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Boundaries, Burnout, And Personal Growth With Cindy Rendon
“We set our own internal limitations.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Cindy Rendon, an attorney who shares her unique approach to law and life through the lens of tarot reading and intuition. Cindy discusses her journey from practicing law to incorporating spiritual practices into her work, emphasizing the importance of boundaries and self-care to combat burnout.
What to listen for:
“The universe is constantly communicating with you, but sometimes we get so much in our way that we miss it.”
“Self-care is what are you doing for your body, mind, and spirit to replenish your soul.”
About Cindy Rendon
Cindy is a lawyer who has a heart for helping others. She used to blast Kina’s song “Girl From the Gutter” because the underlying message of someone rising above the fray, succeeding despite the odds, and shutting up the naysayers really resonated with her. She came from a working-class background and was the first person in her family to attend college and post-graduate school. Growing up, she was always told ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’, and she tried to embody that in how she lives her life and in how she treats others.
Resources:
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Thank you for listening!
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Click To View The Episode Transcript
Nick McGowan (00:01.394)
Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan McGowan. Today on the show we have Cindy Rendon. Cindy, how are doing today?
Cindy Rendon (00:12.258)
Good, how are you doing, Nick?
Nick McGowan (00:13.776)
I’m good. I’m good. I’m excited for us to get in everything we’re going to talk about. I appreciate when people bring props in a sense with them. Some people have them behind them or whatever, but you started to rattle off different books that you’ve brought with you. And I think we can probably get into a lot of that stuff with the reading and just the different types of stuff that we read. I’ve rattled off a book that was a game changer for me, but why don’t we get things started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.
Cindy Rendon (00:44.142)
Sure. I’m an attorney. I’ve been practicing since 1998. I have my own firm since 2010. And something that is bizarre, not even bizarre, but just most people don’t know because I don’t advertise it. actually, another prop is that I’m learning to read tarot. And so these are my latest flavor of the month is the light seers tarot. And so you pull a card, and depending on if it’s right side up or upside down, are you familiar with tarot?
Nick McGowan (01:12.262)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But feel free to get into it because I know there are people listen that are, but some that aren’t.
Cindy Rendon (01:14.956)
Okay. okay. Well.
OK, well, I’m still learning. But I started off with the Robin Hood and the Rider White, which like the grandfather of tarot. And then there’s different other variations of the cards. And so this right now is one of my favorite ones. But it’s like working on your shadow self. So if the tarot card’s upside down, and you think about what is the inner work that you need to do or be mindful of for the day.
Nick McGowan (01:39.015)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (01:48.438)
And so it could be something as part of my learning process of it is every day I pull a spread. What is the three cards? What is the overall energy for the day? What do I need to be mindful of? What can I use to assist me? And then I just read those cards. And then, because I’m learning to be tech savvy, I will plug them in to my AI. And I’ll say, this is what my interpretation is. How can something like this
show for the day or manifest for the day. And so I’m learning to not take, like if you get the tower, which is typically people think of the tower as a destruction and the tower is falling over. But as a day-to-day card, the tower could be something as simple as your printer’s going to jam or your computer is going to lock up and you’re going to have to do a restart. So I’m learning to read it from a day-to-day perspective.
Nick McGowan (02:30.652)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (02:46.06)
in addition to learning it from just a more global, what can I look forward to for this year or this month, this podcast, take it however you want. but anyway, so had one of the cards I pulled was the three of wands. And so this is, and it was upright, so it’s making plans. I’ve made my plans with the two of wands and now the three of wands is it’s time to put that plan into action.
Nick McGowan (02:57.677)
Sure.
Cindy Rendon (03:14.258)
It’s a good card, and it’s a thinking card, which is your thoughts and creativity with the wands. So that is something that most people don’t know about me. And then I have my oracle. More props. I also will fact check my tarot by pulling an oracle. because oracles more like spoon feeding you, tarot, you actually have to tap in to your intuition. But with my oracle, I will pull a card and
Nick McGowan (03:27.985)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (03:36.743)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (03:43.374)
And it’s just amazing how just the universe, like the Oracle Query Pool, will correspond to the message that I’ve gotten from my tarot. so it always just blows my mind when that happens. But there you go, something that most people don’t know.
Nick McGowan (03:49.711)
the
Nick McGowan (04:01.206)
sure that’s not a normal thing that you would just bring up. That’s… Hold on here. Hold on. Give me a second.
Cindy Rendon (04:03.854)
Yeah, I’m not going to be in court like limit limit shuffle my deck. So yeah, let me see what they should say. Do my you know, mama needs some new shoes. No.
Nick McGowan (04:14.962)
I think that’s pretty interesting from like when I think of lawyers, they’re very matter of fact, law driven. This is what the law says. And then being able to be really good at how do we position that in such a way to be able to either help or go against somebody or whatever it is, but using it in the most opportunistic way. And I’m trying to be like,
I’m trying to use my words properly here. Yeah. Cause the law is the law. This is what it is. And it’s black and white in that way. But then you get to interpret and do what you can with it, but then also kind of build things out from there. Even again, having conversations with lawyers I’ve worked with, the one in particular that we’ve mentioned a couple of times, even before we hit record and like having those conversations, even watching the show bull. Have you ever seen bull?
Cindy Rendon (04:46.69)
Being strategic. Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (05:12.748)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (05:14.404)
and the trial science and all that. And I really appreciate that stuff. But I think from that perspective of going, all right, well, during the day, you work with the law and understand who you’re working with, the clients you’re working with and the things you work on. But then you also have this side that is more mystical and the tarot side. And where’s the Venn diagram of that? Like, how does that work together? And how does it help with the work that you do with things that are very black and white? The law says this.
If you break that, these are the consequences of this. And how does that all kind of relate?
Cindy Rendon (05:49.71)
I think for me, you know, I obviously, you know, it is a tool. It is not. I always joke when I’m like for entertainment purposes only, but I but I do believe in the universe, you know, and I do believe that there’s things that are, you know, that you can manifest things and in energy work and but what I use it for, you know, like if I have a mediation coming up, you know, I’m prepared, but I may say, OK, you know, what do I need to be mindful of for this mediation?
And so maybe I might get like the five of swords or something. And then so I’m like, OK, I need to or the seven of swords where I need to be more strategic in how I negotiate or I need to stand firm on whatever my position is. I might get another card like a cups. That’s more be more in tune with your emotions. Be the queen of cups. Be more empathetic.
Nick McGowan (06:43.612)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (06:47.136)
And so I will keep that in the back of my mind while I’m mediating. I’m like, OK, well, let’s see how this strategy can play out with the knowledge and information in the law and how we can use that for negotiating. And then it’s always fun after the fact to look at my cards, because again, I’m still learning, and to see, did it really play out this way? And then that’s how I learn. Because I had one card where the Empress was turned back.
Nick McGowan (07:07.291)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (07:11.794)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (07:17.006)
She wasn’t upside down, but the way the positions work. So I’m learning that you also look at their actual position. Are they facing to the left? Are they facing moving forward? And she was actually facing the opposite direction towards the past. And in hindsight, we didn’t settle that day, but we did settle eventually. And so in hindsight, I’m like, OK, so this kind of was foretelling that we’re not going to settle yet because she’s not looking to the future.
Nick McGowan (07:27.474)
Mm.
Cindy Rendon (07:46.146)
But there were some things that had to get worked out.
Nick McGowan (07:50.066)
interesting. I think that’s cool. I love the people will talk about God, the universe, like all these different, there are so many different ways to put it. And it’s all basically kind of the same thing, I believe. And you can be spoken to throughout just life in general. So the medium of those cards, even just watching TV or watching a movie, or listening to songs, I think, back to the days when we listen to radio.
and you would have like sentences that would come up just by changing the radio stations. Yeah, and just different things that just resonate with us at that specific time, but may not have differently, like even reading the Bible or reading anything else. Like you might read something and go, this doesn’t relate to me at all, or I don’t get it at all. And then you read it again later and like it totally relates to everything that’s going on.
Cindy Rendon (08:16.867)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (08:21.506)
That would speak to you.
Cindy Rendon (08:41.443)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (08:41.614)
I’ve wondered at times, can some of those things where you really look for them start to put you into a box or can they help you in more so cases where you start to then see patterns within things? So have you found that, yeah, do you find that you look for more of those patterns than, kind of constraints from it?
Cindy Rendon (08:52.696)
I think you see patterns.
Cindy Rendon (09:00.15)
I think that we’re all naturally intuitive. And I think that this, again, this is just a tool to, because you know in your gut already what’s going to happen or like for me with law, I’ve been doing it since 1998. So I already have a general idea of here’s what this fact pattern is, here’s what the law is, here’s the personalities of the parties. So I already know going in where I can push and where we need to maybe compromise more. But it’s just a…
Nick McGowan (09:02.587)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (09:29.176)
just another tool of tapping into your intuition. And so a lot of times what I do sometimes, if I feel like I’m just not, like there’s just too much blockage, I’ll start keeping a, I call it a sign, signs for my spirit team, my spirit guides. And it could be just a random bumper sticker, or it could be, like you said, a song or angel numbers. I call them angel numbers, people in numerology, but it could be just,
Nick McGowan (09:31.783)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (09:50.236)
the
Cindy Rendon (09:58.99)
you know, sequence of numbers, but I’ll write it all down and I’ll, and that again, as part of your intuition, and it’s just the universe constantly communicating with you. But sometimes we get so much in our way that we miss it. And so it’s always amazing to me when I start tracking it, like, yes, the universe is communicating to me. I’m just, I just need to get out of my own way and pay attention to it. So we got a random thought, you know, you could have, I grew up in the Pentecostal religion, Assemblies of God.
Nick McGowan (10:19.333)
the
Cindy Rendon (10:28.332)
And so I learned the Bible inside and out. And I will have a random thought. We feed the birds and squirrels and all the wildlife. And I’ll look outside my window and I’ll just watch them. And then I’ll just have this thought like, I care so much about these little animals. That’s how much God or the universe, whatever you want to call, cares about us. And that’s a message from the universe.
Nick McGowan (10:53.671)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (10:58.833)
Mm-hmm
Cindy Rendon (10:58.87)
But yeah, that’s something I learned in therapy, that if a word is a trigger, if it just, you some people, you know, they think that meditation is new age and it’s too, you know, and I’m like, then don’t call it meditation, call it praying, you know, but it’s all just the same intent is there. So.
Nick McGowan (11:11.226)
Yeah, sure.
Nick McGowan (11:15.888)
Yeah. I love that you brought up that specific, paraphrased verse about the bird. That pops into my mind pretty damn often, where there are times where it’s like, you’ll be stressing about something or I’m kind of trying to think too much about this thing. Like how do I be prepared to go through this stuff to then…
Cindy Rendon (11:30.83)
Look at me.
Nick McGowan (11:41.628)
kind of work through it in a way it’s going to work through and like flow with the river and all and I’ll hear I care about the birds but you mean so much more than the birds and then I’ll look out my window and I see a bird like so where I’m at in the foothills of this mountain we have this coyote fence over here and this other little fence over here and mountains and all this stuff and like I can see these birds at different times but there’s literally a spot right here where these birds just seem to just wander around and then stop and look and it’s happened
handful of times specifically over the past year where I’ll think about that and that thought will pop in like, care about the birds, but I care about you more than the birds. And they don’t worry. They don’t worry about these things or what they’re going to eat or what they’re going to wear or whatever. And I’ll look out and there’s like this bird just looking around, just straight up looking around. I’m like, see, you don’t give a shit. You’re just doing you. And what a cool thing. I, I’m right there with you with the intuition of, that intuitive pull that we have, but we can really get stuck.
Cindy Rendon (12:31.287)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (12:40.774)
being really too deep in this world to not allow ourselves to feel that. And part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is to be able to talk about the duality of these things, being in court, working with these things that are very matter of fact, but then also understanding how do you tie this stuff in and simultaneously also how do you not let that stuff really affect you? Like if you’re working with somebody and let’s say they go to jail for a long time or they had done something really bad.
How do you not let that affect not only how you work with them, but affect you as a person, knowing and feeling the way that you do?
Cindy Rendon (13:18.926)
I had to learn boundaries. had what was called, I call it burnout, it’s, I like to, it’s compassion fatigue. So what I did, I started off my career just doing straight up representing insurance companies, products liability, medical malpractice defense. So it was just very much, you know, business or more business oriented. I got tired of that. You you can’t, you know, I always joke that you can’t hug, you know, Bridgestone Firestone. It’s just a brick building.
And so in 2010 is when I decided I’m going to hang my own shingle because I want to build relationships with people, not with buildings. And so at that point, I do family law and I do plaintiff personal injury. In 2021, after a decade of doing my own thing, I had major, burnout. I call it compassion fatigue. I don’t know if it really is, but basically secondary trauma from
Like you said, your client’s kind of dumping on you with their issues, taking on their problems as if they were my own, which they’re not. And so I’ve learned about boundaries. I’ve learned that I didn’t create the facts. I didn’t make these choices that set my clients on the trajectory that they’re on. All I can do is work with the facts that I’ve been presented.
Nick McGowan (14:25.788)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (14:44.48)
and try to get them the best outcome possible. But at the end of the day, I’m not the one, like with parents, I’m not the one who chose to leave the kids at the house. With somebody that, if it’s been a year and you left your kids, you can’t come to court and say, the dad is a horrible person and he’s a terrible parent and he cusses and screams and hits the, but you left your kids there. So guess what? You’ve like voluntarily relinquished. So that argument has sailed.
So all that to say boundaries. So I’ve had to learn what boundaries are. I didn’t really understand that. I’ll do one plug for my book, Judge Me Not. So I wrote this book that talks about just my journey, how I got to getting into therapy with, I was incredibly burned out. And I just had walked around with tears in my eyes all the time.
Nick McGowan (15:23.602)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (15:41.504)
And I just told people that it’s just allergies, but it really was just my emotional system was just here. And I didn’t have any way of coping with it. So I used to give out my personal cell number. And when you’re on the defense side, the claim suggestor is not going to be calling you in the middle of the night or on the weekend. They understand work boundaries. But when you start representing people,
Nick McGowan (15:57.936)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (16:09.038)
They may call you at 11 o’clock or you may get 20 text messages. And my personality was, I need to respond to this right now. I need to fix this for them. And so that’s what led or contributed to my burnout. So I now have a second phone that I give out to clients. And I have my hour set on there. So I don’t even get a notification if they’ve called me or sent me a text. And then just some other things that I’ve learned that.
Nick McGowan (16:17.362)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (16:25.958)
the
Nick McGowan (16:33.916)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (16:39.818)
It helps me to be able to restore myself mentally, physically, emotionally, so that I can be more present for my clients when I am on the clock. meditation, running, these are all things that make more of a daily part of my life.
Nick McGowan (17:03.034)
I literally just started to answer a question. I was going to say once people start to get into therapy or start to figure out a modality that works for them, they then start to uncover ways sometimes they’re given by a therapist or a psychologist or whoever they’re working with. Why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? Some of the easy things are like, why don’t you journal? Or why don’t you just sit and concentrate on your breath for two minutes or three minutes or whatever it is.
But being able to find meditation and whatever it is that you do, you can find it in different ways. Some people love to go running. Some people do, I don’t know, some things that might sound silly or simple to other people like cooking or doing the dishes or whatever it is, but being able to actually just settle down. Now you talked about the boundaries of it, which can be really difficult for us to do if we have so many different things pulling at you, clients, family, different things that
you need to get done or feel like you need to get done, where it can be harder for you to actually meditate. I was actually having a conversation with my partner about this recently. She reminded me, know, there was some quote that somebody said a while ago, if you don’t have 20 minutes to meditate, you really need to meditate for two hours a day. And like, how fucking irritating that is where you’re like, but I’m working on the 20 minutes, but in all reality, totally makes sense.
But being able to figure out how do you be able to manage those things? Now talk to us a little bit about the therapy side of it. I want to know how you got to that point to go, all right, I need to step into this. And what were some of the things that you started to understand that tied into your burnout? Because burnout isn’t just for lawyers. It’s not just for firefighters. It’s not just for nurses and all the people that have all these things going on. But burnout is a thing that most people experience, even if they don’t understand they’re actually burnt out.
They feel like, I say yes to a lot of things, but you just don’t have time for yourself. And how do you then figure that out? So talk to us a bit about that journey to therapy and then being able to get yourself out of that burnout.
Cindy Rendon (19:07.054)
Okay. Yeah, I finally, years ago, I had had a spiritual life coach and that was kind of my first kind of dipping my toe into therapy. But, there’s always the stigma around mental health. And so and even more so, I think when you’re a professional. So I did a little, you know, a coaching package, learned about Reiki at that time. And so I have my level one. I’ve been attuned to level one.
Nick McGowan (19:33.532)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (19:37.006)
I’m looking into getting attuned to level two and I’m just waiting for the right teacher. When the student’s ready, the teacher presents themselves. So what finally got me to a legitimate mental health professional was just I was just having just massive overwhelm. I had a couple of clients who if I get too cosmic, let me know. But I had a couple of clients who like my ancestors sent to me.
Nick McGowan (20:02.278)
You’re
Cindy Rendon (20:07.032)
to like I needed to get help. And so I had a couple of really toxic clients that just pushed me over the edge where I was just had tears all the time. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to cry, I just my childhood, had emotionally difficult childhood. And so I learned to just stifle your emotions. Emotions are not safe.
Nick McGowan (20:07.218)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (20:15.506)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (20:34.412)
And so I went back to the things that got me through childhood, but they weren’t getting me through this next level as an adult. And so the stuff that worked really well, like being an overachiever, working super hard, being a people pleaser, were great when you’re growing up. It got me scholarships. It got me opportunities that I didn’t have. But I was finally at a point where it was just, I had to do something, something had to give. I put out to the universe, these are the things I want.
Nick McGowan (20:46.982)
Mm-hmm
Cindy Rendon (21:03.848)
I had a sister who’s still very much involved in church. And again, I have nothing against church. It’s what got me through my childhood. know, I knew sometimes I would walk to our church because I knew that if I didn’t have a ride, somebody from church at least would take me back home. You know, my church family were the rock for me growing up. But she was like, you just need a Christian counselor who can pull out their Bible and read Bible verses. And I’m like,
I’m a little beyond that. By this point, I had already kind of dipped my toe into metaphysics. And I know that there was a, I felt like there was a bigger world out here, the law of attraction, Abraham Hicks. I’d listened to some energy speakers. Have you heard of Christy Murray Shelton? She has the love and above. And so you have the, like the Sophrasio frequencies where, so love is like the 500. And so she talks about love 500 and above. And that’s where you want to be energetically
Nick McGowan (21:31.762)
Mmm…yeah.
Nick McGowan (21:52.562)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (22:00.972)
and not being these lower energies of fear and anger and depression, things that just keep your vibration low. So I had already learned those things and was on that trajectory. So I put out to the universe, I want a therapist who is open-minded, who can’t really talk to me. I’m a big sci-fi nerd. So I love Dr. Who. I have my own little bitty, know, sonic space screwdriver.
Nick McGowan (22:28.044)
Yeah, my TARDIS is right here.
Cindy Rendon (22:30.414)
Okay, so, you know, all of, you know, Harry Potter, all of those things that I’m like, I wish it was real, or you know, the Matrix. I’m like, the Matrix is real, it’s not just a movie. So I had my list, like this is who, if I’m going to have therapy, that’s what, you universe, that’s what you want for me, then here’s what I want. And I don’t know how I found him, honestly, I’ve tried to like recreate that search, and I can’t.
Nick McGowan (22:56.877)
the
Cindy Rendon (22:57.954)
So whatever words I put into the Google search, it popped up. And so the stress dojo. And so I found him. He checked all the boxes. Somebody who is open-minded about talking about metaphysics. Somebody who, and he’s very open about it. So I’m not bringing him out of the broom closet. And we talk about sci-fi stuff. And we talk about just
My first session, like, I’m not going to talk about my childhood. That’s the past. You here’s what you work with what you have right now. I have since learned that, OK, like who I am right now was formed by what happened back then. And so you have to address that. And so we learn to address that. I learned about the I think it’s a 60 second wave of your emotions that just fill the emotion. It’ll.
Nick McGowan (23:48.294)
Hmm. Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (23:52.056)
get intense, but it’s like a wave. It’ll go up and then it goes back down. But you have to learn to fill your emotions. And so that was a really new thing for me because I was just always, let me get back into my mind space. You know, I had my head space, my heart space, and they were two separate places. And I’m learning now to integrate them, which is wonderful. It’s been wonderful to learn to live in both spaces and not automatically go up into my head space. As a lawyer, you live in your head space. But
Nick McGowan (24:04.274)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (24:10.588)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (24:22.03)
when you’re working with people, you have to also integrate that heart space for them. And with my husband, with him, when I first started working at home, he works from home. And he was thrilled, like, yay, there’s somebody else. I have a sweet mate. And he would interrupt me in the middle of the day. And I would come in at him from my head space. And he’s coming at me from his heart space and just clash. And so I’ve had to learn to.
Nick McGowan (24:48.624)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (24:50.742)
OK, I need to, this is the person who cares about me, who we’ve been together since law school. I need to come at him with more compassion and come at him with my heart space and get out of my head space. so that’s also the therapy has helped with that as well. But it helped me with just we did some EMDR, where you think of a childhood memory.
Nick McGowan (25:13.458)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (25:17.366)
I always, and that’s where I learned that I’ve always had these pieces. I just couldn’t get past the pain to see how everything fit into place. And so for me, I do have a lot of lucid dreams. And so I remember after the first session, I had this dream and, you know, in the next session I had, I’m like, you know what, I had this aha moment. I see where everything fits into place. I see, you know, that saying where it’s not you, it’s them. I’m like, I finally get it. It was never me. It was, you know, it’s always my parents. But
Nick McGowan (25:23.302)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (25:47.758)
a lot of stuff that I learned, coping mechanisms that I learned as a child that got me through a difficult childhood or failing me as an adult. And so I had to relearn those things like being a people pleaser. And like you said, you you say yes to everything, it’s, you burn out. So I’ve learned that say yes to what you really want to do and it makes it more meaningful. And, you know, instead of saying yes to all things and
I’ve just learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot more about self-care. I had no idea what self-care meant. When I first started therapy, I’m like, yeah, I get my nails done. I get my hair cut. Yeah, I’m doing self-care. And I’m like, OK, my idea of self-care now is I’m meditating. I’m eating better. I’m actually working with a nutritionist now because I realize that I’m eating just crap, processed foods. And so I’m counting my macros. I started taking a new probiotic, which is, yeah, I just had
Nick McGowan (26:22.066)
Sure.
Nick McGowan (26:33.327)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (26:40.028)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (26:48.982)
Even though I’m drinking. Of the energy drinks, apparently Celsius is like, you know, on the continuum of energy drinks, it’s the healthier kind if you’re going to have an energy drink. But, you know, it’s little baby steps. But, you so my idea of self-care, know, journaling, I don’t journal as much. I do more on my phone of, like I said, doing a little chart, whatever, if I’m wanting to like, you know.
Nick McGowan (27:01.426)
Sure.
Cindy Rendon (27:13.102)
the universe, why aren’t you communicating with me? You know, I’ll start like, okay, well, yeah, you did. When I pulled into this parking spot and I looked over, because I have that belief that if you have a little thought in your head, that’s, that’s your spirit team saying, hey, pay attention to that. Because there’s so many random things that, know, why did I, why did I feel the urge to look up right at this time? And I saw that bumper sticker, or I turned the radio and I heard that one phrase or that speaks to you. And so I think that’s really the universe, trying to get your attention, trying to speak with you.
So my idea of self-care is no longer, yes, I get my hair done and my nails done. That’s just maintenance for as a professional or as a person. Self-care is what are you doing for your body, mind and spirit to replenish your soul. So that’s what therapy has done for me. yeah. Sometimes I feel like one step forward, two steps back. But you’re still on the trajectory.
Nick McGowan (27:55.154)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (27:59.654)
Yeah, and Baby Steps with it too. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (28:06.802)
And it’s all part of the growth path of all of it, you know.
Cindy Rendon (28:11.062)
I’m a big, if you haven’t realized yet, a lot of props. I saw this at, and it actually says progress, not perfection. But I was just like, progress just seems like I’m making a D. I’m like, excellence, not perfection. Because I was always like, it has to be perfect. But I’m like, it just has to be good enough. Just has to be, you know, but progress was one of those triggers. I’m like, I’m not making progress. So anyway, I put excellence, not perfection. But just little things.
Nick McGowan (28:25.201)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (28:38.514)
And that probably ties back to how you were as a kid. You know, it’s interesting because even as you’re talking through that, we talked about books and I mentioned to you about a book that drastically changed the way I look at pretty much everything, the last word on power, and how it ties into a subconscious winning strategy that was developed by our subconscious when we were in our formative years to say this is how you win in life. This is how you say safe, this is how you actually
Cindy Rendon (28:42.894)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (29:04.636)
grow and do all these things, but you get to a point where you can’t actually do any more of it. You have to go a different way because your subconscious is trying, just trying to keep you alive, not trying to help you thrive in things. So for you to take those little steps and make those changes, they’re all little steps and good steps. And we can poke holes in all these things, but it’s all of our paths. It’s our own path to be able to work through this stuff. And I’m sure you noticed, even as you go through therapy, if you have
Cindy Rendon (29:15.672)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (29:34.502)
initial conversation. And then six months later, you talk about something that’s similar to it, you can tie back to what you’d worked on six months before that to go, wow, I can see the progress of this stuff. And even going into EMDR or any subconscious processing sessions, you’ll think that you want to work on something, but you’ll end up working on something different. Like I had somebody recently who went through their first subconscious processing session. She was like, what can I expect? I’m like, first off a few hours and whatever you think you’re going to get into.
you probably won’t touch that. You’ll probably get into something else.” And she was like, it totally went this other path, but it felt like that was where it needed to go and being able to allow yourself to work through that stuff. So you were burnt out for a while. You went through all these different things and started to go down a path that has led you into all these other paths. But what are some of the things that you do on a daily basis to be able to help you not only
keep yourself moving, but keep you away from that burnout.
Cindy Rendon (30:38.824)
boundaries. I that is the biggest thing, honestly, I have set office hours now. And I communicate with my clients. So you know, like I just put an out of office for the holidays. I’m out of my my firm is closed tomorrow beginning at noon, and I’m not reopening until Monday, you know, January six, and I’m fine. And I’ve put you know, on my out of office. The courts are closed for the next year.
Courts are open, but for the most part, judges aren’t hearing anything. They’re taking this time off as well. And so in the past, I always used to have the mindset of, I still have to work. I still have to be there for my clients. But that’s a quick road to burnout. so you have to have that time to yourself. But I don’t work on the weekends anymore. I used to always work on the weekends. I used to always work late at night. It was nothing to me to work all day and then bring home work and do more work.
before going to bed. I used to cancel plans with family or friends because I have this hearing on Thursday, so I can’t go out. So it’s setting those boundaries so I can have more control over my life. That will also help me not to burn out and help me to be more present for my clients. But the telephone boundary, having set office hours, not working on the weekends, and I just firmly believe, and just
Nick McGowan (31:48.582)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (32:04.76)
having more control over my calendar instead of scheduling things because my client wants to hurry up and get something done. So OK, well then I’ll just schedule these things back to back. And I’m just setting myself up for failure at that point.
Nick McGowan (32:13.02)
the
Nick McGowan (32:20.092)
Yeah. What a beautiful lesson to learn. You got to get punched in the mouth enough times to go, okay, I got it. And that, I can appreciate the boundaries. It can be really easy for some people to set boundaries and it can also be easy for people around them to say, well, you’re being selfish, but that’s a them problem, not a you problem. But for those that are on their path towards self mastery, what sort of advice would you give to them?
Cindy Rendon (32:27.554)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (32:48.044)
I do believe that your thoughts create your reality. A lot of that comes from Abraham Hicks. You can be C, not B. But yeah, you can be, you can be, and have whatever you want. We set our own internal limitations. And if we will just get out of our own way, then you’ll see that anything’s possible. And I still work with that, but I look back at my own life. I look back at my own career and I can see where
know, God’s hand, the universe, whatever you want to call it, has been actively involved in that trajectory. I came up from my family didn’t have a lot of money. My dad worked in a factory. My mom, she babysat initially and then she was a secretary and then she worked for the, grew up in Dallas, so DART, which was the bus system. We were very much working class. I got a full ride scholarship to SMU.
And then I got close valedictorian of my high school. I mean, that’s part of the people pleaser, working hard, know. You know, look at all I’ve accomplished. You have to love me. You know, that was that inner child. So and then went on to law school. You know, I went to UT in Austin, which is one of the top 10 law schools in the nation. And these are all things, you know, that in my little head, it would have put I would have been hitting the brakes.
Nick McGowan (33:50.822)
Mm-mm.
Cindy Rendon (34:13.262)
I’m like, no, there’s no way. There’s no way. There’s no way. But I just have learned, and part of this from growing up in church, God’s in control. Nothing’s impossible. And so I already had that mindset. And then I’ve just tried to take it to the next level. And so in my own practice, the nice thing about being self-employed is that it allowed me the freedom to, as I’m working and listening to
Abraham makes videos, or I’m listening to stuff about energy and raising your vibration. And if I’m typing away, working on a brief, and I’m listening to the love and above, what’s the programming that you had as a child? Why does money, a lot of people have these opinions about money that hold them back. What is it when I talk about what’s a big number in your head? And what does that bring up for you? And just destroying those.
Nick McGowan (34:46.214)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (35:00.402)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (35:08.416)
limiting beliefs. And so like in my own practice, a few years ago, I had a multi-million dollar case that there’s no reason why this these people would have should have come to me. They couldn’t remember who gave them my name. They were interviewing with me and with another firm that advertises all over Texas. They picked me. And it was like it was like the perfect storm of a case because they it was a brain injury, catastrophic, catastrophic personal injury case.
Nick McGowan (35:28.786)
Thanks
Cindy Rendon (35:37.484)
they were hit by a commercial vehicle. So you had more than just the state minimum limits. I had a much bigger policy. The driver also sued my client. So I had his insurance company providing a defense. And so they covered all of the case expenses of getting the accident reconstructionist. All I had to do was take care of the medicine part, take care of the damages part. But they covered all of the deposition fees. They covered the accident reconstruction fees.
Nick McGowan (35:41.82)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (35:57.138)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (36:05.914)
All of the big ticket items were just covered by his insurance company. And so it’s like having like, here’s my in-house counsel, my co-counsel on this case. And we eventually resolved it after two years. But it was one of the biggest cases that my firm on the PI side has had that these other big firms would be chomping at the teeth to get. And that was totally the universe, bringing that case to my firm.
Nick McGowan (36:23.239)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (36:34.454)
And so when I’ve talked to my therapist about this, it’s such a mindfuck because I’m like, I want more cases like that. What do I need to do to get that? And I’m like, but I didn’t have to do anything to begin with other than just be who I am. so I’m still, that’s one thing I’m working with right now is getting out of my head that what can I do to replicate this? Because I didn’t do anything to get it in the first place other than working on my vibration, working on my beliefs.
Cindy Rendon (37:04.258)
that and not hitting the brakes. You can’t say, like, I can be so you do anything. But I can’t do this, because then you’re hitting the brakes to the universe. And so it’s just getting out of my way. And that’s what I’m working on.
Nick McGowan (37:11.25)
the
Nick McGowan (37:15.57)
Yeah, great way to put that. It’s easier said than done, you know, where you’re like, well, I just need to get out of my own way. But the more that we, I think the thing that we can do that we can be really active with that I tell myself, I tell other people I work with, guests, whatever, it’s just doing the consistent work, whatever that looks like for you and allowing it to flow and work the way that it does. Even you moving from
Cindy Rendon (37:21.358)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (37:41.498)
modality into different ways of looking at energetics and all these different things, you’re continuing to do that work. And that work will bring things to you in a different way that one big case may have just been able to show you that you can do these other things. And you’ll get other cases down the road, but you may get that energy from somewhere else. But just continuing to do that work, and you’re doing it, you know, that’s kind of the easy yet really difficult thing for us to do.
is just continuing to do that and allowing ourselves to be open to go, you know, I haven’t really been doing this. I’ve slacked on meditation at different times. And even my partner was like, are you meditating? I’m like, damn, no, not like I need to be. And being able to shift and course correct and still showing yourself grace as you go through it without getting stuck in your head. One of the things you’ve pointed out is being able to have that, that kind of bridge between your head and your heart.
and allowing that to be a two-way bridge and not just one or the other and working on that instead of just getting stuck in one and being upset about it, which can be much easier to do, because you’re like, damn, why does this keep happening? But for all of us to just kind of work through that. So I love all the stuff that we’ve talked about. I appreciate you being on today. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Cindy Rendon (39:03.82)
Sure. They can go to my website
Nick McGowan (39:16.942)
Awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. Appreciate it.
Cindy Rendon (39:20.366)
Yeah, thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed it. speaking to you and meeting you. So thank you.
https://youtu.be/Mw25746ivEQ
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By Nick McGowan“We set our own internal limitations.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Cindy Rendon, an attorney who shares her unique approach to law and life through the lens of tarot reading and intuition. Cindy discusses her journey from practicing law to incorporating spiritual practices into her work, emphasizing the importance of boundaries and self-care to combat burnout.
What to listen for:
“The universe is constantly communicating with you, but sometimes we get so much in our way that we miss it.”
“Self-care is what are you doing for your body, mind, and spirit to replenish your soul.”
About Cindy Rendon
Cindy is a lawyer who has a heart for helping others. She used to blast Kina’s song “Girl From the Gutter” because the underlying message of someone rising above the fray, succeeding despite the odds, and shutting up the naysayers really resonated with her. She came from a working-class background and was the first person in her family to attend college and post-graduate school. Growing up, she was always told ‘to whom much is given, much is expected’, and she tried to embody that in how she lives her life and in how she treats others.
Resources:
Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today! [email protected]
Thank you for listening!
Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089
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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”
Click To View The Episode Transcript
Nick McGowan (00:01.394)
Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan McGowan. Today on the show we have Cindy Rendon. Cindy, how are doing today?
Cindy Rendon (00:12.258)
Good, how are you doing, Nick?
Nick McGowan (00:13.776)
I’m good. I’m good. I’m excited for us to get in everything we’re going to talk about. I appreciate when people bring props in a sense with them. Some people have them behind them or whatever, but you started to rattle off different books that you’ve brought with you. And I think we can probably get into a lot of that stuff with the reading and just the different types of stuff that we read. I’ve rattled off a book that was a game changer for me, but why don’t we get things started? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.
Cindy Rendon (00:44.142)
Sure. I’m an attorney. I’ve been practicing since 1998. I have my own firm since 2010. And something that is bizarre, not even bizarre, but just most people don’t know because I don’t advertise it. actually, another prop is that I’m learning to read tarot. And so these are my latest flavor of the month is the light seers tarot. And so you pull a card, and depending on if it’s right side up or upside down, are you familiar with tarot?
Nick McGowan (01:12.262)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But feel free to get into it because I know there are people listen that are, but some that aren’t.
Cindy Rendon (01:14.956)
Okay. okay. Well.
OK, well, I’m still learning. But I started off with the Robin Hood and the Rider White, which like the grandfather of tarot. And then there’s different other variations of the cards. And so this right now is one of my favorite ones. But it’s like working on your shadow self. So if the tarot card’s upside down, and you think about what is the inner work that you need to do or be mindful of for the day.
Nick McGowan (01:39.015)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (01:48.438)
And so it could be something as part of my learning process of it is every day I pull a spread. What is the three cards? What is the overall energy for the day? What do I need to be mindful of? What can I use to assist me? And then I just read those cards. And then, because I’m learning to be tech savvy, I will plug them in to my AI. And I’ll say, this is what my interpretation is. How can something like this
show for the day or manifest for the day. And so I’m learning to not take, like if you get the tower, which is typically people think of the tower as a destruction and the tower is falling over. But as a day-to-day card, the tower could be something as simple as your printer’s going to jam or your computer is going to lock up and you’re going to have to do a restart. So I’m learning to read it from a day-to-day perspective.
Nick McGowan (02:30.652)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (02:46.06)
in addition to learning it from just a more global, what can I look forward to for this year or this month, this podcast, take it however you want. but anyway, so had one of the cards I pulled was the three of wands. And so this is, and it was upright, so it’s making plans. I’ve made my plans with the two of wands and now the three of wands is it’s time to put that plan into action.
Nick McGowan (02:57.677)
Sure.
Cindy Rendon (03:14.258)
It’s a good card, and it’s a thinking card, which is your thoughts and creativity with the wands. So that is something that most people don’t know about me. And then I have my oracle. More props. I also will fact check my tarot by pulling an oracle. because oracles more like spoon feeding you, tarot, you actually have to tap in to your intuition. But with my oracle, I will pull a card and
Nick McGowan (03:27.985)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (03:36.743)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (03:43.374)
And it’s just amazing how just the universe, like the Oracle Query Pool, will correspond to the message that I’ve gotten from my tarot. so it always just blows my mind when that happens. But there you go, something that most people don’t know.
Nick McGowan (03:49.711)
the
Nick McGowan (04:01.206)
sure that’s not a normal thing that you would just bring up. That’s… Hold on here. Hold on. Give me a second.
Cindy Rendon (04:03.854)
Yeah, I’m not going to be in court like limit limit shuffle my deck. So yeah, let me see what they should say. Do my you know, mama needs some new shoes. No.
Nick McGowan (04:14.962)
I think that’s pretty interesting from like when I think of lawyers, they’re very matter of fact, law driven. This is what the law says. And then being able to be really good at how do we position that in such a way to be able to either help or go against somebody or whatever it is, but using it in the most opportunistic way. And I’m trying to be like,
I’m trying to use my words properly here. Yeah. Cause the law is the law. This is what it is. And it’s black and white in that way. But then you get to interpret and do what you can with it, but then also kind of build things out from there. Even again, having conversations with lawyers I’ve worked with, the one in particular that we’ve mentioned a couple of times, even before we hit record and like having those conversations, even watching the show bull. Have you ever seen bull?
Cindy Rendon (04:46.69)
Being strategic. Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (05:12.748)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (05:14.404)
and the trial science and all that. And I really appreciate that stuff. But I think from that perspective of going, all right, well, during the day, you work with the law and understand who you’re working with, the clients you’re working with and the things you work on. But then you also have this side that is more mystical and the tarot side. And where’s the Venn diagram of that? Like, how does that work together? And how does it help with the work that you do with things that are very black and white? The law says this.
If you break that, these are the consequences of this. And how does that all kind of relate?
Cindy Rendon (05:49.71)
I think for me, you know, I obviously, you know, it is a tool. It is not. I always joke when I’m like for entertainment purposes only, but I but I do believe in the universe, you know, and I do believe that there’s things that are, you know, that you can manifest things and in energy work and but what I use it for, you know, like if I have a mediation coming up, you know, I’m prepared, but I may say, OK, you know, what do I need to be mindful of for this mediation?
And so maybe I might get like the five of swords or something. And then so I’m like, OK, I need to or the seven of swords where I need to be more strategic in how I negotiate or I need to stand firm on whatever my position is. I might get another card like a cups. That’s more be more in tune with your emotions. Be the queen of cups. Be more empathetic.
Nick McGowan (06:43.612)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (06:47.136)
And so I will keep that in the back of my mind while I’m mediating. I’m like, OK, well, let’s see how this strategy can play out with the knowledge and information in the law and how we can use that for negotiating. And then it’s always fun after the fact to look at my cards, because again, I’m still learning, and to see, did it really play out this way? And then that’s how I learn. Because I had one card where the Empress was turned back.
Nick McGowan (07:07.291)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (07:11.794)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (07:17.006)
She wasn’t upside down, but the way the positions work. So I’m learning that you also look at their actual position. Are they facing to the left? Are they facing moving forward? And she was actually facing the opposite direction towards the past. And in hindsight, we didn’t settle that day, but we did settle eventually. And so in hindsight, I’m like, OK, so this kind of was foretelling that we’re not going to settle yet because she’s not looking to the future.
Nick McGowan (07:27.474)
Mm.
Cindy Rendon (07:46.146)
But there were some things that had to get worked out.
Nick McGowan (07:50.066)
interesting. I think that’s cool. I love the people will talk about God, the universe, like all these different, there are so many different ways to put it. And it’s all basically kind of the same thing, I believe. And you can be spoken to throughout just life in general. So the medium of those cards, even just watching TV or watching a movie, or listening to songs, I think, back to the days when we listen to radio.
and you would have like sentences that would come up just by changing the radio stations. Yeah, and just different things that just resonate with us at that specific time, but may not have differently, like even reading the Bible or reading anything else. Like you might read something and go, this doesn’t relate to me at all, or I don’t get it at all. And then you read it again later and like it totally relates to everything that’s going on.
Cindy Rendon (08:16.867)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (08:21.506)
That would speak to you.
Cindy Rendon (08:41.443)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (08:41.614)
I’ve wondered at times, can some of those things where you really look for them start to put you into a box or can they help you in more so cases where you start to then see patterns within things? So have you found that, yeah, do you find that you look for more of those patterns than, kind of constraints from it?
Cindy Rendon (08:52.696)
I think you see patterns.
Cindy Rendon (09:00.15)
I think that we’re all naturally intuitive. And I think that this, again, this is just a tool to, because you know in your gut already what’s going to happen or like for me with law, I’ve been doing it since 1998. So I already have a general idea of here’s what this fact pattern is, here’s what the law is, here’s the personalities of the parties. So I already know going in where I can push and where we need to maybe compromise more. But it’s just a…
Nick McGowan (09:02.587)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (09:29.176)
just another tool of tapping into your intuition. And so a lot of times what I do sometimes, if I feel like I’m just not, like there’s just too much blockage, I’ll start keeping a, I call it a sign, signs for my spirit team, my spirit guides. And it could be just a random bumper sticker, or it could be, like you said, a song or angel numbers. I call them angel numbers, people in numerology, but it could be just,
Nick McGowan (09:31.783)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (09:50.236)
the
Cindy Rendon (09:58.99)
you know, sequence of numbers, but I’ll write it all down and I’ll, and that again, as part of your intuition, and it’s just the universe constantly communicating with you. But sometimes we get so much in our way that we miss it. And so it’s always amazing to me when I start tracking it, like, yes, the universe is communicating to me. I’m just, I just need to get out of my own way and pay attention to it. So we got a random thought, you know, you could have, I grew up in the Pentecostal religion, Assemblies of God.
Nick McGowan (10:19.333)
the
Cindy Rendon (10:28.332)
And so I learned the Bible inside and out. And I will have a random thought. We feed the birds and squirrels and all the wildlife. And I’ll look outside my window and I’ll just watch them. And then I’ll just have this thought like, I care so much about these little animals. That’s how much God or the universe, whatever you want to call, cares about us. And that’s a message from the universe.
Nick McGowan (10:53.671)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (10:58.833)
Mm-hmm
Cindy Rendon (10:58.87)
But yeah, that’s something I learned in therapy, that if a word is a trigger, if it just, you some people, you know, they think that meditation is new age and it’s too, you know, and I’m like, then don’t call it meditation, call it praying, you know, but it’s all just the same intent is there. So.
Nick McGowan (11:11.226)
Yeah, sure.
Nick McGowan (11:15.888)
Yeah. I love that you brought up that specific, paraphrased verse about the bird. That pops into my mind pretty damn often, where there are times where it’s like, you’ll be stressing about something or I’m kind of trying to think too much about this thing. Like how do I be prepared to go through this stuff to then…
Cindy Rendon (11:30.83)
Look at me.
Nick McGowan (11:41.628)
kind of work through it in a way it’s going to work through and like flow with the river and all and I’ll hear I care about the birds but you mean so much more than the birds and then I’ll look out my window and I see a bird like so where I’m at in the foothills of this mountain we have this coyote fence over here and this other little fence over here and mountains and all this stuff and like I can see these birds at different times but there’s literally a spot right here where these birds just seem to just wander around and then stop and look and it’s happened
handful of times specifically over the past year where I’ll think about that and that thought will pop in like, care about the birds, but I care about you more than the birds. And they don’t worry. They don’t worry about these things or what they’re going to eat or what they’re going to wear or whatever. And I’ll look out and there’s like this bird just looking around, just straight up looking around. I’m like, see, you don’t give a shit. You’re just doing you. And what a cool thing. I, I’m right there with you with the intuition of, that intuitive pull that we have, but we can really get stuck.
Cindy Rendon (12:31.287)
Yeah.
Nick McGowan (12:40.774)
being really too deep in this world to not allow ourselves to feel that. And part of the reason why I wanted to have you on the show is to be able to talk about the duality of these things, being in court, working with these things that are very matter of fact, but then also understanding how do you tie this stuff in and simultaneously also how do you not let that stuff really affect you? Like if you’re working with somebody and let’s say they go to jail for a long time or they had done something really bad.
How do you not let that affect not only how you work with them, but affect you as a person, knowing and feeling the way that you do?
Cindy Rendon (13:18.926)
I had to learn boundaries. had what was called, I call it burnout, it’s, I like to, it’s compassion fatigue. So what I did, I started off my career just doing straight up representing insurance companies, products liability, medical malpractice defense. So it was just very much, you know, business or more business oriented. I got tired of that. You you can’t, you know, I always joke that you can’t hug, you know, Bridgestone Firestone. It’s just a brick building.
And so in 2010 is when I decided I’m going to hang my own shingle because I want to build relationships with people, not with buildings. And so at that point, I do family law and I do plaintiff personal injury. In 2021, after a decade of doing my own thing, I had major, burnout. I call it compassion fatigue. I don’t know if it really is, but basically secondary trauma from
Like you said, your client’s kind of dumping on you with their issues, taking on their problems as if they were my own, which they’re not. And so I’ve learned about boundaries. I’ve learned that I didn’t create the facts. I didn’t make these choices that set my clients on the trajectory that they’re on. All I can do is work with the facts that I’ve been presented.
Nick McGowan (14:25.788)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (14:44.48)
and try to get them the best outcome possible. But at the end of the day, I’m not the one, like with parents, I’m not the one who chose to leave the kids at the house. With somebody that, if it’s been a year and you left your kids, you can’t come to court and say, the dad is a horrible person and he’s a terrible parent and he cusses and screams and hits the, but you left your kids there. So guess what? You’ve like voluntarily relinquished. So that argument has sailed.
So all that to say boundaries. So I’ve had to learn what boundaries are. I didn’t really understand that. I’ll do one plug for my book, Judge Me Not. So I wrote this book that talks about just my journey, how I got to getting into therapy with, I was incredibly burned out. And I just had walked around with tears in my eyes all the time.
Nick McGowan (15:23.602)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (15:41.504)
And I just told people that it’s just allergies, but it really was just my emotional system was just here. And I didn’t have any way of coping with it. So I used to give out my personal cell number. And when you’re on the defense side, the claim suggestor is not going to be calling you in the middle of the night or on the weekend. They understand work boundaries. But when you start representing people,
Nick McGowan (15:57.936)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (16:09.038)
They may call you at 11 o’clock or you may get 20 text messages. And my personality was, I need to respond to this right now. I need to fix this for them. And so that’s what led or contributed to my burnout. So I now have a second phone that I give out to clients. And I have my hour set on there. So I don’t even get a notification if they’ve called me or sent me a text. And then just some other things that I’ve learned that.
Nick McGowan (16:17.362)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (16:25.958)
the
Nick McGowan (16:33.916)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (16:39.818)
It helps me to be able to restore myself mentally, physically, emotionally, so that I can be more present for my clients when I am on the clock. meditation, running, these are all things that make more of a daily part of my life.
Nick McGowan (17:03.034)
I literally just started to answer a question. I was going to say once people start to get into therapy or start to figure out a modality that works for them, they then start to uncover ways sometimes they’re given by a therapist or a psychologist or whoever they’re working with. Why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? Some of the easy things are like, why don’t you journal? Or why don’t you just sit and concentrate on your breath for two minutes or three minutes or whatever it is.
But being able to find meditation and whatever it is that you do, you can find it in different ways. Some people love to go running. Some people do, I don’t know, some things that might sound silly or simple to other people like cooking or doing the dishes or whatever it is, but being able to actually just settle down. Now you talked about the boundaries of it, which can be really difficult for us to do if we have so many different things pulling at you, clients, family, different things that
you need to get done or feel like you need to get done, where it can be harder for you to actually meditate. I was actually having a conversation with my partner about this recently. She reminded me, know, there was some quote that somebody said a while ago, if you don’t have 20 minutes to meditate, you really need to meditate for two hours a day. And like, how fucking irritating that is where you’re like, but I’m working on the 20 minutes, but in all reality, totally makes sense.
But being able to figure out how do you be able to manage those things? Now talk to us a little bit about the therapy side of it. I want to know how you got to that point to go, all right, I need to step into this. And what were some of the things that you started to understand that tied into your burnout? Because burnout isn’t just for lawyers. It’s not just for firefighters. It’s not just for nurses and all the people that have all these things going on. But burnout is a thing that most people experience, even if they don’t understand they’re actually burnt out.
They feel like, I say yes to a lot of things, but you just don’t have time for yourself. And how do you then figure that out? So talk to us a bit about that journey to therapy and then being able to get yourself out of that burnout.
Cindy Rendon (19:07.054)
Okay. Yeah, I finally, years ago, I had had a spiritual life coach and that was kind of my first kind of dipping my toe into therapy. But, there’s always the stigma around mental health. And so and even more so, I think when you’re a professional. So I did a little, you know, a coaching package, learned about Reiki at that time. And so I have my level one. I’ve been attuned to level one.
Nick McGowan (19:33.532)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (19:37.006)
I’m looking into getting attuned to level two and I’m just waiting for the right teacher. When the student’s ready, the teacher presents themselves. So what finally got me to a legitimate mental health professional was just I was just having just massive overwhelm. I had a couple of clients who if I get too cosmic, let me know. But I had a couple of clients who like my ancestors sent to me.
Nick McGowan (20:02.278)
You’re
Cindy Rendon (20:07.032)
to like I needed to get help. And so I had a couple of really toxic clients that just pushed me over the edge where I was just had tears all the time. I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to cry, I just my childhood, had emotionally difficult childhood. And so I learned to just stifle your emotions. Emotions are not safe.
Nick McGowan (20:07.218)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (20:15.506)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (20:34.412)
And so I went back to the things that got me through childhood, but they weren’t getting me through this next level as an adult. And so the stuff that worked really well, like being an overachiever, working super hard, being a people pleaser, were great when you’re growing up. It got me scholarships. It got me opportunities that I didn’t have. But I was finally at a point where it was just, I had to do something, something had to give. I put out to the universe, these are the things I want.
Nick McGowan (20:46.982)
Mm-hmm
Cindy Rendon (21:03.848)
I had a sister who’s still very much involved in church. And again, I have nothing against church. It’s what got me through my childhood. know, I knew sometimes I would walk to our church because I knew that if I didn’t have a ride, somebody from church at least would take me back home. You know, my church family were the rock for me growing up. But she was like, you just need a Christian counselor who can pull out their Bible and read Bible verses. And I’m like,
I’m a little beyond that. By this point, I had already kind of dipped my toe into metaphysics. And I know that there was a, I felt like there was a bigger world out here, the law of attraction, Abraham Hicks. I’d listened to some energy speakers. Have you heard of Christy Murray Shelton? She has the love and above. And so you have the, like the Sophrasio frequencies where, so love is like the 500. And so she talks about love 500 and above. And that’s where you want to be energetically
Nick McGowan (21:31.762)
Mmm…yeah.
Nick McGowan (21:52.562)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (22:00.972)
and not being these lower energies of fear and anger and depression, things that just keep your vibration low. So I had already learned those things and was on that trajectory. So I put out to the universe, I want a therapist who is open-minded, who can’t really talk to me. I’m a big sci-fi nerd. So I love Dr. Who. I have my own little bitty, know, sonic space screwdriver.
Nick McGowan (22:28.044)
Yeah, my TARDIS is right here.
Cindy Rendon (22:30.414)
Okay, so, you know, all of, you know, Harry Potter, all of those things that I’m like, I wish it was real, or you know, the Matrix. I’m like, the Matrix is real, it’s not just a movie. So I had my list, like this is who, if I’m going to have therapy, that’s what, you universe, that’s what you want for me, then here’s what I want. And I don’t know how I found him, honestly, I’ve tried to like recreate that search, and I can’t.
Nick McGowan (22:56.877)
the
Cindy Rendon (22:57.954)
So whatever words I put into the Google search, it popped up. And so the stress dojo. And so I found him. He checked all the boxes. Somebody who is open-minded about talking about metaphysics. Somebody who, and he’s very open about it. So I’m not bringing him out of the broom closet. And we talk about sci-fi stuff. And we talk about just
My first session, like, I’m not going to talk about my childhood. That’s the past. You here’s what you work with what you have right now. I have since learned that, OK, like who I am right now was formed by what happened back then. And so you have to address that. And so we learn to address that. I learned about the I think it’s a 60 second wave of your emotions that just fill the emotion. It’ll.
Nick McGowan (23:48.294)
Hmm. Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (23:52.056)
get intense, but it’s like a wave. It’ll go up and then it goes back down. But you have to learn to fill your emotions. And so that was a really new thing for me because I was just always, let me get back into my mind space. You know, I had my head space, my heart space, and they were two separate places. And I’m learning now to integrate them, which is wonderful. It’s been wonderful to learn to live in both spaces and not automatically go up into my head space. As a lawyer, you live in your head space. But
Nick McGowan (24:04.274)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (24:10.588)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (24:22.03)
when you’re working with people, you have to also integrate that heart space for them. And with my husband, with him, when I first started working at home, he works from home. And he was thrilled, like, yay, there’s somebody else. I have a sweet mate. And he would interrupt me in the middle of the day. And I would come in at him from my head space. And he’s coming at me from his heart space and just clash. And so I’ve had to learn to.
Nick McGowan (24:48.624)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (24:50.742)
OK, I need to, this is the person who cares about me, who we’ve been together since law school. I need to come at him with more compassion and come at him with my heart space and get out of my head space. so that’s also the therapy has helped with that as well. But it helped me with just we did some EMDR, where you think of a childhood memory.
Nick McGowan (25:13.458)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (25:17.366)
I always, and that’s where I learned that I’ve always had these pieces. I just couldn’t get past the pain to see how everything fit into place. And so for me, I do have a lot of lucid dreams. And so I remember after the first session, I had this dream and, you know, in the next session I had, I’m like, you know what, I had this aha moment. I see where everything fits into place. I see, you know, that saying where it’s not you, it’s them. I’m like, I finally get it. It was never me. It was, you know, it’s always my parents. But
Nick McGowan (25:23.302)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (25:47.758)
a lot of stuff that I learned, coping mechanisms that I learned as a child that got me through a difficult childhood or failing me as an adult. And so I had to relearn those things like being a people pleaser. And like you said, you you say yes to everything, it’s, you burn out. So I’ve learned that say yes to what you really want to do and it makes it more meaningful. And, you know, instead of saying yes to all things and
I’ve just learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot more about self-care. I had no idea what self-care meant. When I first started therapy, I’m like, yeah, I get my nails done. I get my hair cut. Yeah, I’m doing self-care. And I’m like, OK, my idea of self-care now is I’m meditating. I’m eating better. I’m actually working with a nutritionist now because I realize that I’m eating just crap, processed foods. And so I’m counting my macros. I started taking a new probiotic, which is, yeah, I just had
Nick McGowan (26:22.066)
Sure.
Nick McGowan (26:33.327)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (26:40.028)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (26:48.982)
Even though I’m drinking. Of the energy drinks, apparently Celsius is like, you know, on the continuum of energy drinks, it’s the healthier kind if you’re going to have an energy drink. But, you know, it’s little baby steps. But, you so my idea of self-care, know, journaling, I don’t journal as much. I do more on my phone of, like I said, doing a little chart, whatever, if I’m wanting to like, you know.
Nick McGowan (27:01.426)
Sure.
Cindy Rendon (27:13.102)
the universe, why aren’t you communicating with me? You know, I’ll start like, okay, well, yeah, you did. When I pulled into this parking spot and I looked over, because I have that belief that if you have a little thought in your head, that’s, that’s your spirit team saying, hey, pay attention to that. Because there’s so many random things that, know, why did I, why did I feel the urge to look up right at this time? And I saw that bumper sticker, or I turned the radio and I heard that one phrase or that speaks to you. And so I think that’s really the universe, trying to get your attention, trying to speak with you.
So my idea of self-care is no longer, yes, I get my hair done and my nails done. That’s just maintenance for as a professional or as a person. Self-care is what are you doing for your body, mind and spirit to replenish your soul. So that’s what therapy has done for me. yeah. Sometimes I feel like one step forward, two steps back. But you’re still on the trajectory.
Nick McGowan (27:55.154)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (27:59.654)
Yeah, and Baby Steps with it too. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (28:06.802)
And it’s all part of the growth path of all of it, you know.
Cindy Rendon (28:11.062)
I’m a big, if you haven’t realized yet, a lot of props. I saw this at, and it actually says progress, not perfection. But I was just like, progress just seems like I’m making a D. I’m like, excellence, not perfection. Because I was always like, it has to be perfect. But I’m like, it just has to be good enough. Just has to be, you know, but progress was one of those triggers. I’m like, I’m not making progress. So anyway, I put excellence, not perfection. But just little things.
Nick McGowan (28:25.201)
Mm.
Nick McGowan (28:38.514)
And that probably ties back to how you were as a kid. You know, it’s interesting because even as you’re talking through that, we talked about books and I mentioned to you about a book that drastically changed the way I look at pretty much everything, the last word on power, and how it ties into a subconscious winning strategy that was developed by our subconscious when we were in our formative years to say this is how you win in life. This is how you say safe, this is how you actually
Cindy Rendon (28:42.894)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (29:04.636)
grow and do all these things, but you get to a point where you can’t actually do any more of it. You have to go a different way because your subconscious is trying, just trying to keep you alive, not trying to help you thrive in things. So for you to take those little steps and make those changes, they’re all little steps and good steps. And we can poke holes in all these things, but it’s all of our paths. It’s our own path to be able to work through this stuff. And I’m sure you noticed, even as you go through therapy, if you have
Cindy Rendon (29:15.672)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nick McGowan (29:34.502)
initial conversation. And then six months later, you talk about something that’s similar to it, you can tie back to what you’d worked on six months before that to go, wow, I can see the progress of this stuff. And even going into EMDR or any subconscious processing sessions, you’ll think that you want to work on something, but you’ll end up working on something different. Like I had somebody recently who went through their first subconscious processing session. She was like, what can I expect? I’m like, first off a few hours and whatever you think you’re going to get into.
you probably won’t touch that. You’ll probably get into something else.” And she was like, it totally went this other path, but it felt like that was where it needed to go and being able to allow yourself to work through that stuff. So you were burnt out for a while. You went through all these different things and started to go down a path that has led you into all these other paths. But what are some of the things that you do on a daily basis to be able to help you not only
keep yourself moving, but keep you away from that burnout.
Cindy Rendon (30:38.824)
boundaries. I that is the biggest thing, honestly, I have set office hours now. And I communicate with my clients. So you know, like I just put an out of office for the holidays. I’m out of my my firm is closed tomorrow beginning at noon, and I’m not reopening until Monday, you know, January six, and I’m fine. And I’ve put you know, on my out of office. The courts are closed for the next year.
Courts are open, but for the most part, judges aren’t hearing anything. They’re taking this time off as well. And so in the past, I always used to have the mindset of, I still have to work. I still have to be there for my clients. But that’s a quick road to burnout. so you have to have that time to yourself. But I don’t work on the weekends anymore. I used to always work on the weekends. I used to always work late at night. It was nothing to me to work all day and then bring home work and do more work.
before going to bed. I used to cancel plans with family or friends because I have this hearing on Thursday, so I can’t go out. So it’s setting those boundaries so I can have more control over my life. That will also help me not to burn out and help me to be more present for my clients. But the telephone boundary, having set office hours, not working on the weekends, and I just firmly believe, and just
Nick McGowan (31:48.582)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (32:04.76)
having more control over my calendar instead of scheduling things because my client wants to hurry up and get something done. So OK, well then I’ll just schedule these things back to back. And I’m just setting myself up for failure at that point.
Nick McGowan (32:13.02)
the
Nick McGowan (32:20.092)
Yeah. What a beautiful lesson to learn. You got to get punched in the mouth enough times to go, okay, I got it. And that, I can appreciate the boundaries. It can be really easy for some people to set boundaries and it can also be easy for people around them to say, well, you’re being selfish, but that’s a them problem, not a you problem. But for those that are on their path towards self mastery, what sort of advice would you give to them?
Cindy Rendon (32:27.554)
Mm-hmm.
Cindy Rendon (32:48.044)
I do believe that your thoughts create your reality. A lot of that comes from Abraham Hicks. You can be C, not B. But yeah, you can be, you can be, and have whatever you want. We set our own internal limitations. And if we will just get out of our own way, then you’ll see that anything’s possible. And I still work with that, but I look back at my own life. I look back at my own career and I can see where
know, God’s hand, the universe, whatever you want to call it, has been actively involved in that trajectory. I came up from my family didn’t have a lot of money. My dad worked in a factory. My mom, she babysat initially and then she was a secretary and then she worked for the, grew up in Dallas, so DART, which was the bus system. We were very much working class. I got a full ride scholarship to SMU.
And then I got close valedictorian of my high school. I mean, that’s part of the people pleaser, working hard, know. You know, look at all I’ve accomplished. You have to love me. You know, that was that inner child. So and then went on to law school. You know, I went to UT in Austin, which is one of the top 10 law schools in the nation. And these are all things, you know, that in my little head, it would have put I would have been hitting the brakes.
Nick McGowan (33:50.822)
Mm-mm.
Cindy Rendon (34:13.262)
I’m like, no, there’s no way. There’s no way. There’s no way. But I just have learned, and part of this from growing up in church, God’s in control. Nothing’s impossible. And so I already had that mindset. And then I’ve just tried to take it to the next level. And so in my own practice, the nice thing about being self-employed is that it allowed me the freedom to, as I’m working and listening to
Abraham makes videos, or I’m listening to stuff about energy and raising your vibration. And if I’m typing away, working on a brief, and I’m listening to the love and above, what’s the programming that you had as a child? Why does money, a lot of people have these opinions about money that hold them back. What is it when I talk about what’s a big number in your head? And what does that bring up for you? And just destroying those.
Nick McGowan (34:46.214)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (35:00.402)
Yeah.
Cindy Rendon (35:08.416)
limiting beliefs. And so like in my own practice, a few years ago, I had a multi-million dollar case that there’s no reason why this these people would have should have come to me. They couldn’t remember who gave them my name. They were interviewing with me and with another firm that advertises all over Texas. They picked me. And it was like it was like the perfect storm of a case because they it was a brain injury, catastrophic, catastrophic personal injury case.
Nick McGowan (35:28.786)
Thanks
Cindy Rendon (35:37.484)
they were hit by a commercial vehicle. So you had more than just the state minimum limits. I had a much bigger policy. The driver also sued my client. So I had his insurance company providing a defense. And so they covered all of the case expenses of getting the accident reconstructionist. All I had to do was take care of the medicine part, take care of the damages part. But they covered all of the deposition fees. They covered the accident reconstruction fees.
Nick McGowan (35:41.82)
Hmm.
Nick McGowan (35:57.138)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (36:05.914)
All of the big ticket items were just covered by his insurance company. And so it’s like having like, here’s my in-house counsel, my co-counsel on this case. And we eventually resolved it after two years. But it was one of the biggest cases that my firm on the PI side has had that these other big firms would be chomping at the teeth to get. And that was totally the universe, bringing that case to my firm.
Nick McGowan (36:23.239)
Hmm.
Cindy Rendon (36:34.454)
And so when I’ve talked to my therapist about this, it’s such a mindfuck because I’m like, I want more cases like that. What do I need to do to get that? And I’m like, but I didn’t have to do anything to begin with other than just be who I am. so I’m still, that’s one thing I’m working with right now is getting out of my head that what can I do to replicate this? Because I didn’t do anything to get it in the first place other than working on my vibration, working on my beliefs.
Cindy Rendon (37:04.258)
that and not hitting the brakes. You can’t say, like, I can be so you do anything. But I can’t do this, because then you’re hitting the brakes to the universe. And so it’s just getting out of my way. And that’s what I’m working on.
Nick McGowan (37:11.25)
the
Nick McGowan (37:15.57)
Yeah, great way to put that. It’s easier said than done, you know, where you’re like, well, I just need to get out of my own way. But the more that we, I think the thing that we can do that we can be really active with that I tell myself, I tell other people I work with, guests, whatever, it’s just doing the consistent work, whatever that looks like for you and allowing it to flow and work the way that it does. Even you moving from
Cindy Rendon (37:21.358)
Mm-hmm.
Nick McGowan (37:41.498)
modality into different ways of looking at energetics and all these different things, you’re continuing to do that work. And that work will bring things to you in a different way that one big case may have just been able to show you that you can do these other things. And you’ll get other cases down the road, but you may get that energy from somewhere else. But just continuing to do that work, and you’re doing it, you know, that’s kind of the easy yet really difficult thing for us to do.
is just continuing to do that and allowing ourselves to be open to go, you know, I haven’t really been doing this. I’ve slacked on meditation at different times. And even my partner was like, are you meditating? I’m like, damn, no, not like I need to be. And being able to shift and course correct and still showing yourself grace as you go through it without getting stuck in your head. One of the things you’ve pointed out is being able to have that, that kind of bridge between your head and your heart.
and allowing that to be a two-way bridge and not just one or the other and working on that instead of just getting stuck in one and being upset about it, which can be much easier to do, because you’re like, damn, why does this keep happening? But for all of us to just kind of work through that. So I love all the stuff that we’ve talked about. I appreciate you being on today. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?
Cindy Rendon (39:03.82)
Sure. They can go to my website
Nick McGowan (39:16.942)
Awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. Appreciate it.
Cindy Rendon (39:20.366)
Yeah, thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed it. speaking to you and meeting you. So thank you.
https://youtu.be/Mw25746ivEQ