Impact with Ease

We spend a lot of our emotional energy trying to avoid pain and suffering. 

But to experience the joy we want to feel, we have to understand that pain is an inevitable part of the human experience.

The key to surviving that pain is simple…

Find ways to give yourself more grace.

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ, Blake explains why the human experience requires moments of pain and suffering in order to grow and find joy in life. We’re on a journey of self-acceptance and our pain is what ultimately helps us achieve self-love. 

In this episode, you’ll learn why we experience pain and suffering, and how to see those experiences in a new light. You’ll understand how grace helps you accept and work through tough moments in life, and how those experiences accelerate growth. You’ll discover what it truly means to offer grace to yourself and others, and how choosing grace allows more happiness, peace, and ease into your life. 

What You’ll Learn:

• Defining what it means to offer grace (1:04)

• The primary root of our suffering (1:27)

• Recognizing the value of pain (2:31)

• Finding ways to give yourself more grace (3:19)

• How to know what’s true and what’s not (5:10)

Favorite Quotes:

1. When I look at the causes of most of the suffering or challenges we have in our lives, it's truly because we lack grace for ourselves.

2. We do everything possible to avoid feeling pain as if it is the worst thing to happen to us. And we don't understand that pain produces endurance.

3. We should feel every single human emotion and just allow it to pass through us understand what it's saying, be able to own that and then let it go. And when we do that we give ourselves grace and we give others grace. 

4. The only way to know what's truth versus what's not is to speak it. To ask the questions, to be willing to share with others, and to allow them to meet us where we are. And when we do that, we begin to bring the darkness to light. We begin to see the beauty of all of our parts and of everyone else. And we begin to realize that we are far more resilient, far more safe, far more capable, far more loved than we even knew.

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Do you feel like the deepest, most authentic parts of yourself have to stay hidden in order to feel accepted? 

In our desire for acceptance, we often allow society to slowly condition us, while we pack away the parts of ourselves that don’t fit the mold. 

The more of ourselves we push away, the greater our fears, self-doubt, shame, guilt, and anxiety become. 

…And the more misaligned we become. 

Here’s the truth: When you're in an environment that makes you question who you are, it’s not because there’s something wrong with you.

It’s because you’re in the wrong environment with the wrong people. 

The journey toward alignment requires you to fully step into who you are. When you love and own every part of you, you fight for your uniqueness.

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ podcast, Blake shares our human need to feel seen, loved, and accepted. She explains why it feels so hard to come by in the society we live in. 

In this episode, you’ll learn why we’re looking for unconditional love in all the wrong places. When that acceptance doesn’t first come from within, then you’re relying on external validation that will seldom fill your cup. The unconditional love you seek comes from owning your uniqueness, embracing what makes you special, and sharing your true self with the world. 

It’s the things that make you different that truly make you special.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why we struggle to feel seen as who we really are (1:57)

• Seeking unconditional love from the wrong sources (3:14)

• Wanting to be seen in a world that doesn’t measure up to our expectations (7:11)

• How to be seen for who you are and embrace your uniqueness (9:36)

• Identifying misalignment in your life (11:14)

Favorite Quotes:

1. “Until you fully see and embrace who you are, and fully love the entirety of you, there's no way that other people can see you.”

2. “Whatever frustrations we feel like are missing externally are often the things that are missing internally.”

3. “The internal journey of discovering, embracing, and loving yourself is the key to creating loving relationships, impact, connection, and truly being seen.”

4. “What if you are perfect exactly as you are? What if the circumstances in the past when you were hurt, let down, unseen, or judged weren't actually about you at all? Maybe it was about the fact that you were in the wrong place with the wrong people who don't appreciate you.”

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Do you wonder whether your relationship with food is healthy?

With busy lives in a fast-paced world, it can feel impossible to make empowered choices when it comes to the food we eat. With eating disorders and a general lack of emphasis on nutrition in our society, it’s more important than ever that we take the lead in making better choices and cultivating healthier connections with our bodies. 

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment Ⓡ, Blake welcomes Jessika Brown, a registered dietitian (RD) with a master's degree in Nutrition. She’s also a Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics and a Certified Eating Disorders Registered Dietitian-Supervisor. Her superpower is helping people live deeper in their values through health. She’s the host of the Fuel Her Awesome Podcast and owns a dietetic private practice.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to understand the biofeedback your body is providing when it comes to what you eat. You’ll hear the important role of the microbiome in your overall health, the impact of your emotions on how you eat, and how you can begin to reshape your values when it comes to your relationship with food. 

What You’ll Learn:

• How healing her relationship with food led Jessica to her professional path (5:00)

• Connecting our emotions to when and what we choose to eat (10:56)

• The origin of our distrust for our bodies that leads to disordered relationships with food (15:41)

• Defining health on your own terms and determining your values (21:24)

• Advice for parents who want to help their kids choose healthier foods (31:42)

Favorite Quotes:

1. “So many of the conventional methodologies that we're taught are broken. As a society, we are seeking all these things that are ultimately bandaids and don't give us the results or the solutions we need. So, we often then think that there's something wrong with us.” -Blake

2. “Until we learn, and understand that every emotion we feel is for us and that we create our own suffering around it, we can't create any change.” -Blake

3. “We have to define health on our own terms, not the doctor's terms, cultures, terms, how we were raised, we have to get very clear on what healthy looks like for us.” -Jessika Brown

4. “There's this illusion that we're supposed to never feel sad or upset and, if we do, we need to get rid of the feeling. That's one of the biggest things I've taken away from working with this population and in my own healing is that that is part of the human experience. We have to get rid of this lie that it's going to be wonderful and beautiful all the time. Half if not more of the human experience is sorrow and sadness and it’s about developing resiliency through those pieces.” -Jessika Brown

Additional Resources: 

For more information on the Empowered Eating Method check out Jessika Brown’s FREE workshop: How to Eat Intuitively and Hit Your Goals or learn more about working with her 1:1 at jessbrownrd.com.

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Do you try to shut out grief or pack away trauma in order to function in your life and work?

We’re often told that there’s an “appropriate” time and place to express emotion, whether it be the loss of a loved one, a past trauma, or even just the emotional overload of a bad day. 

While holding those feelings in might be the thing we’re told to do, it’s important to understand that there’s a reason why emotions exist. 

Not only are emotions pathways for processing our life experiences, but they are also gateways for human connection. 

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment Ⓡ, Blake welcomes Rachel Schromen, an estate planning and elder law attorney and owner of Schromen Law, LLC.  Since starting to practice law in 2013, Rachel has been named one of the Top 3 Best Rated Estate Law firms in St. Paul (2018 – 2023) and was voted Minnesota’s Best Estate Law Firm by readers of the Star Tribune in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Apart from her law practice, Rachel is a hospice volunteer as an end-of-life doula.

In this episode, you’ll learn how Rachel first began to recognize that there was emotional work that needed tending to in her life. She shares her decades-long process of discovering why that work was so important, how it helped relieve her trauma and process grief, and ultimately, how it led her toward work that truly aligned her with her whole self and the work she was meant to do. 

What You’ll Learn:

• When Rachel first recognized that trauma was present in her life (5:02)

• How we tend to cope when things are out of alignment (10:33)

• Why showing emotion is a path to true connection (18:10)

• A roadmap for recovering from grief and helping those you care about (23:43)

• The healing power of vulnerability (32:31)

Favorite Quotes:

1. “When we allow ourselves to connect to the things that we're most passionate about in life is truly where we can make the biggest impact.” –Blake

2. “In society, we label the anxieties and stresses and things that we have as who we are. And often that isn't true at all. It's our way of coping. It's how we learned how to adapt in a world that felt unsafe.” –Blake

3. “ It's the human connection that really brings joy and passion to what I do. And that comes with the underlying issues of what I address for clients. I'm here to solve a legal problem. There's usually a lot of underlying emotional grief, etc, that to an extent, I can connect with that person on and support them through.” –Rachel Schromen

4. “I should be able to emote. Should I be inconsolable and need the client to take care of me? No. But there's an appropriate way to show emotion, and it took me a long time to step into that. ”  –Rachel Schromen

5. “The people who showed up in the best way, unsurprisingly, were the ones who had experienced loss. One of my friends texted me and said, ‘Will you be home tonight, between 5 and 6? I'm going to drop off a meal, I will leave it at your door and ring the doorbell’. And I said, ‘Yes, thank you’. I still get emotional because it was one of the kindest things and I felt so loved and supported. If she had texted me and said, ‘Can I drop off a meal?’ I would have said, ‘No’. If she had texted me and said, ‘What can I do to help?’, I would have said ‘Nothing.’” –Rachel Schromen

6. “We're all having a human experience, you know? Why do we all feel so alone in it? We don't have to.”  –Rachel Schromen

Additional Resources: 

Connect with Rachel Schromen:

Website: https://schromenlaw.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schromenlawllc/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/schromenlaw

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Ever feel like the same story continues to play out in your life? 

There’s a reason for that. Until you learn to understand how your brain works, the outcome will always be the same.

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ, Blake explains how our brain patterns search for past experiences in order to determine future outcomes. To achieve real growth in your life and career, you have to change your patterns.

In this episode, you’ll learn why our brain defaults to existing patterns and how that keeps us replaying the same stories. You’ll understand why asking questions can feel so challenging at times, and how you can overcome those fears. You’ll learn how assumptions often lead us in the wrong direction, and how you can start approaching situations with curiosity to experience real growth. 

What You’ll Learn:

• How pattern matching in the brain keeps us stuck (1:24)

• Why it’s important to be curious rather than make assumptions (3:17)

• The challenge of asking questions (4:18)

• What changes when you approach the world with more curiosity (5:41)

Favorite Quotes:

1. There's huge benefits to the fact that our brains do pattern match. But one of the places that it really keeps us stuck is when we try to grow or change because inadvertently, we think we know how the outcome is going to look. And then we actually create that reality.

2. Allow yourself to understand that there might be many outcomes that could happen that you are completely unaware of. 

3. When we change, our ability to create different outcomes changes. 

4. When you can remove the need to be right, life can get infinitely better.

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Have you ever said ‘yes’ to something, but knew in your gut that the answer should really have been ‘no’? 

That’s not just a passing feeling or empty hunch. It’s your body’s way of communicating with you.

Checking in with how your body responds when it’s time to make a big decision is the pathway to unlocking your inner wisdom. 

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ, Blake welcomes Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder of Inner Workout. Recently named one of Fortune’s 10 Innovators Shaping the Future of Health, she has turned being bad at self-care into a career, helping others cultivate well-being and focus on personal development. Tired of aspirational 'wellness as usual', she builds businesses, content, and experiences focusing on balance over burnout. 

In this episode, you’ll hear about Taylor’s experience, and how she heeded the call to start listening to what her body was telling her. You’ll learn how her own Inner Workout came from the choice to opt for self-care over continued burnout. She shares her experience of helping people connect with their inner wisdom, and how you can begin to walk the path of ease toward a more aligned future. 

What You’ll Learn:

• How Taylor recognized the need to listen to her body (6:13)

• Identifying the 5 Dimensions of Well-Being (9:55)

• Determining whether our experiences result from the self or the system (15:48)

• Having examples of what it’s like to be outside of the corporate box (22:43)

• Leaning into what makes you feel more at ease (33:56)

Favorite Quotes:

1. “If you're not getting to the root of the fact that your life is not sustainable for you, treating yourself to a massage or a fancy dinner or whatever, is not going to fix things.” –Taylor Elyse Morrison

2. “I think as a society, we don't talk about the difficult stuff. We get into this internal negative dialogue and nobody is really understanding that they're not alone in this journey.” –Blake

3. “All of our bodies are so wise but we can struggle to access that wisdom.” –Taylor Elyse Morrison

4. “In entrepreneurship, your business literally comes down to you, period. Any fears, doubts, and anxieties you have will be your limiting factors. So it all comes down to doing that personal inner work in order to truly break those ceilings and keep moving.” –Blake

5. “I find that when I listen within, not just to my body, but to my inner wisdom, there's this potent truth that I often don't want to acknowledge. Because a lot of times my inner wisdom is telling me to do something that's outside of what society might say will make me successful.” –Taylor Elyse Morrison

6. “It takes work to be able to listen, and then complete the cycle of responding in that most loving way possible, rather than listen, and then be like, Ooh, I don't want to do that. That's too difficult.” –Taylor Elyse Morrison

Additional Resources: 

Connect with Taylor Elyse Morrison:

Inner Workout

Taylor Elyse Morrison

Taylor’s Instagram

Inner Workout’s Instagram

Free Take Care assessment:

https://innerworkout.co/take-care-profile

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Do you worry that the things you want in life might not be possible for you?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of imagining exactly what “success” should look like. But, when you have too much faith in the plan, it’s hard to trust the process. 

And when unexpected things show up for you, you might not recognize them as gifts.

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment Ⓡ, Blake explains why our expectations are actually at the root of all suffering and heartache. When we let go and leave space for the process, that’s where the magic happens. 

In this episode, you’ll learn why creating expectations of what we think success should look like masks the real opportunities that show up unexpectedly. You’ll hear why leaving space for things that might fall outside of your best-laid plans is actually where the alignment happens. 

So if what you imagined to be “success” feels hard, then remember…

It’s not impossibility that’s holding you back. The real culprit is your expectations. 

What You’ll Learn:

• The problem with creating expectations (1:33)

• Why you have to love the process (3:12)

• What happens when you leave space for the unexpected (3:46)

• How to trust the process and find your North Star (4:30)

• Why success feels so hard (5:48)

Favorite Quotes:

1. “I’ve learned that when I take small actions aligned with my Northstar values and allow space for unexpected gifts, new learnings, and new doorways to open, amazing, wonderful things show up.”

2. “If you don't love your process every day, you'll never achieve what you want to achieve.”

3. “The reason it seems like we have to work so hard is because we're pushing and forcing. We're not able to see the opportunities because we've already decided how it has to look.”

4. “Be receptive to what shows up. You may very well find beauty, opportunity and far more possibility than you ever thought was out there.”

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Society hasn’t made it easy for women to get a seat at the table.

And often when we sit down in one of those coveted chairs, it’s immediately clear that we still make up a very small percentage of the voices in the room. 

In order for things to change, we have to change.

And it all starts with closing the confidence gap.

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ, Blake welcomes Kelli Thompson, a women’s leadership coach and speaker who helps women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. She has coached and trained hundreds of women to trust themselves, lead with more confidence, and create a career they love. She is the founder of the Clarity & Confidence Women's Leadership Program, and author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to start shifting the limiting beliefs that have been preventing you from building the confidence you deserve. You’ll hear examples of what it feels like to ignore the cues from your body and what it feels like to listen and act on your intuition. You’ll hear some of the most common myths about women in leadership and learn how to push them to the side and move closer to the success that you deserve. 

What You’ll Learn:

• What Kelli did differently to get into the rooms where decisions were being made (8:31)

• Paving a new path toward success as a woman (11:54)

• How to create boundaries as an entrepreneur (15:58)

• Learning to listen to your gut and check in with your body (22:05)

• How to figure out what you want and what you don’t want for your life  (29:35)

• Work myths that need busting (31:33)

Favorite Quotes:

1. I just often think back, hindsight being 2020, how much I limited myself because I couldn't see women in those senior rooms. I just had so many more limiting beliefs at that time. And I was like, you know what, this needs to change. –Kelli Thompson

2. One of the biggest things that changed my life was learning to invest in myself. And I think that as a society, men learn how to do this more than women. –Blake

3. What I saw was the women that were at the top of the organizations I worked at, not all of them, but by and large, the vast majority, were really unhappy, very angry, sacrificed, tremendously, and had zero work-life balance. And I remember thinking to myself at certain points, I want to move up in my career, but not like that. –Blake

4. Be something different lead in a way that makes you feel good lead in a way that's in alignment to your values, so that the younger women in the office, look at you and say, I want that. –Kelli Thompson

5. I am going to make trusting your gut sexy in corporate America again. –Kelli Thompson

Additional Resources: 

Connect with Kelli Thompson:

Website: www.Kelliraethompson.com

Book: closingtheconfidencegap.com/book

Freebie: Free Career Clarity Guide

Kelliraethompson.com/careerclarityguide

Social media:

Instagram: @kelliraethompson 

Linkedin: in/kelliraethompson

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

When change is on the horizon, but we’re not quite sure what that means in the present moment, our first impulse is to try and find the answer. 

Researching, asking around, filling up your time and energy with actions. 

And while all of that keeps us busy through those messy middle periods of uncertainty, it doesn’t leave very much space for the unknown. 

When you learn to get comfortable with the unknown, then you might pause just long enough to recognize the gold beneath your feet. 

Today on The Bridge to Fulfillment Ⓡ, Blake shares her personal, and present, messy middle story, explaining what’s going on behind the scenes. Her investments in personal and professional development are leading to some big changes. 

In this episode, she’s sharing what she’s learned so that your life can benefit and you, too, can experience the transformation that you’ve been seeking. You’ll hear the big ah-ha moments that have come as a result of embracing the messy middle. She shares how opting to be patient and receive the right answers, rather than trying to force them, yields results that are naturally more in alignment with your purpose and values. 

If you want to start creating life on your terms, then it’s time to embrace the messy middle. 

You might be surprised at what you discover beneath your feet. 

What You’ll Learn:

• How The Bridge to Fulfillment Ⓡ is evolving (1:07)

• What Blake has learned through her personal and professional development  investments (2:30)

• The path forward for this work and what you can get from it (5:16)

• Finding joy in the “messy middle” (6:55)

• Keeping an open loop and creating space when you face uncertainty (9:58)

Favorite Quotes:

1. If you've listened long enough, you've heard the same things that my clients have been telling me for years: ‘I came here because I thought you were going to change my career and instead you changed my life.’

2. Ultimately, what I've experienced and gone through in my life, the lessons I've learned, and the path I've been able to walk…I wish everyone had the level of peace, freedom, joy, confidence, space, and ability to be present in their life in the way that it’s unlocked for me.

3. Our brains are wired to want a solution. So anytime we're in a circumstance where we don't know the answer, we're going to move as quickly as possible to research and find the answer. Whether that's actually the best answer for us or not. 

4. You cannot receive if your hands are full.

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com

Has anyone ever made you feel small, powerless, or not good enough? 

Whether it’s a boss, co-worker, friend, or family member, repeated behaviors that make you question yourself will gradually chip away at your confidence. 

But when you have self-confidence, you’re in control of how you feel and what you believe about yourself.

Today on The Bridge to FulfillmentⓇ, Blake welcomes Melissa to share her story. Before going through the program, she felt stuck in a job that was wearing away at her self-confidence, sending her on a downward spiral. Today, she has rebuilt her life from the ground up by uprooting false beliefs and standing in confidence with the knowledge of her true value and potential.

By recognizing that the problem was misalignment, Melissa was able to align with her values and experience rapid personal growth. 

You’ll learn how she began to recognize the signs of misalignment and the breakthrough that helped her finally gain the confidence she had been missing. You’ll hear how her confidence reboot has helped boost her career, shake away her old beliefs, and propel her toward a life of alignment. 

If you think it’s time for a mindset shift, then Melissa’s story is just the inspiration you need. 

What You’ll Learn:

• Recognizing the signs of misalignment (2:16)

• The “aha” moments that led Melissa to coaching (7:44)

• How the process shifted her belief systems (13:54)

• Why your career and your life are interconnected (20:48)

• The ripple effect of self-confidence in your life (31:21)

Favorite Quotes:

1. Knowing the knowledge I have now, I was just in a situation where I was completely out of alignment. I was worn out, I was frustrated, I was in a situation where my supervisors were not supporting my work style. –Melissa

2. I just kept thinking, ‘Okay, if I can just get this done, I will get better’. And you just keep doing that, striving, and it never ends. So I was just at a point, I was like, ‘Okay, I need a coach’. –Melissa

3. When we stay on a path that we're not fulfilled in and it's not in alignment with us, the longer we stay there trying to suck it up, make it work, or believe that we should be grateful for what we have, the more and more our confidence gets stripped away. The more and more we feel trapped. It's so easy to believe that something's wrong with us or we're broken or we're failing instead of being able to see that it's just not a match. –Blake

4. If you don't stand up for yourself, now, you won't. –Melissa

Additional Resources: 

For programs and opportunities to work with Blake, go to www.BlakeSchofield.com