Riffing On Realness™

This past year has certainly touched all our lives in various ways with respect to limbo, impermanence and uncertainty.. While hard on the human brain and the nervous system, these things can also play a necessary transitional experience to get all the juice out of life. Join us in this episode where we unpack what it is to experience these states: the trials, the tribulations, and some real strategies for harnessing the power and the lessons in them all.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Carla and Juliet are taking a little sabbatical from Riffing on Realness for the next couple of months. We may peek in here from time to time, but, overall, we won’t be recording. Have a great summer!

In this episode Carla and Juliet riff on getting real around emotions. What they’ve noticed about emotions while both going through some deep water. They get curious how we can seem to hold contradictory emotions within the same day or even hour.

In this episode, we explore what's going on when we want to help others or when others want to help us. Sometimes, well-intentioned advice can feel irritating or disempowering. In turn, we may find ourselves trying to fix other people's problems. When we look deeper at what's going on, do we need others to be okay so we can feel okay?

In this episode, full of laughter, we explore decluttering, not just our physical space but our inner emotional and psychological spaces. We get curious about what's going on when our minds or spaces are full of stuff we don't really need or want. How might we recognise what's going on and what helps us let go of the clutter?

In this episode, we explore burnout. Carla shares how she experienced burnout towards the end of last year and how she consciously took a 'sacred pause'. In practice that looked like stepping back from blogging and social media posting and focusing solely on taking care of her clients and herself. Although she had some misgivings, she realised it is perfectly acceptable to take a sacred pause when one needs to. And she sees how her business, rather than suffer, has actually grown.

In this episode, we explore how sometimes our reactivity, eg irritability, pettiness, and frustration can be disguising a deeper emotion. Carla tells the story of how grief about her mother showed up recently but she didn't recognise it at first because it's not usual for her to feel this and initially she felt petty, dramatic, and reactive. Can we get eyes for and accept what's showing up internally?

In this episode we explore interruptions. Carla's dog Pedro is poorly today and Carla has taken time out to attend to him. She's noticed how along with the distress comes irritation and getting snappy with others. She sees how comical it is that we get so easily upset by interruptions. Maybe we should accept the fact that interruptions happen and maybe we need a little more understanding and compassion with ourselves and others.

In this episode we explore re-calibration. What may be happening behind the scenes as you respond to resuming social activities after lockdown or at any time when you find yourself 'tired' by things that don't usually impact you that way. Juliet is particularly curious to explore re-calibration. Is it a time to pause and allow for the possibility, we may actually be adjusting to new perspectives, rather than assuming we are not 'up to speed'. We kicked off with a little love fest, appreciating each other and this podcast.

In this episode we explore boundaries, a popular topic no doubt. How do they help? What are the pitfalls? What do we notice about clear boundaries in others? How we can get tripped out when setting or holding boundaries and what's up with that. Another juicy discussion to invite you to see something new.

In this episode, we explore what happens when your boat sinks (life doesn't go to plan). Carla's actual boat sank and she talks about what she saw as that experience unfolded. We meandered and pretty soon found ourselves looking at impermanence: how we know deep down, the fact that: everything changes, yet we try to live as if it doesn't. We try to control our lives, circumstances, other people, and our feelings. So if we know we cannot ultimately control life, what gets in the way of just dropping that need to control?