The Final Wake: You Are the Permission Slip

Transformation isn't always a dramatic explosion... sometimes it's a quiet unfolding, seeds that need to root before they sprout. After 100 episodes of Wake Up with Susan, I'm sharing why this podcast has reached its beautiful conclusion and what's emerging in its place.

Standing at this threshold feels both terrifying and sacred. When I began this journey, I was just past my season of awakening, breaking agreements with fear and finding my voice. This podcast became a lighthouse for me, my open-door infirmary where I shared my journey through understanding and healing. and hopefully, illuminating the path of growth and authenticity. But as with all evolutionary journeys, there comes a moment when the old skin no longer fits, when what once felt brave now feels small and something new is ready to be born.

This podcast started as a whisper  I didn't understand but kept following the nudges.  And this crossroads comes with the same sacred devotion to my inner voice.  There is a new role for me to step into, a new field for me to hold.

This is a share about my journey but also an invitation to you.  Honor your evolution.  Those meant to walk with you will recognize you in every version. Those who don't, never would have anyway. So why stay small? 

As this podcast transforms, I'm embracing something deeper, wilder, and somehow softer: a resonance field where conversations become transmissions that call your truth forward.  I hope you join me in this next phase. 

If you long to go deeper in your own knowing, I invite you to The Keepers' Going ~ a sacred community for those ready to allow their own codes to speak.

To find out more about me, Susan Sutherland, check out my website. 

And to connect on social, find me on TikTok and Instagram

Chapters

• 0:00 Final Episode Announcement
• 1:38 Evolution After Corporate Life
• 4:16 Resistance to Small Changes
• 6:50 Permission to Reinvent Yourself
• 9:06 What's Coming Next
• 11:43 Gratitude and Moving Forward

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it. Hello, my beautiful family, it's Susan, and this is a very special moment, at least for me.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Today is the final episode of Wake Up With Susan, and I have shared over a hundred episodes of this podcast, which is mind blowing to me. But today I want to speak to you not just as the host of a podcast, but as a woman who is living and walking the mystery of her own evolution. When I first started this show, I was just past the season of awakening. I was peeling back layers. I was breaking old agreements with fear and giving myself permission to speak more freely and more truthfully, even though that was terrifying. And this podcast became kind of a lighthouse for me and maybe, just maybe, it became that for you too. But like all things that are rooted in growth, there comes a time when the old skin no longer fits, when the voice that once felt brave now feels small. Felt brave now feels small when the name and the rhythm and the container has done its job. And so now I'm rebranding, not because anything was wrong, but because something new is ready to be born, because those clothes feel old to me now and I am ready to shift. I'm ready to change. So today I want to talk to you about evolution and about the sacred and terrifying and holy act of giving ourselves permission to change in the smallest and the grandest ways. Because the truth is, we don't always give ourselves that permission.

Speaker 1: 2:26

I spent years at a corporate job that my heart knew I had outgrown. It wasn't that the work was bad, it certainly wasn't fulfilling, but it gave me a life I loved. But my heart knew I wasn't supposed to be there. My soul was calling me somewhere else. But I stayed because of security, because it was familiar, because stepping into the unknown terrified me, because it made sense on paper and for a long time I convinced myself that that was enough. But inside I knew. I knew that something else was calling. Now how would I explain that to everybody else who said I had it made? Why would you give up this job? But inside I knew that something else was calling. I didn't know what it was yet. And that space and that space, that space after the old identity has fallen away, but the before the new one has fully formed that in between. That's where I live for a while no title, no clarity, no map, just me walking through the fog with trust and tears, and sometimes not that much trust, but definitely tears. But you know what that space taught me? More about myself than anything else, because evolution rarely announces itself in advance. It whispers and it nudges, and then it dares you to follow, and then it dares you to follow.

Speaker 1: 4:03

And sometimes resistance shows up in the most unexpected ways, in the simplest things. I don't know if y'all remember when the scarf trend was huge, like the infinity scarf trend was really, really big, and on my Pinterest board were the cutest looks of you know jeans with knee boots and these adorable scarves. And it was. It was the look and and I was going to embrace that look, and I bought four or five of these scarves and I never wore them once because when I would put them on, it didn't look like me. I wanted to embrace this new version. I wanted this look. I knew that this was my next version, was this this picture?

Speaker 1: 4:53

But every time I would put a scarf on, I would take it right back off, not because I didn't like the scarf, but I was so tethered to the image I thought I had to maintain, or what I was comfortable with, or who they expect me to be. How I'm supposed to present was exactly how they've always known me, how I've always known myself, and that desire to be familiar, to not push out of our comfort zone just the littlest things, that holding onto the image. I couldn't let myself embrace even the smallest changes. That would have been an upgrade to my look, because I was so tied to what I had always been, I was so gripped by the past version of me that I couldn't let myself expand. We want to evolve, but we still try to squeeze our expansion into old containers. We're trying to wear our old uniform to our new job and I used to think like, maybe if I moved in to a new city, I would just completely reinvent myself. I would be the girl with all of the cool hats. I could be more expressive, I could be more artistic, because they don't know that that's not who I was. It wouldn't look like I was putting on a show to wear the things that I wish I could wear now. I could just be whoever I wanted to be, because they didn't have some kind of imprint of what I was supposed to be.

Speaker 1: 6:19

But here's what I want you to know now, susan you don't have to move to a new city to become a new version of yourself. You can reinvent yourself right here. You can do it every single day. You can wear a scarf, you can wear the hats, you can wear dangly earrings even though you never have. You can speak in new tones. You can let your voice change. You can embrace softness if you've never been soft. You can let your dreams shift. You don't need permission from anyone else. You are the permission slip, not just to speak differently, but to be differently. A lot of times we wait on force to allow these shifts. When you get married, there is a huge shift. Or when you become a mother or an empty nester, or if you have a relationship change. These are like built in permission to evolve, to change, to shift. But what if you give yourself permission because you want to, because you feel yourself expanding? So that's what I'm doing, that's that's what I'm doing now I'm, I'm giving myself permission to grow, and that's why this podcast is evolving too.

Speaker 1: 7:44

This rebrand isn't about chasing something new. It's about letting go of something that feels complete, because wake up with Susan was never meant to hold my entire message. I didn't know that then, but that was the awakening, the awakening part of me, the awakening part of this podcast. But now y'all, you should be awake. Okay, we have. We have a hundred episodes of waking you up and the awakening. That was the beginning, but now it's time to rise, it's time to remember, it's time to embody, it's time to walk forward as someone who's not afraid to be seen in their becoming, and that's what I want for you too.

Speaker 1: 8:37

So many of us are standing in between versions of ourselves. We feel the stretch, we hear the call, but we're scared to let go. We're scared to be misunderstood. We're scared to change when it seems safest in the world, when we stay the same. But here's what I've learned in the world. When we stay the same, but here's what I've learned, the people who are meant to walk with you will recognize you, regardless of what outfit you wear. They'll feel you in every version. And you know what else I've learned? The others, the others won't, regardless, the ones that I don't resonate with, I'm not resonating with in the old version of myself.

Speaker 1: 9:28

So why am I so afraid to step into the new one, afraid of what they will think Y'all? No more, we're not afraid of what they will think anymore. No more, we're not afraid of what they will think anymore. Those that are meant to align with you want you to grow. They want you to expand, they want you to level up in your life, in your awareness, in your knowing. They want your bloom to fully open. And the others bloom to fully open. And the others, who gives a flying fuck? So this is my invitation to you, to me, to all of us Let yourself change, let yourself sharpen or soften or bloom, let yourself wear the scarf or not, because you want to Let yourself find your voice again. Because when you do, when you step into that next version that is waiting to emerge, you give others permission to do the same, and that's the ripple, that is the real work.

Speaker 1: 10:45

So what's coming next? I'll be sharing more on that soon, but I can tell you this it's deeper, it's wilder, it's softer, but it's still me. The next space will be a resonance field. The next space will be a resonance field, a remembering space, not just conversations but transmissions, the kind of presence that calls your truth forward. I gave you a little taste of what I'm feeling called to do in the earth episode, which ended kind of with the invocation, and so there will be more of that, more of my sharing from the heart, but also more invitations for you really to connect to that truth within you.

Speaker 1: 11:26

So if you have felt a stirring as you've listened, if you felt a shift in your own life, a sense that you're not quite who you were and still working on who you're becoming, then stay close. We're walking this next phase together. Thank you truly for waking up with me. Oh, hold on, I'll do it again. Thank you truly for waking up with me. Thank you for honoring my evolution and thank you for trusting me with your own. This isn't goodbye, this is just the next version of hello. Thanks for listening you.