one who talked about reframing these questions. Why did I feel that way?

What could I have done differently? So it's all the way back from the 

Becca Powers: philosophers. I love that. I love that so much. And we're already at 27 minutes. I don't even know how that happened, but I knew this was gonna be fast. Alright, so before we close out and you share how to stay in touch with you, with the audience.

What's an empowering message or statement that you would like to share with them? 

Karen Blaine: I would like to say you are more than good enough, When you think you're being too critical of yourself, go to self-compassion like we talked about, and know that you are special and you have a superpower and just go to gratitude.

That's all. 

Becca Powers: Yeah. I have the goosebumps. I even feel 'em on my face. That is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. All right, so if the listeners would like to stay in touch, how can they do so? 

Karen Blaine: So all my books are on Amazon except my last we'll talk. That one's out. How's that? We'll, retalk, that'd be great.

And also I have a website. it's eternal. It's eternal And you'll see my website there and you can get the books there or on Amazon even from there. And what's your best place to see you on? Social? Everywhere. 

Becca Powers: Have a social, I'm everywhere. 

Karen Blaine: Media group because I'm technologically challenged. I am.

I'm owning that one. And it's okay. So I have a social media group who does it for me. 

Becca Powers: Oh, that's great. So, all right, well, we'll have all of that in the show notes. And Karen, it was an absolute honor and pleasure to have you on the show. I'm just, you can see how cheeky and smiley I am if you're watching this.

And Karen, I know you can see it. And I just appreciate you so much. it was so nice to meet you. So nice to meet you too. 

Karen Blaine: I'm so glad we had this chance and opportunity.