I Totally Relate!

We are so excited to welcome back Chelsea to the podcast! She is returning after season 1 episode 12, if you haven’t heard it yet you’ll love this conversation.

In today’s episode we are discussing her guide book that walks you through transmuting your pain into healing with three steps. This book is written specifically for women.

Step 1- Choose

Step 2 - Let Go

Step 3 - Receive

She has found pieces of her life‘s work through the intersection of healing and working with women. She names a few of her painful life experiences that helped give her the grounds to learn these concepts, i.e. leaving home as an adolescent, divorce, and single motherhood.

Working through this painful process, spirituality is required. Chelsea explains the importance or the unimportance of specific language and words, and it’s more about the personal feeling. She addresses the social programming, especially in this valley. She encourages us to use our own internal discernment and use the reference words that work for you.

This conversation also touches on the importance of awareness. Trauma is a loaded and new buzzword. We spend some time discussing the definition and consequences of trauma and how to navigate through it once you’ve identified it. We also discuss how our bodies and our souls know how to heal us. She defines healing loops and highlights tools that help us move through that cycle.

The first part of this conversation is discussing the ways we find ourselves in a painful place. The last portion of this is digging into the three steps, the how-to‘s, and the then-what's. This tool is a guide, it’s a practice. Referring back to the steps and this guidebook is more practical than assuming once through the process we will be healed.

You can connect with Chelsea @sistersoulig. You can access her guidebook by getting in touch with her here.

We create and share additional content each week, you can join us on Patreon, follow us on Instagram, sign up for our newsletter, or send us your thoughts and feedback at [email protected]

What is up everybody?!? We are so excited to be back with you with the start of season two. During the short break that we took we spent a lot of time being consistent and creating content for our Patreon community. We would love for you to join us on Patreon. Check it out to see if there is a tier that fits with your budget and desire to be a part of our close knit community.

In this episode we reference the episode we did with Ana, who is an MFT, discussing trauma and it’s effects. Season one required a lot of personal work and healing from the two of us, and in doing so we’ve reduced some of our trauma, so now as we enter into the beginning of season two, we find our self healing younger version of ourselves…

17 year old Carissa and 9 year old Shelby… Season 2 is dedicated to you!

Here is the Ariana song of the week 

Along with talking about who season two is dedicated to, we also give a little bit of insight as to what topics we will be discussing in season two, for example, sex, money, confidence, boundaries, and the path to self empowerment. We are so excited to share all these conversations with you guys. Season two is going to be chock-full of little wisdom nuggets.

The second half of the episode we share “Our Why” of hosting this podcast and what drives us to continue doing this work. Our messages feel very optimistic with a feel-good tone, however, we discuss there are tricky situations and challenges that require us to navigate in order to get to this space of clarity and courage. You can get some context of the difficult and not-so-pretty work that goes into this transformation and realization of "Our Why" on Patreon, where we share more openly.

The conversation then shifts towards purpose, as in every human being has a purpose. We ask questions about how to find our purpose and what keeps us from fulfilling it. We discuss our intuition versus our ego, and give references to who has helped us along our journey for example we talk about @theAlisonshow.

We are really proud of this conversation, and so excited for you to listen along. We hope it’s sparks some inquiry for you to check in with your purpose. We would absolutely love to hear from you, you can email us at [email protected] or DM us on Insta.

Thank you so much for joining us in Episode 25, the final episode of season one. We will be back in your feed July 7th with a new season, new guests, and new conversations! If you can’t wait till then, head on over to Patreon, where we will be releasing exclusive content in the mean time.

We have a beautiful and helpful grounding guide we would love to share with you. Access that here, and get a 5 minute guide on how to re-connect with the earth, and a minute by minute walk through to ground yourself.

In this conversation we reference “Women who Run with Wolves” written by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, specifically chapter 10 as we discuss the role of creativity in our own lives, and the importance it plays in our collective. It is a very compelling book, we absolutely recommend it.

Carissa shares how she has recently discovered her own creativity, and Shelby walks us through her relationship with creativity. We revisit the concept of rest being required for creativity, the importance of recognizing and encouraging beauty in others, the effect of comparison on our creativity, and how awareness is key.

We would love to hear your feedback and insight on this conversation, you can connect with us through email [email protected] or DM us on insty

We are so pleased to bring you the second part of our conversation with Shelli Spotts. She is a creative writer, professor, and freelance journalist. The first portion of our conversation we discuss the article she wrote that was recently published in Big Ocean Women, you can read the article here 

In this episode we touch on the importance of getting out into our natural environment, the effect of physical walls have on our emotions, mental health, feminism, and the fear of rejection. Shelli said it last episode... having a conversation with a writer is so compelling because she connects all these things together.

We would love to hear your thoughts and feelings after listening to this episode. You can connect with us at [email protected] or you can send us a DM on the 'gram.

And of course we would love for you to join us on Patreon, where we have additional content and resources.

We are so thrilled to introduce to you Shelli Spotts. She is our guest this week and next. Our conversation with her was so interesting to us and she shared so many helpful words we wanted to be able to share them all with you.

We are kicking off a short series on creativity, and Shelli is the perfect guest to get us started. Shellirae Spotts is an essayist, poet, and visiting English professor from Orem, Utah. Her creative work has been published in Inscape: a Journal of Literature and Art, Locutorium, Poets.org, and elsewhere. She has worked as a columnist, a freelance journalist, and an editor. Her current project is called "Voices Heard and Unheard" stories collected at the United Nations Commission on the states of Women, which she attends as an advocacy writer. Her writing and teaching focus on how we craft our identities as we engage in living creative lives, how we build bridges with the communities around us, and how we tell our own stories as we connect public meaning with personal experience.

In the first part of our conversation Shelli discusses the importance of embracing the journey instead of only focusing on the destination. She walks us through vulnerability and how creativity, asking questions, and being ourselves in our relationships really depends and thrives in spaces we can safely be vulnerable. We discuss how life is messy, and the mess is beautiful. Sometimes the trickiest part of relationships is when other people's mess mixes with our mess. She shares so many words of wisdom, we are so incredibly honored to share this conversation with you.

We would love to keep you in the know and share our resources with you. Sign up for our newsletter, and don't miss a thing!

Would you like to get more content from us? We share journal prompts, personal journal entries, bonus episodes, and more over on Patreon. We would love to share this exclusive content with you!

Ana Marques is an MFT therapist, graduated with her Masters, additionally she is trained in evidence based trauma informed modalities. This episode is packed full of information to help us understand what trauma is and how we can process it. Ana gives us a lot of ways to visualize and understand how our bodies autonomic nervous system (ANS) unconsciously and automatically responds to situations in our lives to aid in our survival.

Ana herself is a recipient of the benefits of trauma informed therapy, and she has made it her career to help others recover the ability to self regulate. As human beings we are made to survive and to attach. In episode in 19 we discussed how survival without attachment is trauma, and in this episode we dive much deeper into what that means and how to process trauma. 

Some of the most helpful visualizations she shares with us include: the chain of trauma, how one event after another event becomes a neuro pathway shortcut and provides a specific lens for us to view situations through. She also shares the idea of a Stain-glass window and how when trauma happens to us our brain can start to function as a Stain-glass window where there are different parts of us.

Processing trauma is ultimately the acceptance of those different parts and integrating them into who we are instead of trying to ignore, or shove, or get rid of certain parts of us. Ana explains the window of tolerance and how processing our trauma creates a space between the trigger and our reaction, and in that space or that window, we then have the ability to make a conscious decision instead of an unconscious reaction.

Ana refers to several trauma gurus, you can learn more about them and read their books here:

Dr. Gabor Mate: When the body says no

Peter LeVine

Dick Schwartz

You can find Ana at one of her counseling centers:

https://momentumcounselingservices.com/

https://www.thewholepersoncounseling.com/

We would love to include you on our newsletter we send out twice a month. If you are interested in getting our additional insights on episodes and what's going on in our lives, sign up for our newsletter here.

Patreon is a great way to get connected with us and receive access to additional content, including journal prompts and entries, and bonus episodes. Head over to Patreon to join the community.

If you want to share your thoughts and insights about this episode, email us at [email protected] or send us a message on instagram

We could not conclude a conversation about community without the mention of our mothers, both because they have played such a big role of friendship in our lives, and because they have such an intriguing story of friendship between the two of them.

This is a really important story to us. These two women have a unique connection to each other that has played a large role in our extended family dynamics. We will spend some time in the conversation exploring that important connection. This friendship spends over 40 years of their life, and it is impossible to cover all the important details at 40 years in one episode. However, we will discuss friendship, young girl hood, boys and falling in love, fallouts, heartbreak, forgiveness, and healing. Their relationship has flourished and endured many chapters of their lives, one which includes the present which has an element of physical health and disease.

It has been really magical listening to her moms tell the origin of our family story, and we find it so important to capture the story in the words of the two women who have lived it. We hope you find joy, love, and healing in this conversation to. Please welcome to the podcast the two most influential women in our lives, our moms: Linette and Dawn.

We would love to include you on our newsletter we send out twice a month. If you are interested in getting our additional insights on episodes and what's going on in our lives, sign up for our newsletter here.

Patreon is a great way to get connected with us and receive access to additional content, including journal prompts and entries, and bonus episodes. Head over to Patreon to join the community.

If you want to share your thoughts and insights about this episode, email us at [email protected] or send us a message on instagram

Are you ready to meet two more influential, empowering, beautiful women? Well, we are pleased to introduce to you Heather and Taylor, two of Shelby‘s best friends.

This is episode three in our series, and it has been very cathartic for us. Sitting down with the women in our lives who have lifted us up and seen us for who we really are, and telling them how important they have been to us, well... it’s really a transformative experience.

Do you want a community that is a safe place to land? Have you been wondering how to make that happen? This conversation really highlights the necessary components for those foundational friendships! Timing is key, vulnerability is a non-negotiable, and a desire for growth is a must.

These women talk through how showing up without shame owning them really changed the game, and allowed them to cultivate that deep friendship that has lasted over the years.

Perhaps the most powerful part of this conversation was verbalizing how important self compassion and self acceptance truly are. When we have the courage to show up authentically, it starts a chain reaction that allows us to find love and joy that sustains. It all starts with us. We are all one decision away from being open and connected with others. We have the power to love and be loved. If we want future generations to cultivate lasting and safe relationships, then WE must cultivate lasting and safe relationships. Look in the mirror babe, recognize that YOU are a badass, meet others with non-judgement and acceptance, and give them permission to be badass too!

Are you loving this series as much as we are? Would you love to hear more from us and have access to all of our resources? Cool, because we want to share that with you. Head over to Patreon and join us in building a community that we are all glad to be a part of!

Did you know that we send out a newsletter every other week? Would you like a lovely inspirational note from us twice a month? Click here and we’ll add your name to our list 

Want to get in touch with us? We would love to hear from you, send us your feedback and insights to [email protected], or hit us up on Instagram @itotallyrelatepod

We are so pleased to share this conversation with you, because we had the pleasure of talking with Carissa’s two besties! Meet Ani and Terin!

Do you have a group of friends you can be yourself around? How do you show up? We have been in groups that have not been safe to show up authentically and encouraged toxic behaviors. So, there is a lot of gratitude for a friendship like this, a small circle of women who provide a safe place to land when life gets tough.

We talk through the values we have learned through our relationships like vulnerability, accountability, empathy, support, validation, grace, and curiosity. We share examples of moments when we felt and learned these concepts.

It’s really nice to have friends, and we share a lot of laughter. But it’s more than that. There is a basic human need to feel attachment to help with regulating our emotions. We discuss the importance of having a small cheering section.

A good community is crucial for our mental well being, so we end the conversation with our hopes for future generations and ideas on how to cultivate those relationships in our own lives and encouraging our children to seek groups that reflect these values.

We hope you enjoy this conversation and encourage you to be a friend to someone today.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like to receive more content like this, join us on Patreon for additional resources.

We also send out a newsletter twice a month with a deeper dive into what we are learning and experiencing. We love to share resources with you all. So, if you're interested in an inspirational message to get your weekend started right, hit us up!

Want to share feedback and insight with us about this episode? We'd love to hear from you! Connect with us at [email protected]

Those who surround us can have a really big influence on our attitudes, opportunities to learn, and our mental health overall. It would be impossible to talk through all the ways our friends and community has influenced us in one episode, so this is the first conversation in a series about "Community".

We share some of the beautiful gifts we have learned from those who have shown us great love. In the safe relationships that others have cultivated with us, we have experienced, observed, and felt: unconditional love, non judgement, a safe place to land in hard times, vulnerability and authenticity.

Along with the gifts we received, we also faced challenges. We discuss some of those roadblocks we have come across while creating connections, and the importance of not resisting our true selves so we can be open and available for connections with others.

To hear more about this from us, head over to Patreon for additional content on this topic and more. We would love to hear your experiences about friendship, and your feedback on this episode, you can message us at [email protected] or connect with us on the 'gram!