Instagram story viewer> @withaudra> Posts

With Audra

@withaudra

3K

followers

1579

following

Spiritual Teacher & Guide
Trauma-Informed Practitioner
Holding space for stillness, healing & awareness.
🌿 Mindfulness | Awakening
✨ Begin within.

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

We weren’t allowed to say “hate” growing up. Not loosely corrected. Not negotiated. Forbidden.

Because our ancestors understood something we’re only now catching up to: hate is energy. And you cannot carry it without being shaped by it.

Dislike creates distance. Hate creates attachment. Before it ever touches someone else, it moves through you first.

So when people hate us—they’re aiming it at a people who were taught to refuse the very thing they carry.

Sit with that. 🖤
#BlackAmericanHouseholds #AncestralWisdom #HateIsEnergy #WeDontCarryThat #ForbiddenWord
Were you allowed to say hate? No judgement🤍 by @withaudra

7k

589

4 months ago

Grandma was the guru. 🕊️

In most Black American households, calling someone “a lie” was barred. Calling a person out of their name? A no-go. And nobody could always explain why — but the speed of the correction told you everything. She knew it in the body. That was ancestral wisdom long before anyone gave it language.

Today psychology has names for what she was protecting:

Your behavior is what you did. Your personhood is who you are. When you call someone “a lie,” you collapse the two — you take a behavior and turn it into an identity. Grandma wouldn’t allow that, because she knew there was greatness in people beyond their behavior.

Healthy shame says, “I made a mistake.”
Toxic shame says, “I am the mistake.”
She kept us on the healthy side of that line before anybody wrote it down.

Some of us are still carrying identities that were handed to us in moments when we needed correction, not condemnation.

So hear this — let it be your affirmation today:
You were never the act.
You were never the mistake.
There has always been something greater in you than your worst moment.

Grandma knew it. Grandma was the guru.

What’s the phrase your family would NOT let you say? 👇🏽

stay close 🤍

#ancestralwisdom #generationalhealing #blackhouseholds #grandmawisdom #spiritualawakening by @withaudra

20k

533

4 months ago

Every relationship mirrors where we are on our journey — our healing, our beliefs, our boundaries, our growth. ✨
Instead of asking “Why did this happen to me?” try asking “What is this showing me?”
Every connection is an opportunity — to evolve, to love differently, and to meet yourself on a deeper level.

#ConsciousRelationships #TheMirrorEffect #SoulContracts #ShadowWork #InnerChildHealing
#SelfAwareness #SpiritualGrowth #PersonalJourney #HealingJourney #EvolveOrRepeat
#WithAudra #MindfulLiving #EnergyAndHealing by @withaudra

27

5

a year ago

Lack feels real. This isn’t about pretending otherwise.

It’s about noticing the mindset you’re living from. A mindset rooted in lack keeps scanning for what’s missing. It tightens the body, narrows what you can see, and makes it hard to receive what’s already here, even when good things show up.

Abundance isn’t something you force. It starts with awareness. Notice the thought. Notice where it lands in your body. Then take one breath and ask: what’s here right now that is enough?

That’s mindfulness in practice. Small shifts in attention, repeated until they become how you live.

Where does lack show up most for you: money, time, love, or rest? Tell me below. 👇🏽

I go deeper on mindset and presence on With Audra. Link in bio.

#abundancemindset #scarcitymindset #mindfulness #spiritualgrowth #withaudra

Can you feel abundance before it shows up? by @withaudra

5

3

12 hours ago

Awareness notices. Presence stays. 🍃🍃

We tend to use “awareness” and “presence” like they mean the same thing. They don’t.

Picture yourself in traffic.

Awareness sees it. The brake lights, the stop-and-go, the tension rising in your body. You’re noticing what’s happening, clearly and honestly.

Presence goes one step further. You stop pushing against it. You’re not waiting for it to end or rushing ahead to what’s next. You’re simply here, in the car, in this moment, letting it be what it is.

Awareness opens the door. Presence walks through it.

Which one do you find yourself in more often? Tell me in the comments. 👇🏽

#awareness #presence #healingjourney #spiritualgrowth #spirtuality by @withaudra

11

5

18 hours ago

One thing you might not know about me: I will cry.

Not because I’m weak — because crying is one of the most powerful ways to regulate my nervous system. 🤍

Here’s what tears actually do for us:

1️⃣ They calm the body down. Crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping your body shift out of fight-or-flight and back into safety.

2️⃣ They deepen self-awareness. Tears help emotions move through the body instead of getting stuck inside it.

3️⃣ They reduce stress. Emotional tears literally carry stress hormones out of your system. Crying is release, not weakness.

Here’s what I’ve learned: so many of us have never actually cried about what happened to us. We stuffed it down, kept going, stayed “strong.” But I’ve found that real strength isn’t in holding it all together — it’s in allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

You don’t have to stay there. Give yourself permission to feel. Let your heart break if it needs to. Cry.

Your nervous system will thank you. 🤍

Save this for the next time you need permission to feel. Share it with someone who’s been holding it all in.

💬 Tell me — when was the last time you let yourself really cry?
#healingjourney #nervoussystemhealth #somaticexperiencing #mindfulness #selfawareness by @withaudra

26

3

4 days ago

You know that feeling…

“Something told me not to go.”
“Something told me to wait.”
“I can’t explain it, but something feels off.”

You may call it intuition. Spirit. Your inner knowing. The still small voice. Energy.

Whatever you call it, learning to recognize it requires you to slow down enough to hear it.

Three ways to develop that connection:
✨ Be still.
✨ Notice it.
✨ Trust it.

The more you create space for your inner knowing, the easier it becomes to recognize what it’s saying.

Sometimes the answer isn’t louder.

Sometimes you just have to get quiet enough to hear it.

#Intuition #InnerKnowing #SpiritualAwakening #healingjourney #SelfAwareness by @withaudra

80

6

8 days ago

We hear it every time a story comes out.

“She was so nice.”
“He was such a good guy.”

But nice and good are not the same thing — and we confuse them constantly.

Nice is about how someone makes you feel in the moment. Pleasant. Agreeable. Easy to be around. It costs nothing and it can be performed by anyone.

Good is about character. It’s what someone does when it’s inconvenient, when no one’s watching, when being good means being uncomfortable or unpopular.

Nice can coexist with harm.
Good cannot.

So the next time someone says “but they were so nice,” remember — that was never the question. Nice was never the bar.

Good is.

Have you ever confused the two? 👇👇🏽
#healingjourney #spiritualgrowth #relationships #withaudra #mindfulness by @withaudra

141

20

9 days ago

5 changes I would make if I wanted to shift my life in a dynamic way. ✨
Sometimes, changing your life doesn't require changing everything around you. It starts with changing how you show up within it.
Here are five shifts I would make:
Speak with intention. Be mindful of the words you speak and the energy behind them.
Become aware of your thoughts. Your thoughts influence how you experience yourself, others, and the world around you.
Trust the Divine unfolding of your life. Release the need to control every outcome and allow life to unfold.
Practice gratitude. Begin to recognize the abundance, beauty, and possibilities already present in your life.
Spend more time in prayer and meditation. Create space to become still, reconnect, and listen beyond the noise of everyday life.
The beautiful thing about shifting your life is that you don't have to wait for everything around you to change.
Sometimes, the most dynamic shift begins with a decision to show up differently.
Which of these five changes would make the biggest difference in your life right now? 🤎
#manifest #awakening #awareness #intention #healing by @withaudra

26

2

12 days ago

The reason you may feel stuck isn’t always your circumstances. Sometimes, it’s the thoughts you’ve been believing about yourself and your life.

So if you do one thing differently going forward, let it be this:

Become aware of what you’re thinking.

Notice the thoughts you keep giving your energy to.
Watch them come and go without immediately making them your truth.

“I missed my chance.”
“I should be further along by now.”
“I can’t do this.”
“I’ll never be that.”

Maybe those thoughts served a purpose once. Maybe they helped you survive, protect yourself, or make sense of something you didn’t yet understand.

But ask yourself:

Do I still need this thought?

Because you can’t release what you’ve never become aware of.

Awareness is one of the first steps in any healing journey. And spiritual growth begins with becoming conscious of what has been running beneath the surface.

You don’t have to fight every thought.
You don’t have to believe every thought.
Sometimes, you simply have to notice it — and choose not to carry it forward.

Drop one thought you’re ready to let go of in the comments.

Not for me.

For the person scrolling who needs to know they’re not the only one.

#healingjourney #negativethoughts #mindset #selfawareness #spiritualgrowth by @withaudra

20

3

18 days ago

Your unhealed self may be driving your life—and you may not even realize it.

I was taking a somatic class recently when the therapist facilitating it said something that stopped me:

“For most people, the shadow is in the driver’s seat of their lives.”

That stayed with me.

Because if the wound is driving…

where is it taking you?

What is it doing to your relationships?
Your work?
Your choices?
Your peace?

You can spend your whole life believing you’re making conscious choices…

while something unconscious is making them for you.

And maybe the work isn’t becoming someone different.

Maybe it’s becoming aware of who—or what—has been driving.

So… who’s driving?

Tell me in the comments. 👇
#SelfAwareness #InnerWork #ShadowWork #SpiritualAwakening #PersonalGrowth by @withaudra

28

4

24 days ago

I grew up being told to forgive—but rarely given any context for what that actually meant.

And when we’re given a teaching without context, we’re often left trying to figure out what we’re supposed to do with it.

For me, I had to translate forgiveness into something I could actually understand: letting go.

Not for them.
Not to excuse what happened.
Not to pretend it didn’t hurt.

For me, letting go became about releasing my attachment to what happened so it no longer had to occupy my present.

Because sometimes the question isn’t, “Do they deserve forgiveness?”

It’s:

Is their past harm worth your present peace?

#forgiveness #lettinggo #healing #selfawareness #healingjourney by @withaudra

26

6

a month ago