Embodied with Elizabeth Patricia DiAlto Figueroa

Today's interview is a deep and soulful one with Shanda Catrice. Shanda is someone whose writing online is always packed with healing wisdom and her big truth was, "You don't get to know," meaning, in life, we don't get to see around the corner.

From there we spent a lot of time on love and relationships. We got into attachment theory, the idea of "dating sober" and some different dating intentions and archetypes that I'd never considered before.

We also talked about divorcing ourselves from our cultural stories, how empaths are both born and created, and building capacity for all of life's joys and challenges while honoring the circumstances in the world as well as who we truly are.

I enjoyed this one so much and hope you do too!

xo, E

About Shanda Catrice:

Shanda Catrice is a fiercely compassionate healer and spiritual mentor who combines practical wisdom with sacred healing arts to guide women through inner transformation. Her work is centered around the integration of the whole self, through radical love and raw authenticity Shanda encourages women to embrace the love and light, as well as the shadowy parts of their soul. She has over 10 years of experience learning from various cultures and spiritual traditions from around the world and has facilitated workshops, healing circles, guided meditations, and sacred ceremonial retreats that help women align with the deepest parts of themselves and liberate the truth of who they really are.

If you're a long time listener you know I am a geek for healthy and conscious communication strategies and today's episodes is centered around just that.

Alexandra Jamieson is back on the show with her partner, Bob Gower sharing their "Getting To Hell Yes" conversation framework. Alex's big truth was that she can't do bullshit. Bob's was that it's better to have a boundary that's too strong.

From there we got into all things that go into having high stakes conversations: how to express emotions responsibly without derailing conversations, how anger and rage can be productive or destructive, and what the responsibility is of people with boundaries when interacting with folks who clearly don't have them. We also spent some time on power dynamics and Alex and Bob shared their four part conversation framework which includes intentions, concerns, boundaries and outcomes.

I loved this chat and will be re-listening a few times myself. I hope you get a lot out of it as well and share it up with those who could also use it!

xo, E

About Alexandra Jamieson:

Alexandra Jamieson is a success mentor, life, and health coach to creative, professional women who want it all. She is the best-selling author of Women, Food & Desire, co-creator and co-star of the Oscar-nominated documentary Super Size Me, and highly-sought-after wellness expert. Find out more about Alex at alexandrajamieson.com.

About Bob Gower:

Bob Gower helps organizations move faster, create better products, and become happier, more engaging places to work. He is an authority on agile software development, lean theory, and responsive organizational design, and has advised leaders at numerous companies—including GE, Ford, Chanel, PG&E, and Spotify—in creating more effective organizations. He is the author of Agile Business: A Leader's Guide to Harnessing Complexity and speaks regularly on organizational development and leadership. Find out more about Bob at bobgower.com.

I really enjoyed this chat with today's guest Melissa Toler. Melissa also used to work in the fitness industry and I'd been enjoying her posts on Instagram about challenging the way we think about bodies. That was actually her big truth, how our culture values and devalues bodies.

If you have any history with body image issues or disordered eating, please know before listening we explore a lot of topics in this interview that could be triggering.

We discussed all the things we need to unlearn and relearn, how hard it is to part with our conditioning, "body positivity", the moral imperative of health, the misconstrued relationship between body size and health and diet culture. We also opened up about why we both stopped selling "fitness" and "weight loss".

Enjoy the episode and share if it resonates!

xo, E

About Melissa Toler:

Melissa Toler is a speaker, writer, and educator. Her work encourages people to make the connection between our culture's oppressive beauty standards and our personal struggle with self-acceptance. She has written extensively on diet culture and the toll it takes on our lives and humanity.

Melissa also has a background as a pharmacist and certified wellness coach. Her goal is to help people unlearn harmful messages and behaviors from years of chronic dieting through writing and truth-telling.

This was a fun episode to record. Last year the birthday episode revolved around lots of healing and lessons. This year was much more of a celebration of fully living, emerging from the other side of healing and reclaiming joy. It was also a lot of waking up, showing up, taking accountability and operating in an alignment that feels much truer, deeper and ME.

I called the episode Cultivating Joy in Difficult Times because it was really challenging and hard...so for anyone going through anything, I hope you can find even just ONE USEFUL NUGGET.

I saw this quote on Instagram over the weekend and it sums up exactly how I feel, "I know as a woman I'm supposed to be afraid of getting older but I love this shit so much. Every year I sink deeper into this bath of unapologetic realness and it's amazing." -Bunmi Laditan (@HonestToddler)

So enjoy the episode, share it up if your people could use it too and as always, thanks for listening!

xo, E

Terri Cole is back on the podcast today and we are diving in on a topic this audience, loves --boundaries! We started with how to know when you need them and from there got into, "high functioning codependency", capacity versus willingness, overcorrections and misconceptions about what it means to be your best self.

We also talked about how critical mindfulness and present moment consciousness are to well drawn boundaries, cultivating the internal space to respond not react (a valuable distinction), boundary bullies and the relationship between boundaries and control.

As always Terri brings the good stuff. If you're someone who is practicing better boundaries, this is definitely one to listen to a few times and share with friends!

And don't forget to check out Terri's Boundary Bootcamp Challenge Sept 10-14as well as her Masterclass if you want to learn more.

About Terri Cole:

Terri Cole is a licensed psychotherapist, a boundary and relationship expert, and the founder of Real Love Revolution and Boundary Bootcamp, her two female empowerment courses reaching women in over 25 countries.

For the past two decades, Terri has worked with some of the world's most well-known personalities from international pop stars, professional athletes, Broadway performers and TV personalities to thought-leaders and Fortune 500 CEOs.

Terri's strategies combine practical psychology, eastern mindfulness practices plus harnessing the power of intention to create sustainable positive behavioral change i.e. true transformation.

She empowers over one hundred thousand women weekly through her published articles and blog posts, YouTube channel, therapeutic meditations, online group courses, and her popular Hello Freedom podcast.

This is a 101-type episode which I love to do once in a while to create a go-to resource for people looking to get into things. Today's topic is the tarot and my guest is Brigit Esselmont, founder of Biddy Tarot.

Brigit's big truth was around discovering more about the role intuition and inner wisdom play in her life. From there we talked about how and why she got into tarot 20+ years ago and the basics of how she teaches people to use the tarot as an access point to living a more intuitive life.

She explained the difference between tarot and oracle cards, walked us through the Major Arcana and even gave me a mini reading around my pursuit of stand up comedy to demonstrate how the cards work.

This is a really fun and informative conversation, enjoy!

About Brigit Esselmont:

Brigit Esselmont is the author of the #1 Amazon best-selling books the Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings and the Biddy Tarot Planner, and the brand new book and Tarot deck, Everyday Tarot. A professional Tarot reader for more than 20 years, Brigit founded Biddy Tarot (www.biddytarot.com) in 1999, where each year more than 4.5 million people are inspired to live more mindful and enlightened lives, using the Tarot as a guide.

A self-confessed Tarot lover, Brigit can't help but spread the love to other Tarot enthusiasts. She teaches aspiring Tarot readers how to read Tarot with confidence and spiritual professionals how build their own business empires that are aligned with their soul's purpose.

Brigit believes anyone can read Tarot. She doesn't own a crystal ball nor a crushed velvet dress. She's simply a down-to-earth, practical Taurus who likes to use the Tarot cards in everyday life.

When she's not reading Tarot, Brigit loves spending time with her two daughters and husband on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

Today's guest is Michaela Boehm who was on the podcast almost three years ago and A LOT has happened since the last time we spoke. She just published a book - The Wild Woman's Way and she lost her entire home and property in a huge fire last year.

My favorite thing about this conversation was the major emphasis on the application that's possible when someone is devoted to deep practice and cultivating the skills to be an integrated, resilient person, even if they're sensitive.

We talked about that and how she was able to move through the grief, shock, and trauma of losing her home and property. We also talked about the difference between cultivation and devotion which I really appreciated because this is something that people often overlook in the self-help, spirituality and personal development worlds.

People want tools and practices but not everyone is willing to show up with the discipline required. To many the word "discipline" brings up a lot of resistance and in this chat we explored why it doesn't have to.

Enjoy and share!

About Michaela Boehm:

Michaela Boehm teaches and counsels internationally as an expert in intimacy and sexuality. Born and raised in Austria, Michaela combines degrees in psychology and extensive clinical counseling experience with her in-depth training in the yogic arts as a classical Kashmiri Tantric lineage holder. Michaela's approach empowers her students through an eclectic mix of education, experiential exercises and guided explorations. Known for her work with high-performing individuals, her ongoing private clients include Oscar-winning actors, producers, business pioneers, and multiple Grammy-winning musicians. Michaela lives on an organic farm in California where she rescues and rehabilitates animals. For more information, please visit her website at MichaelaBoehm.com.

Today's guest is someone I've been wanting to have on the show for a while, Desiree Adaway. Desiree is a seasoned nonprofit consultant and facilitator who is known by staff, senior leadership, peers, and partners as being great at open, honest, and productive conversations, which is exactly what we had in this episode.

Her big truth was that, "Black and brown bodies are expendable." From there we got into a few really important distinctions: unity vs solidarity, discussion vs debate, diversity vs equity, inclusion and social justice.

We also talked about allyship, accountability within community, whiteness, racism, finding ways to communicate that work for everyone, and the importance of listening.

This is a good episode to listen to more than once and share with your friends, family and colleagues as a tool for unpacking and raising your awareness. Enjoy!

About Desiree Adaway:

Desiree is a seasoned nonprofit consultant and facilitator. All of her presentations have a mix of thought provoking content presented with humor and wit. When she teaches she makes a point to connect with every person, and create a safe space for their growth. She is known by staff, senior leadership, peers, and partners as being great at open, honest, and productive conversations. She is not afraid of addressing anything that gets in the way of great work. Her style is positive, approachable, engaging, service-oriented and audience-centered.

Today's guest, Esther Goldenberg is passionate about Jewish life, Israel, and living your religion in the way that's meaningful to you. Her mission is to make Judaism accessible and interesting, regardless of how you choose to use that information in your life. While I'm neither Jewish nor into practicing religion personally, I still very much appreciate gleaning the universal wisdom available from stories, traditions, customs and rituals (in a non-appropriating way, of course!)--and Esther provided a ton of that throughout this conversation.

Her big truth was two fold and a bit paradoxical, "This ain't about you and this is all about me..."

From there we also discussed weaponizing the Bible versus finding the gems that can help people live everyday life regardless of any specific faith.

Enjoy and share!

This interview with Rebekah Borucki is on the raw and messy side by design. Bex is one of my learning and processing buddies around topics related to dismantling systems of oppression in every areas of our lives.

Her big truth was that we have so far to go in our evolution to even be decent. From there we talked about all the things we're learning, implementing and integrating as we strive to be more decent human beings.

This is not a teaching episode as we're both deeply in student mode on these topics (and will be for life).

We talked about whiteness, privilege, cultural appropriation, fetishization, racism, ableism, self care, how hard it is to interact with people we've been close with who aren't doing their work to learn, unpack, speak up and be allies. We also got into how complex things are and how we're navigating and handling that, while learning, staying open and flexible throughout all of it.

I love this woman. This is definitely one to share with loved ones and use as a conversation tool to take a look at these topics in your own spaces.

About Rebekah Borucki:

Rebekah "Bex" Borucki, founder of BEXLIFE® and the BLISSED IN® wellness movement, is a mother-of-five, TV host, yoga and meditation guide, author, speaker, birth doula, and life transformation and resilience coach. She also travels extensively, sharing her love for yoga, wellness, and meditation at exclusive workshops, luxury retreats, and public events. Her first book, You Have 4 Minutes to Change Your Life: Simple 4-Minute Meditations for Inspiration, Transformation and True Bliss, was released by Hay House in February 2017. For more information, visit www.BexLife.com/book.