The Fully Expressed Podcast

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the fully expressed podcast with Karenna.
0:02
I am your podcast host Karenna Soto.
0:04
Welcome back to the show where we have conversations that invite you into living a life, fully expressed, creating relationships where you can feel fully expressed, having a business, a career where you feel fully expressed and really, really stepping into your most authentic version of you.
0:24
I truly believe that we are all meant on this earth to evolve, expand express live fully as the gift that we have on this earth is so important to do that.
0:37
And there’s so much that comes from that by stepping into uncomfortable situations, meeting our edge, listening to the whispers that invite us into more and really going after what we like, what we want, what we feel and really embodying this fest express version ourselves, being with all of the ways of life for everything that comes with it, the lows, the highs, the neutrals and just truly absorbing all of the beautiful that comes from that.
1:12
So, thank you so much for being here.
1:14
Today is going to be a follow up solo session to last week’s session.
1:19
If you didn’t get a chance to do that.
1:21
I dove deep into what does it look like to truly navigate hard conversations?
1:25
And we didn’t just go there.
1:26
I actually talked about what can come up for you when you are navigating a difficult conversation, what the different communication archetypes look like in the middle of conflict and truly showing you representing what is available to you when you’re able to step into a fully grounded, open hearted heart, centered, open curiosity, compassionate curiosity, space and how you can open up that space by leaning into conflict.
1:57
You know what I truly believe when it comes to difficult conversations and when we avoid this conflict, we hold this messiness.
2:04
Yes, it’s very vulnerable.
2:06
Yes, there’s, there’s so much that comes up during that time, but we must lean in to receive the depth that we’re looking for in relationships.
2:14
This can be applied to romantic relationships, platonic relationships and professional relationships.
2:20
We are constantly relating to every single person that we talk to.
2:25
Whether that’s a new friend, whether that’s a best friend, whether that’s someone that we’ve been in business with for a long time or new, whether it’s someone that we’re trying to romantically be intimate with.
2:37
Those are all different types of relationships and the skill set of mastering communication is so important.
2:45
And like I mentioned in the previous episode, if you didn’t get a chance to listen to it, I highly recommend you circle back to that at this point.
2:51
You know, communication has skills, right?
2:54
There are skills and tactics and frameworks that I can teach you and show you.
2:59
But this is also an embodied experience and what we don’t realize when there are hard topics or hard conversations or saying hard things when it comes to communicating with someone else that can trigger a somatic experience, it can trigger a trauma response.
3:16
It is essentially touching very vulnerable parts within us.
3:20
And if we don’t know how to navigate those one, we could miss out on the connection.
3:26
Two, we end up running into those communication barriers that I talked about.
3:30
So really assumptions and judgments, lack of listening, our own human defense system that’s trying to keep us safe from what we’re feeling in those hard conversations.
3:40
And so today, I want to piggyback off the last episode and I want to dive into what does it mean to somatic experience these hard conversations and, and truly where I want to come into and I want to get started with this is I want to invite you into how does your body feel when you are in the middle of having a hard conversation?
4:01
You’re saying hard things or you feel like something someone says, says something and it triggers you.
4:07
What do you feel like that in your body?
4:09
And some of us can completely disassociate.
4:12
So maybe you aren’t even in your body for a second, like you completely almost like you can’t hear the person talking, maybe you start daydreaming about something else.
4:21
Your mind goes somewhere else.
4:23
That’s a, that’s a sign of disassociation.
4:25
Maybe you’re someone that finds themselves just like frozen in their body, like you can hear what they’re saying, but you really don’t have the words to respond to what they’re saying.
4:36
Maybe you’re someone that immediately gets worried about what you did wrong, right.
4:42
Maybe you’re noticing that and in your body it feels like the energy is going inward versus the energy is going outward for someone that gets more intense in their expression.
4:52
Maybe when something hard conversation comes up, someone brings up something really sensitive to you.
4:57
You feel frustrated and angry and you want to like lash out at them.
5:01
So the energy might be going outward.
5:04
You might feel the anxiety feeling in your chest, your mind might start spinning your throat might actually clog up.
5:12
You know, when you have that frog in your throat or maybe your stomach starts to turn and you can feel like all different kinds of symptoms like as if your stomach is getting upset, maybe you just feel the butterflies in your stomach, maybe it rushed me.
5:23
Maybe you rush to the bathroom.
5:26
There’s so many different sensations that we can feel in our bodies when we are having a trauma response.
5:33
And the very first thing is that I want to invite you to start getting familiar to how your body is feeling.
5:39
So when you notice a sensitive topic come up or a certain conversation come up or when you’re in the room with someone that makes you feel a little edgy, makes you feel a little anxious, makes you feel uncomfortable.
5:50
Take note of what your body is feeling.
5:52
Do you completely?
5:54
Just pause and hold your breath for a second.
5:57
Do you want to run away from the conversation?
5:59
Like, do you find yourself wanting to distract yourself?
6:02
So you end up distracting yourself with your phone?
6:04
Maybe you distract yourself by leaving the room completely.
6:08
Maybe you distract yourself by wanting to change the conversation.
6:11
These are all different signs that our systems, our bodies don’t necessarily have the capacity to be with whatever is going on in that moment.
6:21
And it’s so important for you to notice that.
6:23
And so why is this happening?
6:25
So I kind of touched on this, this the way that the subconscious mind works and how, what does it mean to actually be triggered?
6:31
So let’s say you hear a word, a situation, our our systems have what we call in the brain.
6:39
I’m going to get the right the ambi I can never say this.
6:43
You guys and I’m so sorry, ambiguous.
6:48
They’re the boat, they’re on the sides of our brain.
6:50
And what those do is that they are constantly looking it at and paying attention to our surroundings.
6:58
And when something happens that triggers us, there is this chemical reaction that is sent into the body.
7:05
And so what does that actually mean?
7:07
It’s, they are stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol that flood our system when we do not feel safe for some shape or reason.
7:17
And the way that our system is saying that it doesn’t feel safe is because it is perceiving a certain event.
7:24
So this can be someone’s body language, this can be a certain topic, a certain word, it could be someone’s energy about them that our body is filtering and saying, oh OK, I have seen this before and it goes through your subconscious mind and it looks back at past experiences and it creates that past experience and it creates its own reality.
7:46
So to us that ends up creating a thought with it creates an emotion which creates a somatic experience, which is the part of us that ends up releasing these chemical reactions, which tend to be like adrenaline or cortisol that completely flushed the body because it’s trying to protect itself.
8:01
It’s a stress response to something that we do not feel comfortable with.
8:05
And so this comes up for us in the middle of difficult conversations and the way that it represents itself in the body is very similar to what I talked about.
8:15
So maybe you’re disassociating, maybe you’re anxious in your chest, maybe you feel the heaviness, maybe your body starts racing.
8:21
You can feel the sweatiness in your palms.
8:23
You can feel the anxiety coming up, you can feel your throat being constricted and your stomach starts to turn and clench.
8:30
There’s this contracted that comes up in the body.
8:34
Maybe you feel the energy going inward, maybe you feel the energy going outward.
8:39
Maybe you feel like you want to get the fuck out of a situation.
8:41
Maybe you feel like you want to completely avoid the conversation.
8:45
These are all kinds of trap trauma responses for us to pay attention to when we are in the middle of hard conversations.
8:52
And you know, the biggest thing is that comes up for us in the middle of hard conversations is a sense of vulnerability.
9:00
It’s a sense of, you know, we get triggered, something comes up and, and the key to feeling connected to feeling, seen to feeling, heard, feeling closer in relationship to someone is that vulnerability.
9:15
But when you are being asked to show parts of yourself that could be potentially rejected could be potentially judged could be to take, to potentially take it for a different situation.
9:26
Your system’s going to want to close down.
9:28
And so when you are feeling these responses in your body, what that’s coming up in these hard conversations, or maybe there are specific topics that make you feel this way.
9:38
The goal is to get curious because your, your body is just responding to a moment that it doesn’t feel Satan.
9:44
And so what can you actually do in those moments?
9:48
So the very first thing if you’re by yourself, take a pause, take a breath, big deep breath.
9:53
If you need to, you could always walk away from a conversation and say, hey, you know, I need about like a minute, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes just to regulate my nervous system.
10:02
Because right now when you are activated like that, when you are triggered, like that, you are dysregulated.
10:08
And when you are in a sense of dysregulation in your body, it’s going to be so much more easy to respond in a, with an emotional response to the situation, which is what creates the emotions and what creates the conflict or what creates the ability to not fully listen or hear what’s going on in the conversation.
10:27
So once you notice these things coming up in your, in your soma, in your body, which Selma stands for a living body, and you start to feel the experience of your, your somatic body of your body.
10:39
Somatic, take a second to take a breath, bring your breath to that area.
10:43
Maybe you want to put your heart on your chest and see how that feels.
10:46
Maybe you want to put your hand on your belly and see what that feels like.
10:50
You can start to pay attention by putting your taking in your breath, holding that part of you, whether it’s your throat, your chest, your breath, and just find a way to regulate yourself again.
11:00
If you need to step away from the situation, go get a glass of water, go outside and get a t take a big deep breath, maybe use some cold water on your face.
11:08
These are all these little tactics that you can also do.
11:10
One of my favorite ways to regulate your nervous system and animals do this today.
11:15
If you haven’t already heard this before, you know, animals will naturally shake to give their self a natural reset of their nervous system.
11:23
They do that so fluidly, they do that so easily.
11:27
It’s like integrated, it just comes to them and we have the ability to do that as well.
11:32
And so I absolutely love shaking out my entire body.
11:35
I also love like tapping or like really deeply padding the different parts of my body so I can move the energy that’s happening.
11:44
And then once I am doing that, I am imm giving myself the opportunity to move into stretches and doing whatever my body needs on, really bringing myself in my body and helping the energy move.
11:53
And so wellness tip don’t drink coffee on an empty stomach.
11:57
You all might have heard of this from me, but your hormones do not love you drinking coffee on an empty stomach within the first hour of waking up in the morning.
12:07
If you eat a solid breakfast, a balanced breakfast with protein and carbs, your system is going to love you for that.
12:16
Your body is going to love you from that I am someone that dabble with coffee.
12:22
I enjoy the experience of coffee and I also try not to drink coffee daily.
12:27
But if I am going to have some coffee, I am going to make sure I have food in my system.
12:34
I’m also going to wait till about between 10 and 12 o’clock to have a cup of coffee and see if that helps how supported and see how you feel.
12:45
That is one of the things, the other thing that I want to invite you into is when you’re in the middle of a difficult conversation, expressing yourself through your words, also gives you an opportunity to express the emotion.
12:59
And so if you can find the space and the capacity to say something along the lines of like, hey, I really want to share with you what’s coming up for me and what my body is experiencing and you can simply say like something along the words of like, I feel really anxious right now.
13:15
My throat is closing up.
13:17
What’s coming up for me is XYZ.
13:20
And the more that you practice doing that, the more opportunity you’re also giving the opportunity to use your voice as a way to express your experience.
13:29
Now where you’re probably going to say is like, well, I don’t really want to say all those things out loud.
13:33
What if they, they make something of them?
13:35
And I get that and I fully understand that.
13:37
But if you can realize that emotions are just energy and motion.
13:42
All they want to do is move.
13:43
And if you can feel empowered to express yourself while being unattached from your experience.
13:51
So just knowing that this is a part of you that wants to move through you, this is a part of you that wants to be expressed.
13:57
This is the part of you that’s asking you to spend some time with it.
14:00
So saying it out loud would be really helpful as well if inviting the person that you’re in conversation with doesn’t feel safe in this moment.
14:08
When you step away from the conversation, like going for a walk and stuff, start talking to yourself out loud, allow yourself to process what’s coming up for you.
14:17
So you can truly work through that, right?
14:19
This, this emotion that’s running through you and you’re feeling it in these other ways through your body.
14:25
It is an emotion that wants to be expressed, it wants to move, it wants to be released.
14:31
And most of us today don’t know really how to do that because we’re so used to suppressing it.
14:37
We haven’t been truly taught how to fully release it.
14:40
We’ve only been taught how to ignore it, avoid it, manage it, stuff it down.
14:47
So then we don’t have to fully feel it.
14:48
But the truth is if we don’t lean into learning how to be with these emotions in real time, when things are coming up for us they’re just going to compound and build on top of each other and then you’re going to experience those situations where you might understand this or relate to this.
15:04
But have you ever been in a conversation where you’ve been so patient and then all of a sudden you blow up because you’ve had it or have you ever been in a conversation where someone where they’re super calm?
15:15
You’ve had the conversation with them a million times and then all of a sudden they blow up out of nowhere.
15:20
Those are examples of when someone has not been with their emotions, it hasn’t manifested itself into this extreme response because it didn’t have the space to fully express itself.
15:33
It didn’t have the space to find what it needs or wanted.
15:37
Now, the next part to this that I think is very important is that if you find yourself being deeply triggered and extremely triggered and none of these practices are actually working with you, I want to invite you into working with a somatic practitioner.
15:52
Unfortunately, at this time, I’m no longer offering one on one coaching or one on one support for somatic healing sections.
16:00
But if you do need someone and you are interested in working with someone actively on this response that you may have, I highly recommend with someone and I definitely have people that I can refer you to.
16:14
But inviting someone into this is such a great opportunity because you’re giving yourself the opportunity to practice it in moments that are not as heightened, right?
16:23
When you are in these situations or these experiences or in these hard conversations, when you’re communicating with someone, its so much more difficult to regulate yourself.
16:32
Versus in a somatic experiencing session, you have the opportunity to dive deeper into, into this and to this part of you and you can create space for it.
16:43
You can be held, you can be safe, a somatic practitioner can fully equal to you in a way that allows your, your nervous system and your body to create a bigger window of tolerances for these experiences and truly understand and unravel what’s going on with the different parts of you that are coming up in the body.
17:03
And so I share that with you because I really do think it’s important, but you can always use the practices that I use in earlier and shared this to help you regulate yourself.
17:14
And I also want to remind you is that, you know, by leaning into these hard conversations, by really finding your way to express yourself fully in a romantic relationship and a platonic relationship and a business partnership or with coworkers, you were practicing expressing and giving parts of you the opportunity to be here too.
17:37
So many of us don’t even give ourselves the full opportunity to be fully expressed in these relationships.
17:43
We’re doing ourselves a disservice by leaving parts of us or us behind.
17:47
We’re doing ourselves a disservice by not fully listening to our voice when it comes to this and really listening to these parts of themselves, and these parts of us are coming up and they want to be here for a reason.
18:02
And so just truly inviting you into that.
18:04
Now, the last thing I want to say is that, you know, I’ve also talked so much about the fully expressed community that I have online where we meet once a month.
18:13
And in this community, we do have these kinds of conversations.
18:16
We open up the space to talk through these things.
18:18
And if you’re interested in joining a community of women that we have different kinds of conversations and feel out the different parts of ourselves.
18:28
And you want access to me over slack because there’s also the ability to talk to me separately.
18:33
I’d be happy to support you in these kinds of conversations through Slack at a high level and be there for you.
18:39
And I and also come join this group of women that where we are having these taboo kinds of conversations.
18:45
We’re stepping into that edginess, learning what it is to feel fully expressed in our own way and finding that for ourselves in both our lives, relationships and business.
18:56
If you have any questions about what it actually looks like to have a hard conversation, highly recommend you go to the previous episode if you want me to dive deeper into the somatic experience that could be happening.
19:09
And what are the steps that you can take from there?
19:12
I would love to send me ad on Instagram at I AM Ko SOTO.
19:17
But the biggest point and take away from this episode that I want you to listen to and pay attention to is start to pay attention to how your body is feeling in these moments.
19:29
When you are saying hard things, when you are talking about specific topics, feel into that.
19:33
Where are you feeling it?
19:35
And then realize that you’re having a response to this and try to pay attention to where that is coming from, where that is in your body.
19:45
And use one of the techniques that I shared to regulate yourself in the moment.
19:50
You are in the middle of these conversations.
19:52
And lastly, if you do want to dive deeper into what is the the actual physical response or trauma response from feeling activated or triggered like this.
20:01
So you can really create the capacity and the window of tolerance to hold these kinds of conversations.
20:08
Because when you can learn how to hold these kinds of conversations and really lean into these different topics in life that make us feel a little edgy, a little overwhelmed.
20:18
There’s so much growth in that.
20:20
There’s so much connection, there’s so much opportunity to see and love and understand.
20:27
And I would be more than happy to dive more into that if you have any questions, just send me ad M on Instagram.
20:32
Like you guys do all the time.
20:34
I absolutely love hearing from you in the next couple episodes.
20:39
You’re gonna get to hear from some amazing guests.
20:42
One is a spiritual psychologist and the other one is a therapist that has also blended therapy with coaching and spiritual practices and breath work and how she’s brought that all together and like truly highlighting these holistic gaps.
20:57
And I really think that when we are finding the different tools to learning a life fully expressed, there are these different ways and modalities that allow us to step into that and that give us permission, but also just give us the runway to step into that.
21:12
And so keep an eye out for those next two episodes that are coming up.
21:16
And there’s also just amazing people that are in the lineup.
21:19
And if you found this episode helpful, I’ll be about it, write a review, share it with a friend because I would love to get more and more of this information out there.
21:29
So sending you all love into this week.
21:31
Thank you so much for listening and I’ll talk to you soon.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the Fully Expressed podcast with Karenna.
0:02
I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto.
0:04
And this is the podcast show where we have different conversations that feel like you’re sitting at the dining room table with your girlfriends and you are learning growing, evolving and being inspired.
0:21
We have different conversations that invite you into your fullest expressed self, really defining what it means to live a life fully expressed, to be in relationship and create our relationships where you feel fully expressed.
0:35
And also what does it mean to show up fully expressed in your business and in your career?
0:41
And so every single week, traditionally, you’re either hearing from me or other amazing guest speakers that are sharing with you the different tools or stories or what it actually means to live a life fully expressed in hopes of you really finding the tools, the education, the inspiration and the perspective of what’s actually available to you.
1:04
So, thank you so much for tuning in today.
1:06
Today, we get to do a little solo session with me if you haven’t had the chance yet.
1:10
You know, last week, my boyfriend, Nick, my romantic partner and I did a podcast episode together.
1:17
And in that podcast episode, we shared our story, how we met what that actually looked like from both different perspectives where we were at before meeting each other.
1:27
And then we asked very specific questions or we asked our communities very specific questions that they wanted of us to answer.
1:35
And so I posted on social media and I also asked the virtual community that I have for women online, what would be some questions that you would want Nan I to answer?
1:46
Yeah.
1:46
So we answer those on the podcast.
1:48
And there was one specific question that we got from someone on social media that she was asking, you know, how do we navigate our triggers when we are having hard conversations?
1:58
And Nick and I shed light into what that actually looks like for us and gave really specific examples of what’s going on in the situation when I’m triggered versus when he’s triggered and how we’re actually just becoming a mirror to one another.
2:12
For today’s episode.
2:13
I wanted to dive a little bit deeper to actually giving you very specific strategies that you can do one.
2:21
What does it mean to be triggered in the middle of a difficult conversation?
2:24
What you can do when you are triggered in the middle of conversation, how to navigate someone else’s trigger as well as give you some very strategic things that to think about when you are having a hard conversation and with that being said, I also understand if you’ve heard me before, this is my thing.
2:43
I love talking about this.
2:45
You know, we can only have so much of the communication skills, right?
2:49
There’s also a somatic experience that’s happening when we are in the middle of a hard conversation.
2:54
Our body is having some kind of response to the kinds of conversations that we’re having to, you know, you feel your body tighten up, get anxious all of a sudden you want to run away for maybe a hard conversation or maybe you are someone that starts lashing out when hard conversations come up, difficult conversations come up or complicated situations or complex conversations.
3:19
And so we all have this different external experience, but we’re also all having a very internal experience and that is really much more related to the somatic experience.
3:28
And so I also want to be aware of as I give you guys, these steps also learn to give yourself grace when you’re in the middle of having these difficult conversations because your body is also responding to the experience of having these hard conversations in a way to want to protect you, to want to keep you safe because in some way, shape or form in the past, you haven’t felt that way when it came to these kinds of topics or maybe it’s being filtered through your subconscious mind and being connected to a specific event that happened in the past.
4:03
And so I’m saying that with, as you hear, these tip centric also be aware of the somatic experiences.
4:10
And if you would find it helpful for me to dive into that next piece, I’d be happy to drop into making an episode specifically around the somatic experience and what that actually looks like, what that actually feels like and what’s happening through the words that we hear and how they’re filtering through our subconscious mind and they’re becoming our reality.
4:31
But every word that we hear it creates a thought which creates an emotion and I’m happy to peel back the layers there and also give you some really strong tips on how to work through the somatic experiences.
4:43
If that sounds interesting, please reach out, send me an INS ad M on Instagram.
4:49
I am Carrano Soto and I would love to know if thats something that youd want and ill drop it in next week after this episode.
4:56
So for today, I wanna talk about very specific strategies and talk a little bit about the communication barriers that are happening when you are having difficult conversations and diving that into a little bit more to give you a little bit of light into myself and my experience.
5:10
And if you tend to struggle with having difficult conversations or don’t want to bring up a sensitive or awkward topic or maybe you’re someone that doesn’t really like to share their opinion because they don’t want to shake the room.
5:27
They don’t want to disturb the peace.
5:28
Maybe you’re someone that wants to avoid conflict or maybe you find yourself being scared if you say something that the other person might get upset or you’ll lose them or they may not become, they might not understand why you’re saying that they might judge you.
5:44
So this might be really helpful and I’ll also talk to the personality that might be on the other side of this.
5:50
But my, my experience when it comes to navigating difficult conversations in the past has been to fully avoid.
5:58
So what does that mean?
6:00
It always came to a place of me, constantly worrying about the other person in the room, making sure that they were taken care of not fully owning what I wanted, what my opinions were and what my thoughts were.
6:12
And so when it came to having difficult conversations, oh my gosh, I would shut down my throat would tighten up, my, my chest would tighten up if anything, I would want to leave the conversation.
6:24
And I would say things like I can’t have this conversation right now or can we just not have this conversation right now?
6:31
And so my system would go from like, oh, I’m avoiding this to like, I’m really quiet to, can I not have this conversation right now to only focusing on how the other person is responding in this and asking them like, hey, I know you’re the one having this hard conversation.
6:45
With me.
6:45
But like, how are you feeling?
6:47
So that essentially was a fond trauma response on my end.
6:52
And what would tend to happen for me as I started to peel the layers and see was that I was just suppressing a lot of my thoughts and my emotions that weren’t coming along with that.
7:02
And so eventually it would show up with me blowing up on the person because I would go days, weeks, months, years, not sharing something that’s been on my mind.
7:12
And then if I got triggered or to the point where I was cornered and I had to say something, I would find myself yelling at them or exploding or in my experience, it felt like this huge thing because I haven’t said it for so many days, so many weeks, so many months, so many years, it was this whole ordeal.
7:32
And so I had this compound effect of years and years of years of really not knowing how to share my voice, how to, how to share when something bothered me or when something hurt me or when I wanted to say no and say I don’t want to do that or if I didn’t have the capacity to or when it came to setting boundaries or when it came to being honest about how I was feeling in a relationship or when it came to talking to my manager at work and saying like, hey, this is how I feel this is what I want.
8:03
I need some help.
8:03
S os like those conversations were never on the table because I just so badly feared that this person may not want to love me anymore.
8:15
They might leave, they might judge me.
8:17
They might create the story of me.
8:19
And I had like such a huge fear of fine.
8:22
All right.
8:22
Another life hat for you.
8:24
If you are not doing this today, I ask you whole plunge or get yourself a bucket of water and put some ice in it and put your face in it to help wake up your system to help regulate your system, to help reset your nervous system.
8:40
Try this, try doing this first thing in the morning.
8:44
Do this when you feel heavy.
8:45
If you are not able to cold plunge, you can take a cold shower, you can do the ice bucket that I just shared.
8:51
This life hack is really, really amazing.
8:54
And if you do it and try it and you do feel like it woke you up, you felt more joy, you got more energy from it, start to implement it more into your life.
9:05
Now, I’ve also been in a relationship and have experienced what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone that is fiery and way more intense, way more direct and you know, for that specific person, they tend to be more just like straight up about how they’re feeling, right.
9:23
They’re very clear sometimes.
9:24
They can be very fiery.
9:26
Sometimes they can be more in fight or flight and they’re like yelling at you, but they lack listening.
9:31
And so in that experience, it’s, it’s coming from a place of like you don’t hear me and I wanna be heard and they’re saying it’s so much louder.
9:38
You know, you can also be the person that completely freezes when you are having difficult conversations.
9:43
So this looks like someone brings up a sensitive topic and you pull up your phone and you just numb out and you don’t want to talk, you’re not listening, maybe you can think of teenagers or just people in your life like a family member that whenever something sensitive comes up, they just stare at you and they don’t say anything.
10:01
It’s almost like they’re numb and they don’t hardly have the words to express themselves and ask you, ask them questions to dive deeper.
10:07
They don’t really have much to say or they don’t really respond to what you’re saying.
10:12
That’s another response.
10:14
And so if any of those resonate, I really do think that this, this episode is going to be very supportive to you.
10:20
And if you think of anyone that has been struggling with that themselves or is struggling with someone in those different categories, this could, will be helpful for you too.
10:31
So the very first thing I want to share with you.
10:34
So when you are in communication with someone, when you are having hard conversations, just like in your day to day life, some of the most common communication barriers that happen is first off is a lack of emotional intelligence.
10:48
And so what does that actually mean?
10:49
It’s the ability to identify, handle one’s emotions.
10:53
It’s being emotionally intelligent, allows you to understand your emotions and how to respond in them accordingly.
10:59
So I, you know, a lot of us are stepping into up leveling our emotional intelligence game, being able to identify and handle and be with our emotions and also be able to give what our emotions need and want in a way that is supportive to our systems.
11:16
And so, but this, this is a really big factor because obviously, emotions are a big part of communicating.
11:22
It’s a big part of feeling competent and safe in relationship.
11:27
It’s a big part in having hard conversations and saying hard things.
11:32
The second one is obviously fear, which I’ve already mentioned.
11:35
So the fear of being judged, saying something wrong, upsetting someone, someone creating a perspective of you.
11:42
So this deep fear of like, oh will this person leave me if I say this and or is this person making a story of me?
11:49
If I say this, what would they think of me almost like we think that what we say identifies as becomes a part of our identity and that makes something of us.
11:57
And we’re so worried that the other person will take what we say and almost like stamp us as that stuff.
12:04
The third one that is a communication barrier is the lack of listening.
12:09
So in our world today, we are doing a million things in one.
12:14
So you find yourself really busy, you maybe you find yourself, you have kids, you have work, you’re running from one thing to the next and we’re just lacking a lack of listening and that shows up by different distractions that can show up by being modestly uninterested, so disinterest and also a lack of empathy.
12:35
So there’s no genuine way of actually people listening to what you’re saying, there’s such a lack of listening.
12:42
And this is such a big thing when it comes to accurately communicating because one of the biggest things that we all want, when we are saying hard things or we’re leaning into communication is we want to feel seen and we want to feel heard.
12:53
And so listening is a huge factor of that, but it is, it is one of the biggest communication barriers that we run into today.
13:00
Judgments and assumptions is the fourth one.
13:02
So this means that when we are in a conversation with someone, we we are already assuming what they mean by what they’re saying or we are projecting and making judgments of what they’re saying.
13:15
So we are not fully listening in that situation because we are filtering it through our mind and making this quote unquote summary or judgment or assumption of what they’re saying.
13:26
And we’re not actually listening to what they’re saying.
13:29
And then fifth is the human defense system.
13:32
So within ourselves, within our mind, within the psyche, within the nervous system, we have these parts of us that clearly wanted to protect us.
13:40
There’s parts of us that wanna keep us safe.
13:42
And if there’s ever moments that our body does not feel safe when it comes to having our conversations, our human defense systems gonna kick in.
13:50
It’s gonna be like, how do I protect myself?
13:53
How do I manage the situation and how do I keep myself from feeling this emotion?
13:57
So it’s gonna go into overdrive and it’s got automatically do all these things to quote unquote, keep us safe to quote unquote, protect us from a difficult conversation.
14:08
And so with that being said, I want to transition into what it looks like for the different archetypes that I’ve created to be triggered.
14:20
And this is just good for you guys to be aware of when you guys are in the middle of conversation because I want you to pay attention to seeing this as like, oh I’m aware that I’m doing that.
14:30
Oh I’m aware that that I’m doing.
14:31
So if you find yourself being impulsive, wanting to fight when difficult conversations come up, attempt to dominate the conversation or you have a, I don’t give a fuck kind of attitude.
14:45
This to me means that you are the king and queen of fire.
14:50
This means that this can feel like internally, like impulsive yelling, screaming, tight, chest tightening, lashing out, contracted, hypervigilant, aggressive, can’t sit still, urgent energy, going outward, rapid heartbeat, short temper bleam.
15:09
And really, you’re, you’re searching for a need to control and you’re also so much easier to judge the other person.
15:16
And so this archetype is what I call the king or queen of fire.
15:20
This is the person that tends to be way more impulsive, wanting to fight.
15:24
I attempted to dominate and I, and I don’t give a fuck attitude.
15:28
The second archetype that I’ve created is called the queen and king of repressing.
15:35
And so this can look like wanting to run away almost like you’re bracing for impact when hard conversations come up and you have this, I get the fuck out attitude like you’re chilly yourself.
15:46
But you also wanna run away and get out.
15:48
The crazy thing about these two archetypes is that this can also feel like internally like impulsive, yelling, screaming, chest tightening, lashing out contraction.
15:59
It’s just the two main differences.
16:01
That’s the queen of fire.
16:03
They want to, they don’t give a fuck.
16:05
They want to attend, they wanna fight, they want to lean in to this, you know, pressing or the king or queen pressing, they want to get the fuck out, they want to run away.
16:14
So maybe you, you resonate with one of those two, the next two archetypes.
16:19
The first one I want to talk about is the people pleasing queen or king.
16:23
This can look like wanting to shut down.
16:26
You’re defaulting to what other people want.
16:29
You feel a lot of pressure in your head, you wanna go internal, you wanna check out, you feel like you want to defend yourself in these conversations, but you can’t, this can also feel almost like impulsive and feel spacey at the same time in the middle of these typical conversations.
16:47
The last archetype that it might be something that you might step into.
16:51
This is the ice queen or king and what this looks like did zoned out completely shut down, slow moving, inability to think, heavy, lethargic, numb, mute, scared.
17:04
This can also feel like impulsive feeling spacey, shutting down.
17:08
So you notice that the feelings are the same.
17:10
But the two differentiators between these two is the people pleasing queen or king is tends to be defaulting to what the other person wants.
17:19
They have this sense of awareness that they want to defend themselves in the difficult conversation, but they don’t know how versus the ice queen or king.
17:28
This tends to be someone that just goes numb, just completely shuts down, doesn’t feel safe.
17:34
The zone Tao is scared.
17:36
You find them very quiet, almost like nothing is in there.
17:40
And you know what I would say would be an archetype to work through, which could be what I call the confident expressive queen or king is.
17:52
You know, I think the goal when it comes to having difficult conversations is being able to show up in these conversations.
18:01
Clear, neutral, curious thoughts.
18:04
There’s a sense of curiosity to what’s happening in the conversation.
18:08
There’s not a sense of pointing fingers or pointing fingers at yourself.
18:14
It’s just very neutral in your presence.
18:17
When you’re talking to someone, there’s no need for you to defend or control.
18:21
There is this calm, centered, open energy that you’re in.
18:26
You don’t feel like you’re on offense.
18:28
So you don’t feel like you’re defensive.
18:30
You are being pers you’re holding perspective versus being judging.
18:35
You have access to heart energy.
18:37
So you’re, you’re in this love, compassion, forgiveness, understanding energy, you are flexible in your viewpoint and feel safe and you feel open, there’s lightness and there’s more connection and collaboration with the person that you’re in this conversation with.
18:55
You are relaxed, you’re present, you’re expansive.
18:58
And so there is this sense of you fully expressing yourself.
19:03
And so you find yourself fully present in the middle of communicating hard things.
19:08
You find yourself fully expressing yourself vulnerably and authentically while also creating a safe space for others to feel seen and heard.
19:18
And so this is quote unquote the space and you lean into hard conversations.
19:24
This is going to be the most supportive energy when having hard conversations.
19:28
Now, I know that not all of us and be in this space all the time.
19:33
You know, this, this can shift depending on who you’re talking to.
19:38
What the conversation was about, how regulated your nervous system is that day, how much space and capacity you have, what your window of tolerance looks like.
19:48
You know, this is something that you get to practice going on, stepping into more and more and more as you start to really peel back the layers as to what’s coming up for you when you are having these hard conversations.
20:02
And that’s the very first thing that I want you guys to, to think about is when you’re having these hard conversations, does your energy feel like it’s attacking and making it about the other person?
20:14
Does it feel like you’re attacking internally and making it about you?
20:17
Do you find yourself attached to a certain outcome?
20:21
Do you lose your curiosity?
20:23
Are you trying to control the way that someone responds to something versus being open to receiving however they respond, you know, you can feel those different dynamics.
20:37
One is really based off perspective versus judging.
20:41
And like I said, you know, depending on the person that you’re with or who you’re in conversation with or what the environment looks like, you can bounce between these different archetypes, these different states of being these different states of energy that you’re in.
20:53
When it comes to hard conversations, for example, you might feel very, very safe with your friends, you might feel very, very safe with your partner.
21:02
Then when your parents come around things, get a little touchy when certain conversations come up because they’ve been around your world for such a long time.
21:10
Maybe your sister or your brother can just poke you in certain ways and you’re just like how I feel about that.
21:17
I don’t know if I can keep my cool.
21:19
So, you know, I would say get curious about the conversations of the people that you feel really present with when having hard conversations.
21:29
You know, if there is someone you in your life start to pay attention to.
21:33
What does it feel like for me right now about being vulnerable and authentic here?
21:37
What is it about this relationship that I could do that?
21:41
What, what am I doing for this other person that allows them to also feel safe and inviting to share for me?
21:48
And then when you’re in conversations with other people, you know, get really curious that that trigger you get really curious about like, what is it about this conversation that feels different than the one that I feel safe in?
22:00
What is it about this conversation where I feel like I can say whatever is on my mind, I can be super authentic.
22:05
I can share what’s coming up for me.
22:07
I’m open to working through these things together with them.
22:11
What is it about that relationship?
22:12
Just take note just become present of what that actually looks like.
22:17
And as we move through this, I really wanted to, to give you the foundation to having conscious conversations and conscious communication and what that actually looks like.
22:29
So the very first one is if you’re going to have a hard conversation with someone in your life, I want to make sure that you’re present as well as also making sure that the other person is present.
22:39
And so sometimes you want to have a very specific conversation at a very specific time because it’s very much on our heart and on our mind and it feels like I need to do this conversation.
22:48
Now, the truth is as much as I am so encouraging of you just being open to saying whatever is on your mind.
22:55
If you find yourself wanting to dig into a certain topic, let’s put it that way, set up a very specific time where you can be very present with the person that you want to have a conversation with.
23:05
The next one is as you start to share and they start to share, try your best to not assume.
23:11
So, what does this mean?
23:13
If you find yourself assuming if you feel your emotions starting to come up, if you feel yourself starting to get worked up or feel chaotic internally, I want you to take a minute and just pause, go take a pause.
23:25
You can always say, hey, can I just go get a, take a quick deep breath real quick and then we’ll come back to this conversation or can I just get a glass of water real quick so I can come back to this conversation, whatever that is that you need to do, take a big deep breath, take a pause.
23:39
If you need to step away for a little bit, go do that clear head and then come back and ask clarifying questions and reflect back to them what they’re hearing.
23:47
So they can confirm that you heard what you they were trying to say and two, you can dive a little bit deeper.
23:54
So one, the one little small trick that I love to do when I don’t understand is say things like, can you tell me what you mean about that or if I’m hearing you correctly?
24:04
Did you say XYZ?
24:07
Like is this what you meant by that?
24:08
And so hopefully the other person on their side would be like, yes, no, this is what I mean by that and you’re like, oh OK, that makes more sense.
24:15
So we tend to hear things and filter it through our subconscious mind, which leads to assumptions and judgments based off our own experiences.
24:25
But that doesn’t mean that the other person on the other side of the conversation actually meant that way.
24:29
So really getting comfortable with clarifying if we, if we can all nail this part right here really deeply clarifying, get that for yourself.
24:38
After you guys do that and reflect and do that, you know, at the end, as you guys are working towards what you need, make sure to come to an agreement of how the next steps are.
24:50
What does that look supportive and make sure you clarify and reflect that again?
24:53
So sometimes we end these hard conversations and we’re like, yeah, he totally heard me right.
24:59
Or she totally took away that I need this.
25:02
We’re going to be fine and then all of a sudden the thing happens again and they did not respond that way.
25:07
And you’re like, what the fuck?
25:08
Why didn’t you?
25:10
We just talked about this yesterday like why are you not making a change?
25:15
And that could happen because we are assuming that they heard what our agreement was between the two of us.
25:21
And to be honest, that is not always the case.
25:24
And as you guys get a good rhythm, maybe you guys will get there.
25:26
But I would say as you’re in this conversation with someone be like, I would love this.
25:30
Let’s see this a good agreement.
25:32
This feels really good for both of us.
25:34
This is how we’re going to move forward and it, it just keeps things really, really smooth, very, very clear.
25:40
All the things are on the table and you just know how to move forward.
25:44
It allows the relationship to take action in a direction that you guys both really want to go and then wrap it up with clarifying and reflecting again, just do the b again, just make sure everyone’s all heard and seen and as you do that, you know, so one thing I want you to think about when you are preparing to have this conversation is first and foremost, identify what’s coming up for you and the story that you are creating.
26:07
So let’s say, for example, I’m trying to think this is going to be such a silly example.
26:13
But let’s say my boyfriend doesn’t get me that flowers on Valentine’s Day.
26:18
And I really wanted Valentine’s Day and flowers and he didn’t do anything special for me and he didn’t think about it.
26:23
And I’m feeling a certain kind of way internally.
26:26
I am feeling like he hasn’t thought about me that he didn’t think about me and he didn’t put any effort that he doesn’t care about this relationship that he no longer loves me and my mind is spiraling.
26:36
I was like, and then I’m like, am I being too dramatic?
26:38
Am I asking for too much and all this is coming up?
26:41
And so if I want to bring this up to my partner and I want to say, hey, you know, I’m creating the story that you don’t care about this relationship as much as I do because I was really hoping that you were going to get me flowers or you could say, you know, as I’ve been reflecting on Valentine’s Day, I found myself creating the story that you don’t really love or think about our relationship as much.
27:08
And So you see the language that I’m saying that I am taking, I am creating the story, I am creating the story for this situation.
27:17
And so that part right there really, really helps the other person take a step back and not feel attacked in your words.
27:25
So they’re like, OK, so this is coming up for them.
27:27
The thing that I did is adding to the thing that is coming up for them, but they’re feeling this way.
27:33
So you are, you are taking responsibility for the story that you’re creating internally and then follow up with that like I need, you need from them, what you want to hear from them or what you’re asking for.
27:43
And so for sticking on this flower thing, you know, feel like I would say, hey, I’m creating the story that you don’t really care or you didn’t put in as much thought into Valentine’s Day because I’m not much of a thought to you.
27:57
What I would really love to know is that that’s true.
28:00
I find that being reassured is really important.
28:03
Like I would love for you to, to tell me if that’s true or not true, like, and if it’s not true, like it would be super supportive.
28:10
That part of me really wants to be reassured that that’s not the case.
28:14
And can we talk through what came up or like, what’s your perspective about Valentine’s Day and what’s coming up for you when it comes to Valentine’s Day because this is how I’m feeling in our relationship.
28:27
The third step is really getting to a place of talking through it.
28:34
And as you guys are talking through it, allow him or them to share their perspective about what’s coming up for them as they give you the reassurance and you know, asking questions, like, is there anything that’s coming up for you that you’d like to bring up to the table?
28:50
And then if there’s more that’s coming up for you, you can continue to lean in.
28:53
Ok.
28:53
So like now this is coming up for me.
28:55
I would love to peel this back and forth and understand that be like, ok, great.
28:59
And then if you guys conclude, like, conclude with an agreement of what that looks like moving forward.
29:04
And so maybe it is for Valentine’s Day moving forward, something that let’s say you guys end on the partner doesn’t, doesn’t necessarily celebrate Valentine’s Day or maybe they think that it’s silly and they didn’t, they didn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day because they didn’t really think that you thought about it.
29:21
But now they realize that Valentine’s Day is important to you and that you like to be thought of or you just like need certain things and what that looks like for you.
29:30
And so now you guys are in agreement that, you know, Valentine’s Day next year, maybe he now recognized how much it’s an important day for you that he can give that to you and see if he’s willing to do that.
29:43
And then if he, if you are OK with whatever that looks like, agree upon that and conclude.
29:49
So you see that there is this constant like cycle that you can repeat when you’re having these hard conversations.
29:54
So the very first one is identifying the story that’s coming up for you.
29:59
The next one is identifying what you need and what you want after you identify the story and like what you’re really searching for in that moment by having that conversation in that conversation, really unpacking, like what your perspective is and what that looks like and always coming from like parts of me are feeling this way or using language that is not pointing the finger at you guys.
30:23
That’s not necessarily going to be the most supportive in having these conversations because if you do that and you point the finger as to like you are so, so funny to me that you always talk about this.
30:36
But like when it comes to Valentine’s Day, you didn’t show up for me at all.
30:40
That’s very tacky.
30:42
And that language can definitely trigger someone and that’s gonna keep the other person from being able to hear you in the way that you want to be heard or actually hear what you’re saying because I deep down what I think in this situation about Valentine’s Day, what could be coming up for you is, you know, I really, I felt like you didn’t think of me.
31:02
I felt like I wasn’t important to you.
31:04
I felt like you don’t love me as much as I love you, you know, whatever it is that that vulnerability aspect is one of the biggest things in these conversations is really, really feeling safe, to be honest about what’s coming up for you.
31:17
Now, let’s say that the other person doesn’t necessarily respond in the best way.
31:23
So how do you do that first off is check in with yourself if they bounce back and they’re triggered, take a big deep breath and put the questions back on them.
31:34
So if they start to get defensive, just say, hey, what’s coming up for you right now?
31:38
Or I realize that this is a sensitive topic, like can you share with me what you’re thinking?
31:44
And so now you’re getting compassionately curious about their experience in that moment.
31:50
You got to remember that there’s two people in having this hard conversation.
31:54
There’s two people that are working through the communication barriers that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, there’s two people that have triggers and nervous systems and everything like that are human.
32:08
And so if you find the other person getting defensive, try and find your ground, take a big deep breath.
32:14
If you need to step away and come to back the conversation, come back to the conversation, but lean into asking them what’s coming up for you.
32:22
And that can be really hard if you’re someone that’s already scared in these conversations, that already feels like this as an unsafe or anything.
32:31
But if you can create the space and the desire and a capacity, at least on a minimal level to say, hey, can you share with me what’s coming up for you right now or was there something that I said that made you feel this way or anything along those lines?
32:47
So you’re asking them about their experience?
32:50
It can be about what about this conversation is uncomfortable or what part of this conversation made you want to yell at me?
32:59
And hopefully, if you come into it, like us as soft and as grounded, they’ll be able to share with you their experience and you can get light into what’s happening on their end of the conversation.
33:09
And the last and final thing that I want to conclude on for this episode because I get a lot of questions as to, how do you compromise in relationship?
33:17
Do you always have to compromise?
33:19
And a part of me feels like most of the time if both people in the relationship are willing to, they’ll find the answers in.
33:27
Yes.
33:27
And that doesn’t mean either or that doesn’t mean, oh, I’m only gonna listen to Kenna’s opinion in this situation and I’m not gonna listen to Kerry’s, I’m gonna do everything that Karenna wants.
33:36
The goal here is how can I meet Karen’s needs as well as meets Kerri’s needs.
33:42
Where, what does that look like?
33:44
And what does that dance look like?
33:45
Because when you are in these conversations, if you go into it, wanting to be curious and want to and together and want to collaborate, you guys will come to a conclusion.
33:56
Now, if it gets to a place where you guys can’t find a conclusion or whatever that means to you, then you got to ask yourself a bigger question as to like, have I unpacked everything here.
34:06
Have I truly understood and taken responsibility for my end and how this is working?
34:11
Have they have I fully unpacked and understood what their position and then this and then you get to dive into like, is this relationship aligned to me?
34:18
Is there a win, win?
34:20
But you want to start with like, OK, what is the win, win here?
34:23
First when you enter with that energy into a conversation tends to make it a lot easier.
34:29
Traditionally, you know, most people will go into the conversation because there those are playing a role and they want to protect themselves.
34:37
So they’re very much thinking about how do I win?
34:40
How do I stay safe?
34:41
How do I get what I want?
34:42
So I don’t feel this way anymore.
34:44
And that truly takes away from the fact of you two trying to win together, the collaborative, open energy, heart centered, love, compassion, and understanding.
34:55
It’s truly what’s coming up.
34:57
You guys, when you are in the middle of these difficult conversations, it’s just parts of you that do not feel safe.
35:02
There’s parts of you that have not been seen, it’s very vulnerable to have these kinds of conversations.
35:07
And when you can start to see the parts within you with that kind of grace, grace and empathy and understanding and love for yourself.
35:16
Imagine you being able to give that for the other person in the conversation as well because they are truly having their own experience.
35:23
You guys trust me.
35:25
But I want you guys to also take away that this is possible and it’s very important for you to lean into hard conversations.
35:33
It’s really important for you to create the space of having hard conversations with yourself first and giving these different parts within you the opportunity to express themselves.
35:43
And what does that actually look like?
35:45
So I would absolutely love to hear from you if there are any very specific questions that came up from this episode, because I really feel like I could make this in a number of different ways.
35:56
But if there’s very specific questions that you have, when it comes to having these hard conversations, I would love to hear from you again.
36:03
Go ahead and send me a message that I am Grana Soto on Instagram.
36:08
If you are listening to this and you, you are in the fully expressed community that I host virtually and that is completely open for anyone to join.
36:16
You can also send me a slack message and let me know what your questions are.
36:21
And I’ll try to make it a point.
36:22
I will make it a point to answer those questions on the podcast.
36:26
So we can just really peel this back and dive in and support you where you’re at on your journey and having had hard conversations with that being said, thank you so much for listening to today’s episode.
36:36
Go ahead and share this with a friend, share this with someone that you think this might be supportive to listen to this.
36:42
You guys, if we can get to a place where we create the capacity, have the skills, get have the embodied skill of having hard conversations and authentically communicating.
36:53
Being honest, being transparent.
36:55
Our world would be so healthy if we knew how to listen to people, hear people, be honest little about ourselves.
37:03
I truly think that there would be so much more love in the world and by leaning into these hard conversations.
37:08
If you are open and willing to learning the skills and learning how to create capacity within your body and your nervous system, there is so much love and understanding and forward energy that comes from leaning into these hard conversations.
37:24
And so with that being said, thank you so much for listening today.
37:28
I will talk to you all soon.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the Fully Express podcast with Karenna, I’m your podcast host, Karenna Soto.
0:05
And this is the show where we have conversations that truly invite you into living your life, fully express what it means to create, find, create relationships that feel fully expressed as well as life and business.
0:20
And so we’re constantly having different conversations and sharing different stories, information, education and tips and tricks and all the things to truly invite you into living your life as your most authentic and fullest self.
0:35
So, thank you so much for tuning in today.
0:38
Today is really fun because I got to get to be on here with a very, very special guest, my romantic partner, Nick Boleto.
0:49
Some of you guys probably know me.
0:50
I know some of the listers on here.
0:52
Maybe you guys have seen us on Instagram or social media or in our lives or through our friends and our family.
0:58
And we’re so excited for today’s episode because as it is Valentine’s Day coming up and today is Valentine’s Day, the day that you guys will be listening to this episode.
1:09
I really thought it would be really beautiful to share with you what our love story was and what we’ve been through and what we think about love and what we think about relationship.
1:21
And at the end of the episode, I’m also going to answer very specific questions that I asked.
1:26
So I asked my community, the fully expressed community that I have online as well as I asked everyone on social media, what kinds of questions would you like, Nick and I to answer?
1:37
So we’re going to save those questions to the end, Nick.
1:39
And I did not prepare for these questions at all.
1:43
If anything, we’re just going to answer them as our most authentic selves, right?
1:49
We’re just going to deliver what, whatever comes up in the moment.
1:52
So with that being said, Nick, would you like to say hello?
1:55
Hi, everyone.
1:57
I’ve been great to be here.
1:59
Do you want to tell them a little bit about yourself who you are?
2:02
My name is Nick and right now I’m working as a Wellness manager at a natural brochure, one of the biggest baddest, best natural grocery stores in the entire world.
2:17
In fact, and aside from that, I work at Holistic health coach.
2:23
I actually, by the time you guys are hearing this, I’ll probably be done my course work to be a certified holistic health practitioner.
2:31
And hopefully by the end of the year or rather my goal for the end of the year is to become a naturopathic doctor.
2:39
So I will pass my certification and then I’ll be able to do some shadowing, take my board exam and then I’ll be the least respected doctor that any of, you know, but the most important one and, yeah, that’s a little bit about what I’m up to these days.
2:55
I’ve worked in collegiate strength and conditioning.
2:58
I have a degree in exercise science.
3:01
They had a online fitness coaching business, online life coaching business.
3:07
I worked in business coaching.
3:09
I’ve done everything to try to help people be better version of themselves.
3:15
This is the path of now.
3:16
Landers on.
3:17
Yeah, the natural health world.
3:19
Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, I feel like eventually you should come in here and tell your story because you’ve started in one place and it feels like you’re coming back to that place.
3:28
But it’s just funny how your career, your profession has just evolved.
3:33
And I think it’s such a beautiful story to tell other people and show people as an example.
3:39
And I’m so excited for you to become a naturopathic doctor.
3:43
I literally, if you don’t, if you don’t already know this about me, you know, I have been obsessed with health and bettering myself for the better part of the last five years.
3:54
And when Nick and I first started dating, I was seeing this natural pa and so funny enough, Nick did not believe in anything that I was telling him at the time.
4:04
You know, I was sharing with him the different supplements that I was taking and how it was getting tested and how they were making me better and fast forward to 2.5 years of dating and going through this his own wellness journey and health journey.
4:18
Now he’s becoming a naturopathic doctor.
4:20
So that is probably good to say that maybe something that you are not necessarily open to don’t understand can actually be a big part of your life and look at it like literally stepping into that today.
4:32
Yeah, there’s lots of I think like we talk a lot about in the personal development space.
4:37
We talk a lot about like the things that we learn and unlearn in terms of our embodiment.
4:43
But that’s true of even like back to our knowledge based things that there’s a learning and unlearning.
4:49
It’s like I had to unlearn the institution of research and science to learn like what is probably closer to the truth about our bodies.
5:00
And now here I am.
5:01
Yeah, we’ll have to do a whole episode on that because I think it’s really important.
5:05
But you know, the beautiful thing is that, you know, so when I met Nick, he was a life and business coach for entrepreneurs that were very successful entrepreneurs because he was working underneath the coach that I was working with.
5:18
So about 2.5 years ago, I was working with a my coach, business and life coach his name was Jake Kaufman.
5:25
His name is Jake Kaufman.
5:27
Not we is Jake Kaufman.
5:29
And I was working with him at the time I was in a six month container.
5:33
And when I got the opportunity to work with him, he offered me to go to a retreat as a part of me starting to work with him.
5:40
And at the time when I was, this is where I was like really, really creating community.
5:45
Like I had stepped into these newer versions of myself.
5:49
I was really craving to be around other coaches, other people that kind of just got it.
5:53
But I was looking for an in person experience because I had experienced a lot of coaching virtually.
5:59
And I was like, I really want to go to this retreat.
6:01
So when he offered me to go to the retreat, it was 2021.
6:05
So this is like just coming out of COVID where intense and especially at certain locations, we’ve had intense isolation plus, like so many of us were coaches who were working online.
6:19
So it was just like really craving unity, I think like globally but also Corona especially was calling about it.
6:28
Yeah, I remember, you know, Jake’s marketing spoke to me so deeply because it just felt like I was so alone coming out of the out of the pandemic, you know, and so burnt out.
6:37
So I was craving in person connection and that’s a marketing for you guys too.
6:41
Because at first, Jake was like marketing to like, we’re going to help coaches add five K to their bottom line and like rickets.
6:49
And then as soon as he was like, we’re gonna like, give you the space to, to like connect and go deep and all these things and like talking about the intense isolation that comes with entrepreneurship, people started signing up and it was crazy.
7:02
So like marketing lesson for those of you who are entrepreneurs, figure out what your ideal client really wants.
7:10
So there’s, there’s the life and business coach and Nick and just his coaching background.
7:15
But so that’s how I ended up at this retreat.
7:17
And this is going to lead into our love story, which I am so excited to share with you guys because I truly believe that I manifested our relationship.
7:27
I think we’re going to end up telling you how, where I was before that.
7:31
But so I get to go to this retreat.
7:33
And then Nick started, I knew of Nick through social media, obviously, he worked for Jake in some way, shape or form.
7:41
So I was like, who is this Nick Balletto guy?
7:43
Don’t know who he is.
7:45
But I was curious, I was like, really curious, but I never really did much to like, think too much into it.
7:51
And then we go on this retreat and I went into this retreat fully thinking that this is going to be an opportunity for me to get vulnerable to be seen to grow, expand.
8:04
He so many versions of me.
8:07
So I was not in the place of I want to date or I’m here to meet someone like that was nowhere on the top of my mind.
8:14
If anything right before this retreat, like I decided that I wasn’t really going to date anyone.
8:19
I was going to focus on me, which I will get into after.
8:22
But you know, so I was going to retreat, fully focused on myself, fully focused on healing the deeper parts within me and fully focusing on my business.
8:30
And so once we get to retreat, I get to meet Nick for the first time.
8:34
Wow, what was that?
8:37
It was, it was like, I was like, huh I definitely felt at the retreat like I felt old to Nick at the retreat.
8:44
But again, like I had this really stubborn part of me that was like, nah, we’re not here to today, we’re here to do business, we’re here to heal, we’re here to do these things.
8:54
So I was in my own world, Nick had a different plan.
8:58
I did.
8:59
I sure did.
9:00
I had been scouting Corona for months on social media.
9:05
I used to, I would follow all of Jake’s clients.
9:08
Now, most of Jake’s clients were my clients, but even the clients that he, he specifically worked with one on one because they were at a certain level in their business.
9:17
I would still follow them just to be able to support them.
9:19
Plus, I mean, Jake and I, we respected each other as coaches.
9:25
And so even his coaching clients, he would ask me like my perspective on certain things that would come up.
9:30
And so I just wanted to be in the know of like who he was working with.
9:34
And so I followed all of his clients as like a general rule of thumb.
9:38
So I had already been following Corina, but every time Corina’s post would come up, my heart would put her patter a little bit.
9:45
No way.
9:46
I mean, she’s just so stunning and she has a glow to her that it’s just, it’s special like other people just don’t have that to them.
9:56
So I was immediately drawn in and then of course, you actually read her content, you see the level of depth that she has to her, you see like her values that she embodies and was very attracted to it.
10:10
And so I was going into the street retreat hoping that Kara was the person that she looked like she was online, which she obviously was.
10:20
And if she passed my tests, then I was going to pursue her at the retreat.
10:26
So I came into the retreat with a very simple three step plan.
10:31
All right.
10:31
Step number one or day, number one, ignore her entirely because I’m there.
10:37
I have to be professional.
10:39
I mean, I can’t be flirting over the course of a three day retreat.
10:43
You’re also there to work.
10:47
He was the head coach at this retreat underneath Jake, right?
10:50
He was the head like leading coach underneath Jake.
10:53
So like 14 people there and I was currently coaching like five and there was also perspective clients there too.
11:01
So over the out of the 14 people who attended, I ended up coaching, I think 10 of them maybe even more.
11:08
So I had to be professional.
11:10
So j double one, ignore her.
11:13
She doesn’t exist.
11:16
Day number two is break the ice professionally.
11:20
So I like wiggled my way into conversations, try to help crea with her business and keep it mostly professional.
11:28
Now, of course, I’m gonna spit some game, but for the most part, be a pretty.
11:35
And then day number three just go all in on Kara which I did.
11:41
We spent the entire night of the, the third night talking like probably three hours.
11:48
We were just like isolated from the group and we just talked and hung out.
11:54
And at this point, I’m feeling like I just executed that plan to A t like they’re gonna be talking about me years and years from now, they’re gonna be talking about the levels of charisma and chivalry that I’ve displayed over the course of this retreat.
12:11
They’re gonna be writing books about my game.
12:15
All right, perfectly.
12:17
Exactly how it was.
12:18
That’s how I feel.
12:19
That’s how he felt.
12:20
OK?
12:21
So I’m going to backtrack just a little bit.
12:23
So what’s what I love about, what you just said is that you fell in love with me through social media and how I showed up and I just want to clarify, you know, during that time, something that I was super nervous about, especially when I was stepping into these versions of me as on Instagram, a coach like really owning these like personal deep parts of me.
12:41
I truly thought at one point that I wasn’t going to meet anyone that loved me for that.
12:45
And you just said that like that was the thing that like pulled you in in some way, shape or form.
12:50
And I still take this moment.
12:52
I’m like, you know, those fears always creep in.
12:55
And eventually once I owned that this is who I was clearly, someone else was like, felt that love for me too and loved it as much as I loved it.
13:05
But fast tracking got to the point where Nick is literally spilling his heart.
13:10
Like I am learning every childhood wound about him.
13:13
I am learning not all of them, but I am learning like the depths of Nick who he is by night three.
13:20
And at this point in my world, I’m like, I was like, not even thinking that he was hitting on me.
13:26
I love you so much, but I wasn’t because I was like, all right.
13:30
So I’ve had these vulnerable deep conversations with every single person here, there were other men at the retreat.
13:36
So we were all going there.
13:37
We were all like here see me hear me like all these things.
13:41
And so I felt like I was just holding space for its time and I was like, cool, I get to know him.
13:48
And yes, we were, we spent like three hours talking and we were just going in the depths of sharing with each other who we were, what we thought about the retreat and what our takeaways were and just all these things.
13:59
But I was clearly in a completely different headspace.
14:04
I was nowhere near like, oh this man is flirting with me.
14:08
Oh This man is interested in me like completely over my head, did not even think twice or it’s so fast track to the next day is the day that we all decide to leave.
14:19
And you know, I, I vividly remember as we were leaving did bring it up in the car.
14:25
I was like, there is something that’s drawing me to Nick, but I don’t really know, maybe it’s just this part of me that thinks this and I was like, I just wrote it off.
14:32
And so later that night as we were all coming back from the treat, I mean, post retreat, there’s just so much that comes up for you like you’re just so much happens in three days.
14:42
You’re like, what the fuck just happened in person in a lot of ways, which is why I love retreats if they’re done really well.
14:47
And also like, I was just on such a high from the retreat.
14:52
And so I was coming home and I was like catching up energetically because I was naturally just tired and also just like simply processing.
15:01
And so one way I thought about processing was like, I was looking back at all the videos that we had from the retreat and I was kind of sending all the photos and videos that I had to other people.
15:10
And I came across a video that Nick I took of Nick.
15:13
And so throughout the retreat, we did this one exercises where we are facing our fears and we jumped off a cliff to face our fears and, and facing our fear, we were going to basically jump into this version of ourselves that we really want to step into and expand to.
15:29
And it’s really remarkable how these exercises like, truly meet you and that you’re like, oh, just a simple jumping off the cliff fear type of thing.
15:38
But if you put the intention behind it, it like, really is such a representation of what’s happening in their day to day.
15:46
And so yes, I had this video of Nick.
15:49
And so I reached out to Nick at probably like 8:39 p.m. The next day I was like on Instagram because I didn’t even have his number.
15:57
And I was like, hey, I came across this video and I wanted to know if you want it like, can I send it to you?
16:05
I can’t really send it to you on Instagram.
16:07
Like what’s your number?
16:08
And I’ll send you the video.
16:09
So he texts me his number on Instagram.
16:11
I send him the video and then he continues talking to me and I go, what the fuck does he want?
16:18
I literally said that to myself because he continued the conversation.
16:22
And it was at this point in the conversation where we were like, the conversation was dead.
16:27
There wasn’t more to go.
16:28
I wasn’t really asking questions, but he still found ways to keep the conversation going.
16:34
And I’m like, dude, I got to go to bed.
16:36
It’s like 1010 30.
16:38
By this point, I’m like, I need to go to sleep.
16:40
And on the other side of the phone, Nick was having a completely different experience.
16:46
So on the other side of the thought, I, well, on the last day of the retreat, as Corina mentioned, like, there’s so much like, especially like she said, when a retreat is well done like that.
16:59
I mean, even as the one of the facilitators, I’m walking away with business lessons.
17:03
I’m walking away with personal insights, walking away with like healing new values that I want to embody and you’re set off after this three day scramble and you’re supposed to integrate all of that.
17:19
And at the time, I was living with, I had a great roommate, but I was living kind of in a rough situation.
17:26
I was not in good housing and I was thinking about integrating everything that I’d gotten out of the retreat.
17:34
And I was like, there’s no shot that I’m going to be able to integrate if I go home right now.
17:38
So between that and then also wanting to take out on a date, I was like, I can’t go home.
17:46
So I’m explaining where home a home for me at the time was Charleston, South Carolina.
17:50
So the other side of the world.
17:53
And so I’m explaining this to the chef who worked the retreat and him and I had connected really well over the course of the few days we were there.
18:02
And he’s like, dude, why don’t you just come stay with me?
18:05
And he lived in San Diego.
18:07
And I was like, and I think this is one of the ways that I’ve like grown a lot in the last few years and as far as like my risk taking, but at the time, this is like, represented a huge risk for me because I didn’t have a way home anymore, right?
18:24
Like my flight is that day that I have booked.
18:27
So I’ll have to book a new flight, which is obviously an investment.
18:31
I’m gonna get in the car with this guy that I don’t really know to go to a house.
18:36
I don’t know where it is.
18:38
Exactly.
18:39
And I don’t know San Diego and I just there by myself, I’ve got like my bag that I packed for three, a four day trip, you know, and I’m like, something is calling me to do this.
18:53
So I took him up on it and so we are, we sit down to dinner, he takes me out to dinner that first night that I’m in town in San Diego and we’re sitting there and I’m like, I guess that I should text Kenna.
19:06
So that’s, that’s why I’m staying in California.
19:09
And so I open Instagram to text to message Coretta and I have ad M from her and I look at the chef across the table from me and I was like, she’s already in my D MS, I’m thinking I’ve won.
19:23
And so she’s like, hey, I have this video from the retreat.
19:26
Do you want me to send it to you?
19:27
And I was like, yeah, here’s my number because she could have totally just sent it to me in dabs.
19:32
But I was like, I want you to have my phone number, baby girl.
19:34
So I give her my phone number.
19:36
She texts me.
19:37
We’re like texting back and forth.
19:39
I feel like we’re having a conversation, but evidently we were not a big conversation.
19:46
And so then I just like told her, hey, I, I stayed in San Diego.
19:51
Huge part of the reason why is because I’d really love to take you on a date, said something you’d want to do.
19:57
And she says, yes, I, when I got that message you guys, I lit up like I was plugged into a wall and electrocuted like I was like no fucking way.
20:09
The part of me that kind of meal, you know, the part of me that was pulling me towards him.
20:14
But the part of me that I was also not listening to just got so excited and I was like, there’s no fucking way I just felt like holy shit.
20:23
This is happening.
20:24
Yes.
20:25
And I got so excited and I immediately voice memo, my friend Paige and I sent her this voice memo and she was the only person I told at the time and I was like, oh my God Paige.
20:38
So this just happened and I can’t even tell you all the details.
20:42
But you know, I basically thought that it wasn’t going to happen and then this happened and then I was just so excited.
20:46
I was like, I can’t believe this is happening and blah, blah, blah, and the rest is history.
20:51
So then we got the chance to, we set up a schedule of our date.
20:54
They picked me out in San Diego.
20:57
We went downtown San Diego and we went to Barsa and what are the things called?
21:02
We did, the electric scooters and like saw the sunset and it was like such a great day.
21:06
And throughout our initial time together, there was like these little small synchronicities and there was something that I learned about Nick.
21:13
I remember this very specific question I asked you.
21:15
So we know so much.
21:17
I’ve talked about this before.
21:18
But the engram and as an Indian Gram four, I was like, is he spontaneous?
21:24
Does he like to travel?
21:25
And as you guys know, I love to travel and I love to see the world and something that I’ve always said, my family and my friends, whoever knows me since I was 15 years old, I said I wanted to move to Australia.
21:37
And on our very first date, we were having conversation and getting to know each other.
21:41
And I asked him straight up, I was like, so how do you feel about traveling?
21:46
And what if I want to move?
21:48
What if I want to move to Australia?
21:50
And he immediately looked at me and he goes, if you were to look at one of my journals, I said that I want to move to Australia because Nick had been there before and he said that he wanted to live there too.
22:02
And so that happens and I was just like, what the fuck is this really happening?
22:07
Like I’m finally meeting my person in a lot of ways.
22:10
And the internal parts of me were like, is this real?
22:13
Is not not but this, I kept getting these synchronous yeses.
22:16
This is where I’m supposed to be on that.
22:19
Same day, I decided to open up to Nick about an opportunity.
22:24
I was invited to be on a love show, dating show.
22:27
It was called Oh Fuck, what was it called?
22:29
It wasn’t Love is Blind.
22:31
It was oh Married after married at first sight.
22:34
And I told him I was like, so I’ve been exploring this idea about joining the show called Married on First Sight or Married for First sight after First sight.
22:46
And I look at Nick and I’m telling him all these things because I literally was exploring this, you guys like two weeks before I met Nick and I was like, am I going to go on the show?
22:55
And I was in the show and when I thought about the show, I mean, it really was a really good fit, right?
22:59
Like in a lot of ways.
23:00
And so I’m talking to him about this on our first date and he looks at me and goes, I was like, you should do it.
23:08
Why did you say that though?
23:10
I mean, look the port, think of the marketing, OK.
23:15
Think of the brand exposure.
23:18
Yeah, it would have been crazy and it was, and it was also really aligned with like who I was coaching, what I was stepping into like really manifestation, like really manifest as your person.
23:28
So like the fact that I had manifested that opportunity, that opportunity came knocking on my door, it seemed really aligned.
23:34
It was really aligned for who I was at the time and who I had embodied.
23:39
And now I’m sitting across the table next to the potentially the man that I’m going to be with forever.
23:45
Who fucking knows?
23:47
And all these light bulbs are going off.
23:49
And yeah, I just following that date, you know, I felt like I wanted to spend every moment with him, every minute with him.
23:58
I just, I just wanted more of him.
23:59
I just felt drawn to him and instead of like I did on the retreat, like trying to pull away or ignore the pool towards him, I decided to lean into it.
24:09
And so we spent probably every, almost every day for the next two weeks because he extended his flight for two weeks.
24:16
There was a little bit of weekend in there that I went to bottle rock for the weekend, but like I was consumed with texting him and sharing information.
24:23
And so we just spent every moment together after that.
24:26
Yeah, I mean, we probably did like two or three months worth of dating in less than two weeks.
24:32
It was wild and what I loved about our relationship and it was such a beautiful way is that it started off so vulnerably, you know, and something that I truly was calling in was and I was really calling in a man that was like healthiness, masculine, but a man that I was not scared to go deep with me to share with me what’s really going on to work through the things I wanted to really get to know someone, someone that wasn’t scared of the vulnerability.
24:57
And you know, my key to manifestation, which I’ve always talked about is be, do you have?
25:03
And so in order to receive something, in order to act something, you must be the thing.
25:08
So I knew I had to show up vulnerably.
25:11
I had to show up as the person that I wanted to attract.
25:15
And that is literally what I received.
25:19
I met my person in one of the most vulnerable spaces or containers.
25:24
And then the way that I showed up in relationship, he met me in all those ways.
25:31
And there was no part of me that was going to not be me or not show up as the version that I really wanted in our relation as what I really wanted in our relationship for the cost of not being loved.
25:46
Like I was like, no, I’m going to be me.
25:48
I’m, I’m going to be the thing that I need to be in order to have him.
25:51
And then that’s what we did.
25:53
And then shortly after Vick ends up moving to California, like what two months later lives in, in a separate apartment for six months.
26:00
We move in about nine months later.
26:02
And now we’ve been together ever since and have our home.
26:05
Where were you at before we met?
26:09
What were you working on what was I working on?
26:12
Well, I went through pretty difficult breakup about six months before we left before we met.
26:22
And so I was really just kind of working on me.
26:27
I mean, I was working with a coach at the time and in our work together is my first experience doing like somatic work.
26:37
And at that time and my family is like, struggling to catch up with how I feel now.
26:42
But before I started working with her, I was like kind of on marriage, kind of on wanting a family and kids and stuff.
26:52
But I was working with this coach and through the somatic practices that we did together, I kind of landed on like the most important crowning moment of my life is the moment that I get to watch my wife walk down the aisle.
27:09
I just like, kept thinking about how that was going to be the happiest moment of my life.
27:14
And so that required a very large internal shift for me where, you know, I won, like, I really needed to care a lot more about like manifesting this divine partnership and I had to get like a lot more clear on it.
27:31
And obviously, I also needed to, to elevate level up myself.
27:36
So I was acting like a lot of tantra.
27:42
I was doing a lot of like, did like semen retention for 90 days.
27:47
I quit pornography at that time and really was just getting, I was reading, like I read attached, I think I read attached during that time I read the new Codependency at that time.
28:00
So I was like, really just diving into romantic relationships because at that time I had been a serial monogamist, but I was never really serious about wanting like divine union.
28:12
And now I had seen that, that was really kind of my, my North Star for me, but it was going to require a lot of healing first.
28:21
So that was like primarily what I was kind of up to for those, I don’t know.
28:27
Can you tell them what contra is monogamy?
28:31
I mean, I think we know, but can you just kind of explain and define those things a little bit?
28:36
I mean, Tantra is like, Tantra is so much more than a sex practice.
28:42
It’s really like, like almost like the force from Star Wars.
28:47
It’s kind of like the energy that is, that guides the universe and it’s something that we can tap into to, to create lots of different things, but it’s usually talked about in terms of sexual energy.
28:59
And so I was using it really to as like a gentle way for me to process trauma and heal normally.
29:06
Like, like most people think of trauma for like energetic orgasms or non ejaculatory orgasms for men.
29:15
I was like, basically doing like very gentle breath work in my room and like flying a little bit every single day.
29:21
That was like my solo tatra practice like it and it, it was not sexual whatsoever, but it’s, it’s really connect, is it fair to say it’s like really connecting to the sexual creative energy that we all have within us?
29:35
Yeah.
29:35
Yeah.
29:35
Great.
29:36
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s both like connecting to spirit outside of you and connecting to spirit within India.
29:45
Hm.
29:45
Yeah.
29:46
Thank you for, for sharing that.
29:48
And you know, where I was, was also going through a lot of healing as I talked about, you know, I was, I said I wasn’t gonna date for a while.
29:56
I was going to get to know me, really love me, really own who I was and create such a deep love for myself because my pattern was always like losing myself in relationships, you know, settling for a relationship that kind of met me and they really wanted me.
30:14
But like, I genuinely didn’t choose.
30:16
And I, I told myself I was like, I’m going to choose this next partner.
30:18
Like I’m not just going to be wanted by a guy and be like, oh, I’m getting, you know, they desired me.
30:25
So I should date this guy.
30:27
You know, not to say that my past religions were like that, but there was a lot of that pattern within me.
30:31
And so I really focused on myself and you know what I truly believe when it comes to really manifesting the man, the person that you got to be, you got to be that too.
30:41
You know, you got to own that part of you and step into those versions of you that require you to find the kind of man that you’re looking for.
30:49
And, you know, the thing that I think about is like, really not settling anything less than that, you know, I think we can get caught up in like, oh, I’m getting these little, little bits and pieces, little mixes.
31:02
But I truly believe that when you find your person, they’re going to meet you in all ways.
31:06
And with that being said too, like we’ve definitely faced a lot of our own challenges in our relationship.
31:13
So one of the questions that, that we got was, was your love easy.
31:18
And I know I was going to say this at the end, but it’s kind of like really primed up right here.
31:21
Like one of the questions that we got from Instagram and from the community was, was your love easy.
31:27
And I want to say the initial lust and connection and desire and pull of polarity that we had within our relationship was easy.
31:39
It just felt like there was this energetic plug that I had to plug into and all I had to do was follow it.
31:45
But that’s truly how I felt at the beginning of our relationship.
31:49
And then as we started to get to know each other, our shit came up and, you know, i it got really challenging in some moments.
32:00
Yeah.
32:00
Yeah.
32:00
I remember to your point, like I called my mom after I got home from the retreat and was like, hey, I met your daughter in law.
32:08
So like, so it was super easy to begin with.
32:13
And then another one of our questions that we got asked is are we similar or are the opposite?
32:20
And I think like the initial draws and the ways in which we are similar made it easy.
32:27
But then we’re also like very different in some ways too.
32:31
And those things started to come out more and more as we got into our relationship, like three months, six months, et cetera.
32:39
And those provided like pretty substantial challenges, I would say, yeah, like for example, like how we’re really similar, right?
32:46
We love this work, we love growing.
32:49
We, you know, we did these like value tests and you know, one thing, some of the values that we both have very much in common are growth, curiosity, authenticity.
32:59
Like we do really align in a lot, a lot of ways, you know, like I low key, we’re both low key obsessed with becoming better versions of ourselves honestly and wanting to live a life fully expressed.
33:13
Like we both want to truly embody every part of us and express it and access every extent of the emotion.
33:22
Something that Nick taught me really early on.
33:24
And I remember this came up from one of our challenging conversations.
33:28
So one of our challenging conversations that we had early on, I vividly remember Nick was I tend to be way more positive and optimistic and, you know, I tend to see the light in a lot of things and Nick was not shy or scared of his darkness.
33:47
He was not scared of negativity if anything, he owned it.
33:50
And some of our challenges were just around those types of conversations where I vividly remember, I don’t know what it was, but I got upset because I was like, I’m so over you being negative where you’re always talking about the heavy emotions and you know what he said to me in response to our conversation that really fucking blew my mind was I want to, he said I want to feel every emotion to the extent that I need to feel it or that I want to feel it or that it wants to be felt and was mirroring back to me was that I clearly had not created the capacity to be with heavy emotions.
34:30
I did not have the space or the truest desire to hold the heaviest of the heaviest.
34:38
And Nick did not even bow down to heavy emotions.
34:42
He was like, I’m in it.
34:43
I feel it.
34:44
They’re true.
34:45
They’re real and I’m not going to ignore them.
34:47
And so as much as if it was a triggering conversation with me because I thought he was being negative when I was being positive and I was trying to stay in the light, but he was just being honest and real.
34:57
It triggered me because I was like, oh, clearly, I do not have the same capacity that you have for depth in these ways.
35:07
And you know, it was a mirror for me and I think it was also a mirror for you in some ways.
35:13
I think this is the part of relationship that we continue to work through.
35:18
Is that fair?
35:19
Yeah, I mean, I am, I am a realist and I would say like the the opposite of my realism in, in an equally positive light is that Karina operates out of faith.
35:34
So I tend to like see the world as it is right now in this moment.
35:39
And so that’s why to me like what she would describe as a really negative emotion to me is just like, that’s just how it is.
35:46
And so while I don’t shy from it, I also don’t see it as like this negative thing, the way that a lot of other people do.
35:54
But in the same, in the same perspective, I guess I struggle to act and operate out of faith versus creno.
36:03
What like could be seen as like naive positivity is really just her like believing that things are going to get better, that things are going to be ok that there’s like God that we aspire to be like, and that everything is always working out for us.
36:19
And for me it’s just like things aren’t working out right now and I think this is exactly.
36:27
So, yes, just finished.
36:29
Put a bell on what you were saying.
36:31
Yes.
36:31
Like I was aspiring depth in you and I think you were inspiring faith, faith in me.
36:39
But at first very trigger for the two of us, I was like, how can you not see how the world is right now?
36:46
What do you mean things are going to get better?
36:49
And I’m over here like it’s fine, it’s OK.
36:53
We’ve got this, you know, and I think that we had another question come in as like someone said, we would love to know how you guys work and communicate through challenges and triggers.
37:02
And I think this is such a simple one, but it was like a really tough one that we continued to have to work through.
37:09
And the biggest thing that we, that I feel like we constantly practice and now that we’ve gotten better.
37:16
But in the moment whenever I get super triggered or I would feel a certain way is because my system was assuming what Nick was saying, right?
37:27
In a lot of ways, it was, it was freaking out because it’s like, well, you said this and I heard this.
37:33
So whatever I’m hearing is what I’m experiencing and the truth was that we had to truly get compassionately curious with each other as to, well, what do you mean by that, I would have never thought, you know, that Nick is such a realist in the sense of like, I’m just with what is, it’s not, I’m not saying that I like the heaviness.
37:56
I’m not saying that I love negative emotions and I’m a negative person.
38:00
I’m just with what is and I was like, oh OK, versus like the way that I perceived it was like we are a negative person and that wasn’t true.
38:09
And my positivity, you know, to him could have looked as naive and completely not real at all and not being with what is, but it truly ignited what my faith was to him.
38:22
And so that right there is such a simple, it seems really simple, but it has been one of the hardest things that we’ve struggled with in the first year, year and a half of relationship.
38:34
Now, what I’m so grateful for, for like communicating through those from a place of like love and curiosity and not just assuming and pointing fingers at one another is that now I’ve created such a deep capacity and understanding for depth and negative emotions and if anything, I fucking welcome them even more, I’m like, yeah, let’s be in the negative.
38:57
And one of the most healing things that Nick has done for me is allowed me to be dramatic to be like, no, but truly allow the parts of me that are being like, yeah, this fucking sucks.
39:11
Allow those to be here and be super unattached from them.
39:14
Not really make a story of the fact that they’re here versus when we start a relationship.
39:20
Like I created stories around things that I didn’t understand or didn’t have capacity for or didn’t even know how to articulate at the time.
39:28
And now because of your depth and your ability to be real and your ability to be factual.
39:36
It has created such a gift for me because I get to be with that shit too.
39:41
I get to be with what is and I still have my faith and I’m still unattached and I get to be with my whole human experience, but I would have never been able to step into that kind of beautiful dance with the human experience if it wasn’t for me getting triggered a fuck in my relationship.
40:00
Yeah.
40:00
And I’ve received the gifts of being with Karina because of like who she just is and b she does attract that things do get better.
40:13
And I’ve acquired such a stronger faith in myself and other people, the world also keep it a real like, shit sucks now.
40:25
But that doesn’t mean it can’t be for the greater good.
40:29
Yeah.
40:29
And this is something I talk about all the time, you know, like I was living in the extreme of positivity and optimistic and he was living in the truth and the realness that came off as quote unquote negative to me and you know, we were on both sides of the pendulum and by being in a relationship with each other and by being able to work through our different perspectives on certain situations or how we react or how we, how we be in certain things.
40:56
I truly think that we’ve been able to find that balance and that duality that has been the gift for both of us.
41:03
That answer, it’s almost been like the unlocking key to our relationship, but also the unlocking key to our own experience.
41:11
I think it’s also just a testament to the work that we put in individually when we come together.
41:19
I mean, we’ve like continued to work on ourselves and then also work on these skills in relationship because like, however, however, you respond to getting triggered somatic, it like there’s, there’s a skill component to communicating and then there’s like an embodied component to communicating.
41:41
And so we’ve been like, obviously learning the skills of communicating because this is definitely the most serious relationship either of us have been in.
41:50
So we’re navigating things, we’ve never navigated before, but we’re also like embodying new ways of being as well.
41:57
And so that allows us to continue to work through like more and more challenging situations which like we’re only going to continue to see more and more challenging situations.
42:08
We don’t even have kids yet.
42:09
I can imagine imagine, I was just thinking about two different examples that we could share maybe this would be really real for people, you know, something that I find has been triggering for me.
42:19
And it’s my own experience is that when Nick and I are having quote unquote hard conversations and he doesn’t lean in or ask me what’s wrong or ask me how I’m doing.
42:29
I’m having this entire internal experience where I am silent on the couch and going through the internal experience that I’m having is the internal dialogue looks like.
42:39
How can he not know that I’m triggered right now?
42:41
Why hasn’t he asked me how I’m doing?
42:43
But he should be the one asking me how I’m doing like this is, this is this and my body is shutting down.
42:49
I can feel this brewing sensation inside me and I’m pissed because I’m mad that he’s not realizing that I met and I’m upset that he’s not doing these things and in realizing that and identifying that I identified that really early on.
43:07
And even before I started dating Nick.
43:09
So this is something that I identified way early on.
43:13
But when it comes to actually being triggered as fuck and having to navigate it, I tend, I remember sitting on the couch and we were actually having this experience and I said, hey, you know what’s really coming up for me right now is that I’m upset that you’re not asking me how I’m doing in this moment.
43:29
And I also realize that you’re not a mind reader And so right now I am telling you that I’m mad and you know, half versions of me would have just sat on it and been like, I shouldn’t even say that out loud.
43:42
I shouldn’t even say the fact that, that I’m mad because he’s not asking me how I’m doing.
43:45
I shouldn’t, I should just go to bed and ignore it and hope that tomorrow wakes up and I will be fine.
43:50
But our level of communication looks so different that now we say those things.
43:55
And I’m like, no, like I’m genuinely upset with the fact that this is happening.
43:59
And I also take responsibility that it’s on me that I’m upset that you’re not asking me because it’s my responsibility to share how I’m feeling.
44:09
And a takeaway for Nick has always been, I mean, in those moments, you’ve learned to be like, all right, the energy’s off is everything ok?
44:17
Which for Nick is really triggering when I’m off my embodied sense, when Rena is feeling like that is to not poke the bear because like, you know, I like historically, the way that like my family resolved a lot of conflicts is we would just go to bed and we would never talk about it.
44:37
We would wake up the next day and like, we would just go about our business.
44:40
Nobody would ever say anything, but we also wouldn’t carry the resentment over.
44:44
And so, but if you poke the bear bear got scary.
44:47
So, for me, it was just like, I’m just not gonna say anything but now, like, I have so much more trust and love in myself and most, mostly my partner to poke the bear because it’s not really a bear.
45:03
It’s more of like a, like one of those cute little, like red pandas, you know, though, you know.
45:10
So I poke you little pan, what are they gonna do?
45:13
They have like these adorable little paws, they’re gonna bat me with their paws.
45:17
So I’ll poke the panda now every once in a while, which is really just an overgrown raccoon and like, they’re adorable.
45:24
We’ve seen buddy the elk, he was trying to hug that little raccoon.
45:28
So, yeah.
45:29
So I’ll now because my communication skills have grown.
45:32
Our relationship has grown and the depth of our love has gotten deeper and we feel safer as a result of that, which I think is what you’re going to say.
45:41
I want to just say, hey, what gives, yeah, what’s up?
45:45
Talk to me.
45:46
Yeah.
45:46
And, and you know, and that’s exactly what I wanted and, but you can see that like I’m triggered by the fact that he’s not asking me anything about how I’m doing and he’s triggered because he’s like, I don’t want to poke the bear because naturally if I poke the bear, it gets worse.
46:00
So I don’t want to, versus that’s all that I want and need and we wouldn’t have figured that out unless we talked about it, unless we were open to saying that and through the conversations of doing this over and over again, I feel like that conversation happened like a year and a half into our relationship.
46:17
So it’s not like that specific conversation happened very early on.
46:21
It was the compound effect of constantly having these kinds of conversations that have created a natural sense of trust and safety that we feel in our relationship to share whatever comes up for us.
46:34
And obviously, when someone is sharing, I also think, I think that maybe in a different episode, I’ll dive into this.
46:40
There is a special skill set on how to hold someone in that and not be, not get triggered, you know, or not feel responsible for what they’re saying.
46:48
And something that we practice so well is that now is even though we know we’re triggered, we don’t point the finger at the other person.
46:56
And if the other person is triggered, we remember that it’s not our responsibility to fix that either because we’re not, we all each take responsibility for our emotional experiences, our human experiences.
47:11
And that can we love each other through that?
47:14
Absolutely.
47:15
Can we ask how we can support you in this oly?
47:19
But can we fix it and change it?
47:22
No, because it’s up to the individual to do the work on their own, to do that for themselves.
47:30
And that level of understanding that we’ve created in our relationship and that has compounded over time has been done amazing things for us.
47:41
Do you have anything else you want to say?
47:43
Wilson?
47:45
Yeah.
47:46
Should we answer this last rapid fire question?
47:48
Yeah.
47:49
We can have a little bit more time if I’m a little late.
47:51
But the thing that I wanted to share, so there’s two questions, there’s three questions that I want us to answer is what does relationship mean to us?
48:01
You want to go first?
48:02
You want me to go first?
48:03
I want you to go first.
48:04
You want me to go first?
48:06
Yeah.
48:06
I’m not really sure what you, what they’re looking for there.
48:10
Question.
48:12
So what relationship means to me specifically is I guess divine union.
48:18
You know, like if we’re talking about like a deep romantic relationship, what does that actually mean?
48:22
And when we’re talking about this, like to me, like divine union represents like me being me, you being you and us creating this beautiful partnership that no matter what we do we tackle life together with.
48:37
Does that make sense?
48:38
Yes.
48:39
Yeah, I am.
48:40
I would say, I mean, for me, relationship is like, I really think it’s pretty much like the most important thing that you could do.
48:49
I mean, I think like getting married, having a, having kids, raising a family is like, it’s basically the greatest thing that you can do for society.
49:00
Like instilling values and love and safety and like responsibly raising Children is as just like the greatest gift that you can pay forward in the world, the greatest legacy that you can leave.
49:14
So, I mean, that’s what relationship really means to me.
49:18
It’s like it is the foundation, like, it’s really the foundation of a healthy society.
49:25
Yeah, I think, yeah, you answer that way better than I was.
49:28
I was a little distracted to you guys from something else playing in the background.
49:32
But you’re right, you know, relationship is the most important thing that we can do in this life.
49:37
And I think that’s been something that I used to put aside.
49:42
You know, I’ve always prioritized relationships, but I always prioritized business success and these other things.
49:48
And what I’ve seen, if we can be successful in relationships, we’re fucking rich in so many different ways.
49:54
There’s so much beautiful love and richness that just comes from that.
50:00
It’s like this kind of profound energetic field when you truly can love, truly be loved and put that on steroids, it’s like nothing else matters.
50:14
Everything else around you is OK.
50:17
It’s good.
50:18
You can tackle anything.
50:19
We did a another episode, another podcast interview on my friend, she’s podcast.
50:24
And one of the questions she sold us is like, how are we doing in our life right now?
50:29
And in the season of life that we’re in and something that Nick and I talked about so much and that was just how our relationship is so good that we feel like we can tackle anything.
50:39
And I really, really think that if we prioritize relationships in that way, we feel like we can tackle anything.
50:46
That’s hard.
50:47
Not even, I mean, yes, in romantic relationships, we’re going to have challenges of our own.
50:51
We’re going to have challenges together and we’re going to have challenges that life comes to us.
50:53
But that same concept.
50:56
Imagine it with friendships, imagine it with business partners.
50:58
Like when you’re really fucking good and solid because you’ve done the work to create that you can do anything, you can tackle the world, you can truly tackle the world.
51:07
Biggest thing is that it starts with you.
51:10
Yeah.
51:11
So the last question that we got before we wrap up here is how do you know if you found the one?
51:19
Well, I don’t personally really believe in the, the one concept, but how do you know that you found the one that you’re gonna spend your life with?
51:31
I mean, for me personally, it was such like a radical shift in my like mindset and perspective about life in general and the life that I wanted to lead.
51:42
So like I went from, as I spoke about earlier being a guy who was like marriage, whatever kids, probably not to like, I’m so totally devoted to both of those things now.
51:55
And to me, the reason that a huge part of the reason that I feel that way is because of you.
52:03
So for me, it’s like, yeah, like, so I went from like, I think we all kind of inherently feel like, like getting married and having kids is like as when we’re little kids, those are things that all pretty much every little kid aspires to do.
52:19
And so like if you meet somebody who pushes you towards something that you desired as a small child, it’s probably a good person to keep in your life.
52:28
And so for me, like that was that was it for me, it was like, I have met this person who increases my faith who makes me want to have a family who supports me, makes me want to be the best version of myself.
52:42
I mean, what does that feel like?
52:44
What was that shift though for you?
52:47
Like you went from like, I don’t want to have kids, I don’t want to get married, which is a fucking conversation that we had early on the relationship you guys, we’ll talk about that one later, two.
52:57
That’s all that you want, I think and more, but it really came for me.
53:02
Like when you supported me through like some of my artist small methods, I had never like really been held through difficult periods.
53:11
I’ve had to like go through them on my own or my previous partners had just died or they either didn’t support me through it.
53:20
They weren’t like with me in it or like we just broke up when things were hard.
53:26
This relationship was totally different.
53:28
So, I think that was what shifted it for me.
53:31
Like, the high highs of our relationship.
53:34
Yes, they’ve been amazing.
53:35
Yes.
53:35
They’ve been higher than any other relationship I’ve ever been in.
53:39
But it was really the way that we navigated the lows and just like the way that I felt respected and I respected her through that.
53:48
I think that’s kind of how I knew.
53:50
Wow, thanks for saying love you.
53:53
I love you.
53:54
You know, to me, something that I’ve had, you know, you could probably hear my dog snoring behind me.
54:03
These subs like the grandfather in Willie Wonka.
54:06
And, you know, Cusco has been on this podcast before in the background if you haven’t heard it yet.
54:11
But, you know, what I wanted to say was, you know, as I, I think my love for you, we talked about this the other night.
54:18
Like I think a little bit, I feel like this compound effect has happened in our relationship where it’s like a little bit more, a little bit more to like, I always knew from the beginning that he could be the one that I want to do life with.
54:31
And now it’s just like I could not see myself not doing life with him, but something that has really created a lot of rust that Nick is choosing me to be the one because something that I’ve struggled with and maybe other people struggled with is like, well, if I’m choosing this person, is this person fully choosing me?
54:48
Like, do they love me the same amount that I love them?
54:51
Like, are they in love with me to the same extent?
54:54
And yes, that could be parts of me that are trying to keep me safe and maybe potentially self sabotage a little bit.
55:00
But something that we’ve actively worked through on our own in different ways, and I did this before the relationship and Nick did this in the relationship during our relationship is I got very clear on if I continue to evolve as a human being and grow and listen to these parts of me that pull me in different directions.
55:21
And if I continue to feel met in my relationship, no matter how much I evolve, I will continue to choose us.
55:30
And I’m also ok with, if I change and evolve to a point that we no longer meet each other’s needs that we’re no longer meant to be together in that way, in that shape and being ok with that has unlocked this crazy amount of being able to fall into more love because I know that I’m actively choosing this person for me.
55:56
Not because I have to, not because not because we’ve been together for such a long time and eventually it’s not going to be just because I have kids or it’s not just because we’ve created a life together, like I’m choosing this person because every single day I love him more and more or I’m choosing this person every single day because every moment I keep growing more and more with him and there’s something within me that continues to want more of him.
56:20
But being ok with like if the relationship changes or if the relationship decides to transform in another way, that’s ok too.
56:30
Yeah.
56:31
Yeah.
56:31
I would highly recommend doing, doing that.
56:35
They have not done that already, work out whatever it is within yourself.
56:40
Like, for me, I, I felt like I wouldn’t trust myself to actually leave the relationship if the relationship was over.
56:48
So I had to like, build that trust within myself.
56:50
And now I’m at the point where I’m like, well, if this, if this is over between us, like I, I trust that all actually ended, you know, and it’s so funny when you create this, like, deep level of trust within yourself that you’re actively choosing this because you want it and all parts of you, the parts of you that whatever they’re all on board, it’s like it creates such a level of ability, such a love between two people that I didn’t even know was possible.
57:19
And this is something that I’ve been so great that we’re so grateful that we’ve been able to experience just within two years, 2.5 years of really dating.
57:27
And I don’t even know what’s gonna happen when we get married.
57:30
I don’t even know the more that we evolve and grow.
57:32
And I’m so here for all of it.
57:34
But I do hope that for anyone that’s listening is that you get some inspiration from our story and that you know that the level of love that you are actively creating, right?
57:45
Because we are constantly working at this thing.
57:48
We constantly come up and show up for this relationship and this love as someone that we want to be like we’re doing it so that we can meet each other at the end of the day.
57:56
Like we want to win.
57:58
Like when we tackle hard things in life, we ain’t pointing the finger and saying you fucking fix this or I leave like none of that shit is so much more about like, all right, how can we do this together?
58:09
How are we a team in this?
58:10
How can we bring ourselves to do this for each other, for one another, for ourselves?
58:15
There’s this level of deep respect that we have for each other.
58:18
And I do know that that is available to every single freaking human out there.
58:24
And I also know that it is so available to work to because I know there’s a lot of listeners to that have been married for years.
58:31
I truly believe that you can work through it all.
58:34
You know, if you really, really dedicate to working through it and a part of that is just also you working through your part of it too.
58:41
Anything else that you feel called to say or share?
58:44
No man.
58:45
Thank you for coming on the podcast.
58:47
Thanks for having me.
58:50
If you want to connect with Nick or see what he’s up to learn a little bit more about us.
58:55
I tend to share more about us on Instagram so you can see us that I am kind of soto on Instagram.
59:01
Nick is going to be launching his business here soon, which we’re really excited about.
59:08
But you know, at the end of the day, we’re just two original people continuing on this path to better ourselves.
59:15
And in return, it ends up bettering our relationship.
59:17
And because we work on ourselves because we love ourselves because we put ourselves first in a lot of ways to live a life fully expressed.
59:25
It has created such a beautiful expression of love that in our relationship.
59:30
Word.
59:32
All right, love you guys.
59:33
Peace out.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the fully expressed podcast with Karenna.
0:02
I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto.
0:05
And this is the podcast where we have conversations that truly invite us into living a life, fully expressed, finding relationships where we can be fully expressed and also creating business and finding careers that allow us to be fully expressed as well.
0:20
Today’s episode is really special because I am interviewing someone that I recently that her name is Marta Giri.
0:27
Marta came across my world because she’s based in San Diego.
0:32
I’m based in San Diego and she is doing amazing things when it comes to, I want to say, truly wrapping your arms around the wellness industry here in San Diego in the best way is like, I feel like you’ve really just created a platform way to connect, collaborate and all the things when it comes to locally.
0:54
Well, which is her business.
0:56
Well, I will let her talk about her, but it has been such a pleasure of getting to know you and meet you and connect with you because I just love everything that you are really trying to captivate here in San Diego.
1:07
So with that being said Marta, do you want to introduce yourself?
1:11
Sure, thanks Karenna.
1:12
So happy to be here today.
1:14
Yeah, I’m Marta Giri editor in chief of Locally Well.
1:18
San Diego, we’re a local news company covering wellness news and events here in San Diego and that’s how we started.
1:26
I saw a need to capture just everything that’s going on.
1:29
San Diego is such a Wellness Mecca.
1:31
A lot of trends start here in brands like vio blenders, GoPro, you know, things that are really fitness and outdoor and wellness inspired along with things like organi mushrooms, things that you probably see in your local natural health food store also start in San Diego.
1:51
So there’s just such a depth and breadth of everything that’s going on here.
1:54
A lot, a lot of also just conscious healers in a spiritual community too.
1:59
So I just saw an opportunity to capture that.
2:02
And I started 2.5 years ago, started a website social media newsletter, all the things it’s expanded into hosting a podcast called Wellness in San Diego.
2:12
But the thing that’s brought me the most joy is meeting folks in the wellness space, other wellness entrepreneurs and they were craving connection especially I started this during COVID.
2:25
And so when we were emerging from that time, from the pandemic, people were desperate or connection in person.
2:31
And so I started hosting networking events and bringing people together.
2:35
And my favorite thing ever is to be a matchmaker.
2:38
I love introducing healers to each other who are doing similar things or could complement each other.
2:44
I actually see collaborations happen in real time at these events where people have met a couple of times and then they go on to host like a mini retreat.
2:51
I know of several stories where that’s happened.
2:54
So it’s just a really magical place to be a connector and uplifting the entire community.
3:01
Because when these wellness folks find each other and amplify their efforts, it helps heal our entire community too.
3:08
So I found such joy doing that and being just kind of the ringleader, I guess the channeler, the connector to make this all happen.
3:17
I’m just the conduit and I’m just really grateful to bring people together.
3:21
I love that.
3:22
I got some chills when you said just like the ripple effect or just like connecting everything like and that, you know, really almost like bringing the connection brings us additional healing to the community.
3:32
Like I just got chills just from that whole experience.
3:35
I would love to hear a little bit more.
3:37
I think we talked about this like you weren’t, do you said you started this around the pandemic?
3:41
What were you doing before the pandemic before COVID?
3:43
Before you realized that there was this need.
3:45
Yeah.
3:46
My whole life story has led to creating this.
3:49
When you look back on it, you can kind of see the trends and I think a lot of us probably can resonate with that when you reflect on your past experiences.
3:58
So I’ve always been interested in spirituality and alternative health since I was a teenager.
4:03
Probably, even before then, I was always just a curious seeker.
4:07
And so that led me to travel abroad.
4:10
I lived in Australia.
4:12
I got a degree in journalism.
4:13
And while I was there, I co-hosted an alternative health radio show, interviewing one of those practitioners in Sydney.
4:19
So really a full circle moment.
4:21
This was before there was even podcasts, it tells you how old I am.
4:25
But then I came back and I, you know, I was also a high achieving person.
4:29
I’ve always been ambitious and wanting to be a good gold star student.
4:33
And so I thought, well, now I get a job and now I get, yeah, I move into the working space.
4:38
So I started working in marketing in higher education marketing in different different companies.
4:45
And we were marketing to international students to come study English in the United States.
4:50
I had rose to the ranks of becoming director of marketing and I was even asked to meet with the CEO.
4:56
This was in February of 2020.
4:58
The CEO of the company had asked to meet with me specifically telling me I was a rising star.
5:03
If I was going to go anywhere they needed to, I needed to let them know right away ASAP because they wanted to keep me cut to six weeks later, COVID entire company shuts down and I’m out of a job.
5:14
So I didn’t know who I was or what I should do next because I had put all my eggs in that identity basket being I’m a really good, like leader.
5:25
Number two, I’d rising.
5:27
I was in executive level meetings.
5:29
I thought this is it.
5:30
You know, I also am a mom.
5:31
I’ve got two boys so it was busy.
5:34
I was very, very busy, but I also was getting to burn out stage too.
5:37
So, you know, it was a lot to transition out of during COVID.
5:42
But yeah, that’s how I got the idea for those in the Wellness space.
5:47
Know this term.
5:48
I got a download which means I woke up in the middle of the night at 2 a.m. I sat straight up in bed and I had this idea to create, to create what became locally.
5:58
Well, I didn’t know what I was going to call it, but I knew I wanted to do some kind of online blog thing with all of all of my skill set, you know, in journalism and marketing, creating a community hub for showcasing Wellness here in San Diego.
6:11
So when you know, like it’s to you as a kind of directive from the heaven, the universe, it also makes going to work really fun because, you know, it’s, it’s kind of your purpose and what you’re meant to do.
6:25
And yeah, just writing.
6:27
It’s been hard writing the unknown wave when you have to create something for yourself where there’s no road map.
6:32
It could be daunting at times.
6:34
There’s, I’ve talked with this with many entrepreneurs who are like, do you ever feel that?
6:38
Like, some people are like timidly asking, like, do you ever feel like you just want to quit?
6:42
And everyone’s like, oh my God, like every day, every day, you’re literally literally like throwing yourself on the couch.
6:49
I’ve done that and like had a temper tantrum like this, it’s so hard.
6:52
Like, I don’t get a 9 to 5.
6:55
And my husband’s like, no, no, this is what we’re doing.
6:59
You can do this.
7:00
And I’m like, no, that’s so funny.
7:04
Today this morning I was in the shower and Nick was here because he works from home and then out of home sometimes and I go, I don’t want to go to work today.
7:12
I’m done.
7:13
Like, I was just throwing a little pity party of like, I don’t want to do life today.
7:18
And those are just such real moments while also I, you know, also holding the vision to like what’s really there too.
7:24
You know, it’s just, it’s the duality of both.
7:26
It’s like, yes, this is hard.
7:27
Yes, there’s moments where you’re like, why am I doing this?
7:30
And then also there’s other moments of like, no, there’s a reason why I’m doing this, my purpose.
7:34
I’m leaning into that.
7:35
I love that you shared so much about the fact that this was an idea that just came out of nowhere.
7:40
It wasn’t like you’ve been meddling on it for a while.
7:43
It’s been a, maybe a part of your identity into the patterns into the trends.
7:47
But this idea just came out of nowhere.
7:49
I’m reading this book right now called Big Magic.
7:51
And so I just was like, oh, so good.
7:55
And I think it, you know, it really talks to you just like there’s ideas that come to us all the time.
8:00
There’s some ideas that stay for a little longer.
8:02
There’s ideas that you just know you got to follow up on and then there’s ideas that just pass through and then there’s the ones that keep knocking at your door.
8:09
There’s always ideas, you know, and then so I would love to hear.
8:13
How did you know that like you got this down, this idea?
8:16
And you’re like, ok, this is something I really want to move into or what was that transition?
8:22
Like to like thought download idea to like this.
8:24
Is it like, what did it take from there to actually putting it into action?
8:30
All right.
8:31
Jumping in here with another life hack for you, take a minute and shake it out.
8:36
Our nervous system is constantly in fight or flight freezes disregulation and we need to shake out our nervous system so we can reset our stress responses.
8:48
So if you get up and shake every single part of your body.
8:51
Animals do this naturally and we have forgotten to listen to ourselves.
8:56
So, if you ever feel overwhelmed, get up, shake it out.
8:59
If you feel triggered, try shaking it out, move the energy, reset your nervous system to help you live and feel more regulated in your life.
9:11
Yeah.
9:12
Well, I had the idea, this was like August 2020.
9:15
And so then I kept talking about it and percolating on it and sitting on it.
9:19
But I didn’t actually take any action.
9:21
I was still kind of like licking my wounds if you will from losing a corporate job and what my identity was also being a mom and my kids weren’t, couldn’t go to school.
9:32
So it was a busy time.
9:33
Just that’s kind of how I sit with ideas for a while.
9:37
You know, I think about them, I’m in the shower and I keep talking about it with people and then I feel confident to actually make it kind of come to fruition.
9:45
So, yeah, it was, it wasn’t until almost a year later that I actually launched because I want, I also had to get over some of those perfectionistic tendencies to put myself out there to be vulnerable.
9:57
I wasn’t doing this because I wanted to be, let’s say like a Gwyneth Paltrow group person.
10:03
It’s not about me, like I said, I’m the channel and the Conduit for this community.
10:08
But at the same time, I also need to be the face and spokesperson for the brand.
10:12
And so there was just some like tender self care I needed to go through, I think before I felt ready and when I would tell people what I was doing, tell them like in this really soft voice like and I didn’t have my elevator pitch and I couldn’t explain it.
10:26
And so there was just a lot of yeah, self care that needed to happen where I could feel like I could step in to the space and it still took like another year or so before I felt like I had some foundation that I was confident about what I was doing and still, you know, those moments come in imposter syndrome, those kind of feelings every now and then.
10:46
But now I’m kind of rocking and rolling.
10:49
So that’s how the process was for me.
10:51
Thank you so much for sharing that.
10:53
I think that’s just so relatable to like, you know, I think really honestly hearing like, yes impostor system just still happens.
10:59
You know, we still, there can be an idea, but there’s a whole like identity shift that comes with that.
11:04
It’s like, how do I I’m here and how do I embody person or be the person that can also step into that idea too, you know, like parts of us need to catch up.
11:14
And I love that.
11:15
You said that you gave yourself grace because sometimes in this entrepreneurship space.
11:19
I mean, I, I’ve also put myself pressure but you can feel a lot of pressure like I need to be here now.
11:24
You know, why am I not feeling this now?
11:26
You know, why haven’t I fully stepped into this new idea or created this already?
11:30
Why isn’t it up and running?
11:31
And there’s just like this pressure of Fastness and entrepreneurship.
11:35
Yes, speed like, oh I need this quickly, you know.
11:39
Yeah.
11:39
Yeah.
11:40
Big time.
11:41
I sometimes reflect on that too with the moments and when I felt like I should just stop because I was like, why isn’t it taking off or even in those little moments when you post a real or something, you’re like, what only this many people liked it and I work so hard and we’ve all had those and tied to your self worth.
12:00
And I also thought about it too.
12:01
It’s like if it had been an overnight success, I don’t think I couldn’t have handled that.
12:06
Like, so I’ve done everything with a lot of intention and at a pace that works for me because as I mentioned, I have, you know, I’ve got kids, I needed to attend to my own needs too.
12:18
So I’ve purposely added on layers of my business step by step because I needed to kind of pace it at a build it at a pace that fits my, where I’m at right now personally and, and my personal situation, I think that’s absolutely beautiful.
12:35
I really think that I wish more of us listened to that too because, yeah, I just feel like we especially you’re a mom.
12:41
So I feel like you’ve already been able to kind of balance, like, oh, I’m a mom.
12:44
I have life.
12:44
I have kids.
12:45
I have all these other things but make me being a mom, like, I didn’t know what that was.
12:49
And like, now I have this ba this baby business that I’m building and it’s like, how can I not lose myself in the socks and fully be intentional about that?
12:58
So, so beautiful.
13:00
Yeah.
13:00
And I think one of the other things too is just who you are as a person, how you work.
13:05
So I am if nothing I’m consistent and consistency is really important when you’re building a business for people to expect and trust it.
13:16
I know we’re going to maybe talk about some of the marketing principles, but it’s really important.
13:21
Like every week people know that I will do a round up post of events they’re going on in San Diego related to Wellness.
13:28
I do that every week that happens.
13:30
So when there’s consistent rhythms too, people build trust with your brand too and they know that you’re always going to kind of show up in the same ways that you’re going to produce similar types of content.
13:43
You know, creativity within the content can change, but they know, oh, that’s what they do.
13:48
They’re not.
13:49
I know that Meta and Localy Well, will post those events every, every week.
13:53
So it’s about building a sustainable model that you can support, that fits who you are and how you work too.
14:00
I want to know about that model.
14:01
How do you, how did you find your rhythm in that?
14:04
And what kinds of systems or things do you have in place to help you get, you know, execute that on that weekly.
14:11
What does that look like?
14:13
Yeah, I know when I’m kind of getting to burn out that my systems, I’ve lost sight of my systems.
14:19
And so there’s a lot of tools in the business world that people are familiar with.
14:24
Things like project management software can be helpful.
14:28
Everybody is a different, they work differently.
14:30
I have used a sauna notion is also great a free tool that a lot of people use to track tasks if you’re very digital.
14:39
However, I find myself going analog all the time.
14:42
I’m always just pen to paper.
14:45
It is helpful when you’re delegating out to the team to have a project management tool to sign tasks to folks.
14:52
But I’m always doing brain dumps where I just, everything on paper, everything I have to do, even like the family stuff like scheduling that dentist appointment or signing up for camp or whatever it all just goes in the same because it’s only just in your head.
15:07
So can you get it out of your head anywhere, whether it’s in your Notes app on your phone.
15:12
Sometimes I do that too.
15:13
When I’m just somewhere, I just start putting everything in my notes app because it’s handy and so not prioritizing anything.
15:20
At first you just dump everything on the paper and then you look at it and go, ok, I can handle this or right now I’m working just on being discerning.
15:29
Like I did mention that I am consistent with certain things, but I also know that certain tasks will lead to, let’s say more income or more growth.
15:39
So while is easy to do those quick little tasks is that gonna actually move the needle in terms of the business?
15:48
So when you put a doll on a paper, you can go, oh wow, that’s a lot of busy work that maybe I could hand off to somebody else or, or sometimes it’s about your energy flow too when I know you talk about human design sometimes.
16:01
So it’s helpful to know your energy rhythms and a lot of us have this too.
16:04
And you can probably reflect on how your energy rhythms were when you were a kid.
16:08
And that’s probably how you still are today.
16:10
You know, too, I’m a person where the working world and school structure totally fits my energy type because I could get up and start working at six in the morning.
16:22
I know it sounds wild but I, I have the clarity and brain, brain clarity to start working super early in the morning.
16:30
But by two o’clock that’s gone.
16:33
And I prefer to do like calls and chats in the afternoon that works better for me.
16:40
Whereas my husband is a night owl and he likes to work late and he likes to, he could go till midnight and I just, I, I really just want to watch really bad television after like after dinner and after I put the kids to bed, just something silly, you know, like Great British baking show or something for a half hour and then go to sleep or read a book or something like that.
17:02
So it’s helpful just to know, get everything out of your head.
17:05
So you can look at it from a 30,000 ft view, prioritizing it and then knowing your energy flow type too.
17:11
So should you do that task in the morning?
17:14
Should you do it in the afternoon?
17:16
And so it’s just trying things out rather than feeling like, oh, I should be a morning person.
17:23
It’s like says who like, or, and I had this conversation with another guest on the podcast too.
17:28
It’s like people are like, I need a morning routine and and she mentioned like, she’s like, you probably already have a routine that you don’t realize like you probably are always have some kind of coffee and you sit there or some warm drink and you sit there and could you just pair like a quick gratitude exercise with that morning coffee that you’re always doing.
17:48
So you don’t have to make all of these habits the way I’m doing it.
17:52
That’s what works for me.
17:54
But my suggestion is to try things out and see what works for you.
17:58
Yeah, that’s so beautiful.
18:00
I think sometimes we’re always trying to fit a mold versus trying to find our own mold.
18:05
Do you know what I mean?
18:06
Or even in a different way?
18:07
I really think that entrepreneurship gives you such an opportunity to crack your own code in your own way, right?
18:12
Like what works for you?
18:14
You know, and the only way to really do that, that is like you said, like, try out different things, you know, see how it feels, what’s supportive.
18:22
I’m very similar to you where like, I love to work first thing in the morning.
18:26
All my good energy like mid morning, but like by three, by the latest three, I’m, I’m done.
18:31
I just don’t have brain power.
18:33
I’m done.
18:33
Versus my partner, my boyfriend.
18:36
He loves to work in like four hour chunks and he’ll work until his last chunk will probably end around seven and by five o’clock.
18:42
Like between like three and five, I’m absolutely done.
18:45
And I think it’s so beautiful that we can witness that, you know, that we can say like, oh, you have your thing.
18:51
I have my thing and not really make any judgments of how someone should look, but it’s so difficult to do that when you are constantly in this space of like, well, that person is successful.
19:00
So I want to be successful.
19:01
What are they doing to be successful?
19:02
That’s the equation that I need to embody.
19:05
And you’re like, well, no, no, no, no.
19:06
What’s your equation?
19:07
What cracks your own code?
19:09
Not, don’t try and be their code.
19:11
Like that’s what works for them.
19:12
So you got to find what works for you and you talk to that so beautifully.
19:15
I would love to transition, talk a little bit more about marketing because you definitely have a marketing background and you did a little bit more.
19:22
You’ve been talking a lot recently on locally well, and inviting entrepreneurs and business owners into just branding and authenticity.
19:29
And I’d love to know what was your journey with authenticity and really owning who you were as you’ve been building locally.
19:36
Well, and the Wellness podcast, what has that been for you?
19:39
And if you have any tips and tricks that someone can lean into as they’re starting to create their business or even if they’ve already been doing business for a while, like what could they kind of use and take on?
19:51
Yeah, I think personal branding always starts with finding your why.
19:56
So, and what makes you different than anybody else?
19:58
So again, we’ve been speaking to that.
20:00
It’s like I kind of know who I am.
20:02
I know my rhythms for my work day.
20:04
Ok.
20:04
Well, how does that extend to what believe in and what I stand for?
20:08
And when you’re showing up for my businesses or boing energy or even how I create content for my businesses?
20:14
So it’s about just reflecting on what is most important to you.
20:18
Again.
20:18
What makes you different in your space?
20:20
There’s a lot of noise online, especially if you’re some like a coach or something like that.
20:25
Your life story has a lot of weight.
20:28
And if you reflect on that, that could help point you in the right direction of say core values.
20:34
I think it’s helpful.
20:35
There’s a lot of exercises online of identifying what your core values are.
20:40
I already mentioned about, you could hear some of mine coming through which was connection.
20:44
I really believe my motto is I help people find their people.
20:49
That’s what I do with a collective or membership community for wellness entrepreneurs.
20:54
I love connecting people and giving them the right resources too to up level their business.
20:59
So whether it’s in person events, that’s what I’m going in with the intention I have is to help bring people together.
21:05
I also talked about another value I have which is kind of persistence and consistency.
21:11
I just, I am relentless.
21:13
I just keep going.
21:14
I just get up and I keep going and I get, just keep going.
21:17
And that’s just something that’s core value of who I am as a person that resilience I’ve developed over the years.
21:23
Other ones to our curiosity, curiosity is everything about who I am as a person.
21:28
If you’re into human design, I’m a 5-1 profile.
21:31
So one is like my, I think subconscious unconscious.
21:36
So I need time to research and explore and learn and dive into things.
21:41
And that by starting a news journalism platform allows me to do that.
21:46
People often ask me like, what’s your modality in wellness?
21:49
And I’m like, I don’t have one because I love doing everything.
21:53
I love trying all the new things, cold plunging and cold and hydrotherapy, this new acupuncture technique, this new energy.
22:02
I’m like, sure, let’s do it.
22:03
Let’s go.
22:04
I want all of it.
22:05
And I love exploring San Diego.
22:08
I’ve always been a curious traveler that’s led me to live abroad.
22:11
I lived abroad in Brazil.
22:13
I lived abroad in Australia because I just had this insatiable thirst for knowledge.
22:17
Like I feel like I can never get enough.
22:20
I always need to be learning and growing and by creating a business that allows me to just follow my fancy.
22:27
Like I want to learn about that.
22:29
OK, let’s go, let’s go learn about it and we can write about it.
22:32
It’s just, it’s just so fun.
22:33
And then the other core value for me is a flow, ease and flow.
22:38
So I need to create time in my day where I can just creatively innovate and have that deep work moment and focus and see what comes in.
22:50
And because I followed the ease and flow of, you know, ideas and opportunities that come my way.
22:56
That’s led me to create multiple avenues of my business.
23:01
So because we have the media company now, which led to creating in person events, which led to creating a membership community for local entrepreneurs.
23:10
And now I’m lunching a marketing agency to support our local businesses too because I’ve just followed like, ok, this is coming in, let’s see where that goes and then seeing if it’s in alignment with my skill set and or what, what lights me up energy wise like, is that something I want to take on?
23:29
Is that a hell yes.
23:30
Ok.
23:31
Let’s go.
23:32
So I think getting really rooted in who you are will help you just live authentically in your business and in life too.
23:41
So if you know that that’s what you stand for, it just makes it easier.
23:45
Yeah, I think once you realize that it’s just, it’s just who you are and what you wanted to be.
23:49
You talk to so much about how letting opportunities come, like almost like letting doors open and you check them out and you’re like, I like that.
23:56
No, I’m going to keep that door closed.
23:58
I don’t want to move that way, you know, like really choosing which door to walk through and your business has just grown off that and I think sometimes when you start a business, yes, you have to plant seeds, but there’s also something really, really beautiful when like, the seeds are coming to you and you’re like, do I want to water it?
24:14
Do I not want to water it?
24:15
Is this something I’m really interested or not?
24:18
Which is so great.
24:19
And then you talked a lot about like, just knowing who you are, which as quote unquote easy.
24:25
It sounds, I also think it’s very, very difficult when you’re just navigating all these external data points that we’re consuming all day long and seeing all these other things.
24:34
So how have you, how can someone stay really rooted and like and listening to who they are when they are building their business when they are choosing their brand or showing up in a certain way?
24:44
What, how can someone choose that over choosing something else?
24:48
Well, it’s like a really good reminder that if you have one.
24:51
Yeah, I think, I think a lot of us know now how to check in with our intuition just making that awareness for yourself.
24:59
And also there’s, it’s really tempting to do the social media comparison game.
25:03
I ran a personal branding webinar last week and I walked through like kind of the five pillars, which is what we’re talking about, which is, you know, understanding your, why, like why are you doing this?
25:14
Who are you helping?
25:15
What makes you different than anybody else else?
25:17
What life experiences that you had, that make great story.
25:21
You know, we talked about building a brand that speaks to that identity consistency, curating content that aligns with that message and, and just putting it into action.
25:31
And so I was putting that powerpoint together and I was like, well, I thought about showing some brands that are doing it really well.
25:39
And I thought no, because that’s the problem is that everybody is looking at everybody, what everyone else is doing on Instagram and you know, stop the scroll with these three hooks.
25:49
And it’s like, OK, sure, you might get, you know, 1000 more views if you did it that way.
25:55
But is where’s your true message gone?
25:58
Because now you’re just trying to keep up with the algorithm or whatever, you’ve lost sight of the real prize, which is, it’s called social media, which is connecting with the people who actually want to hear from you in an authentic way, not some gimmick, not some hook to like get you to like your video.
26:17
So it can be tough.
26:19
I know that’s easier said than done.
26:21
But I think if you try different things out, you’ll, you’ll feel when it, when it resonates and you’ll see when you create content or you’ll know when you’re in flow in alignment with, with your business and your brand.
26:34
So I think one of the things I also tell people to do is we have a journal for like our lives.
26:41
But have you started a work journal where you’re talking about what you’re experiencing, the anxieties you’re having about your business.
26:49
A lot of people seek business coaches because they want help.
26:52
But sometimes it’s like kind of need a little therapy session to work through some of the issues that are coming up around achieving and feeling self worth.
27:02
Like we talked about like when those reels don’t do well, it’s not a reflection on you at all or maybe the views aren’t high, but have you looked at the engagement rate?
27:11
Like did people actually click through?
27:13
There’s different ways to look at numbers too?
27:15
That’s a side note.
27:16
But I think also just if you’re, you’re still not sure of who you are and identifying those values is looking at back who you were as a kid.
27:24
Like, what did you love to do?
27:25
Who were you?
27:26
You’re still that person?
27:28
You’ve had life experiences that have maybe moved you away from that?
27:31
But what lights you up?
27:32
What brings you joy?
27:34
Can you incorporate that into your day or into how you do your work and thinking about that too?
27:40
So there’s a lot of pressure we put on ourselves.
27:43
And so do you have your support and your self care systems in place for your business self, a journal therapy session with another entrepreneur setting a time like you would for, you know, like how you work out for your body, do you can you work out for your business?
28:02
Can you get systems in place that bring you better ease and flow and structure?
28:06
So if you’re feeling burnt out or you’re feeling uninspired or unsupported, not supported in what you’re doing, maybe building better business, self care systems is the way to go.
28:18
It’s so beautiful.
28:19
You’re talking to like, you need the structure to flow.
28:21
You know, I sometimes we’re like, well, I just want to flow and feel like whatever I want to do that day, you know, while that feels really yummy to some of us on the same, on the same side, sometimes it’s not exactly what we need, you know, and I really think that structure allows us for fluidity.
28:37
It allows things for flow, allows things for things to just move through much more seamlessly.
28:42
The structure is good and it’s also good to have the flow there too.
28:46
So it’s so nice that you already kind of talked to that and really highlighting the fact that you said on Instagram, especially social media, you get so caught up on like seeing the same things anyways.
28:57
It’s like, I’m also over it, you know, like every real looks exactly the same, every hook says exactly the same or like every title or whoever, whatever title they are, right?
29:08
They’re all saying the same things and you’re just like, where’s the newness in this?
29:13
And you’re talking to so much about like owning the newness, own something different, own who you are.
29:18
And we just need so much more of that in business online, in the world because the authenticity is what people are looking for.
29:26
Like different is like, oh that’s going to catch my eye versus like I’m seeing the same thing over and over again, you know.
29:32
Yeah.
29:33
And to think too, I always stress this too is social media is not a marketing strategy.
29:38
It’s part of your strategy.
29:39
It’s not everything because anything would happen more about that.
29:43
Yeah.
29:44
So you are on, you’re using somebody else’s platform.
29:49
They can do whatever they want with it.
29:52
The meta folks can change it tomorrow and make it something else.
29:56
And if you put all your eggs in that basket, you’re kind of out of, out of luck.
30:00
So it’s a tool.
30:02
It’s a way to get your message out, but it’s not everything.
30:05
So when you’re doing your, your branding and your, we’re talking about those core values or meeting the needs of your clients, you really need to do that leg work for first in understanding your message, who you serve what you offer and then decide what channel is best for that and where you want to show up.
30:23
A lot of folks I know do not want to show up on video on social media and that’s OK.
30:28
There’s other channels where you can do marketing.
30:30
You could be a guest blogger, you could come on podcasts like this, you can become a speaker and go join the speaker circuit.
30:37
You don’t have to just to do social media.
30:40
Granted, it is a helpful tool and I also want to reframe it for folks who want to use social media but aren’t daunted by.
30:46
It.
30:47
Is what I like to say is imagine that you had a auditorium of 3000 people that got a ticket because they wanted hear from you.
30:59
They want to hear directly from you.
31:01
You’re going to be on stage and you can speak directly to these people who are just at the edge of the seat because they want to hear what you have to say and it has cost you nothing to rent this auditorium and have these people listening for you.
31:15
That’s social media.
31:16
So you know, that’s Instagram, most people have like, you know, 3000 followers or more than that.
31:21
So imagine if you had a auditorium with 3000 people, you’d be like, oh my God, like wow, I love that shift.
31:28
I would never even thought of it that way.
31:31
Yeah, I imagine it’s so important.
31:34
Yeah, and it’s free and it’s free and that energy and that energy that you’re talking about, you know, like really showing up at that energy of like I’m on stage.
31:43
This is what I’ve got.
31:44
This is what I’m saying.
31:45
This is who I am.
31:46
Who am I going to be in that and showing up in that energy and knowing that it’s free and that it’s here.
31:52
Yeah.
31:52
Maybe like the stage is daunting to you because you’re like, maybe don’t like the spot that kind of person.
31:57
Imagine.
31:57
Like it’s workshop, even if it’s just a workshop of 100 people.
32:01
How do you show up to that?
32:02
You’re having a, one on one conversation directly with people who are looking at their phones, who are looking directly into your eyes.
32:09
If you look straight into camera, they’re, they’re seeing you, you’re having an intimate dialogue with these people, whether it’s in your D MS or in your stories or you know, your reels are what have you.
32:20
So just shifting it a little bit and again, I keep using the word social media.
32:24
It’s a social connection you’re making with your people directly.
32:28
And I can’t stress enough like showing rather than telling, how can you show people what you do?
32:33
How can you demonstrate that and taking people along with you on the journey, I think is really helpful.
32:39
So, and also a little bit of intrigue, don’t give everything away.
32:42
Keep it a little bit mysterious.
32:44
You know, it’s kind of like dating, you know, like you want them coming back for more.
32:49
So like this is a little bit of me this you got Yeah, where to find you.
32:55
I need to show them everything in your life.
32:57
That’s not what we’re saying here about being authentic.
32:59
You don’t need to show them your dog and your house.
33:02
And no, I was saying about showing up in ways that resonate with who you are.
33:06
And if you want to show your dog, that’s great too.
33:08
But does that land with what your business is trying to do, you know, is that meet the needs of your clients?
33:14
What you, you and your dog going on a hike?
33:16
Ok.
33:17
You’re bringing up something so interesting.
33:19
Like how does someone, you know, someone that grew up kind of like in social media?
33:23
Like, you know, my generation is like we use social media a lot for ourselves, like our personal life to share with our friends and stuff and then creating a business.
33:32
You know, how does someone separate the two?
33:35
Right?
33:35
Like there’s this like you don’t separate the two in the sense of like this is my business, this is my professional side, this is what I’m, this is what I’m marketing and I also want to give you a flavor of who I am.
33:44
And also not, I mean, if you want to, I guess like not fully share every party, like what’s a good blend of both or how can someone find a blend of like here’s me, right?
33:55
You get to know me, you get to know the professional me, not all of it being all about me or not all of it just being all about business, right?
34:02
I feel like there’s a nice beautiful blend between two who, whatever someone feels, the extent of.
34:07
What are your thoughts on that?
34:08
I think it depends on what your business is and who your audience hears.
34:12
So, if you are working in, let’s say, just talking about wellness, analogies because that’s who I talk with every day.
34:18
But let’s say you’re going to, you really want to move into corporate wellness.
34:22
You sure you can show yourself going out with your dog on a hike that shows that you’re into wellness.
34:27
But is that going to meet the needs of what a corporate wellness person is looking for?
34:32
Are you showing ways of how you’ve helped people in past corporate wellness situations?
34:38
It needs to be a little more buttoned up, right?
34:40
It could still be that authenticity about how that gives you inspiration and maybe the hike inspires you to go to start it is your story as to why you started corporate Wellness.
34:51
Ok.
34:51
There’s good ways of framing it and framing the message that resonates again.
34:56
I’m getting back to intentionality and why you’re, you’re showing what you’re showing.
35:00
So I thinking, thinking about it that way of how can I position this part of the story so that it meets, speaks to what my client is facing or what my audience is going through at the same time as well.
35:13
If you’re wanting to show about like how you live in alignment and you’ve cultivated this flow and ease and you’re coaching other people to do the same.
35:21
Now, that makes sense to show you how you’re really living and adjusting your schedule and you can go hiking with your dog at any time at Tory Pints or whatever.
35:29
Like, there’s a different, there’s a different construct and a different frame, different message that you’re getting across of that hike with your dog.
35:37
So if that makes sense, it just really comes down to who you’re helping, what you’re trying to do, who you’re serving.
35:44
And there’s, there’s nothing wrong with the dog on the hike.
35:47
It’s just about putting it in context with what, what you’re doing.
35:50
Yeah.
35:50
Yeah, I know, I appreciate you breaking that down because sometimes it’s difficult to navigate that and you just totally leaned on.
35:56
It really comes down to like who your target audience is and like who you’re focused on and building what you show in that direction, right?
36:04
Like what would be something that they would be interested in seeing?
36:06
What parts of you would they be interested in seeing and knowing about?
36:09
So I love that.
36:11
I do love that as we start to kind of wrap up the episode, I would love to hear, you know, what has, how has building your business and the way that you’ve built it, given you permission to li like be fully expressed in the way of like you really expressing your moth authentic self.
36:26
You talked a lot about it on this episode but has there been any other thing that you’ve been finding yourself truly?
36:34
Like, oh, this is me like I feel really expressed in this way.
36:38
How is your business?
36:38
Met you in that?
36:39
Yeah, I think, you know, I think it’s right now I’m focusing on honing in my discernment more because what discernment means?
36:48
Yeah.
36:49
So like you said, we talked about the doors opening or closing.
36:53
Do you get a lot of ideas?
36:54
And some of them are not?
36:55
For me, you mentioned that you’re reading Big Magic.
36:57
There’s a great story in there of Elizabeth Gilbert getting a story idea and then she like, actually like it on, she like gave a kiss to her friend and like passed it on to someone else.
37:09
I think it can be hard when we are ideas.
37:12
People that not everything is for us or to sit with it or to act on it.
37:16
So really putting some pause, I guess is in what I’m doing and thinking.
37:20
Ok, that’s a fantastic idea.
37:23
Should I do that now or should I do that later?
37:26
That’s hard sometimes because I, I get a lot of ideas and I like, I want to do all of them at once.
37:32
So that’s really hard for me.
37:34
But again, it’s about timing and about the hell yes.
37:39
You know, for those in human design, I have the sacred authority.
37:43
So I really need to know, I really need to feel that yes, if I should move ahead with something or not.
37:50
So that’s something I am still working on because I am also a people pleaser, you know, personality II I conflict avoid it.
37:59
I want to make sure everyone’s, you know, feeling great.
38:03
So just knowing those things about yourself too can be really helpful.
38:08
So I’m fully expressed when I love just connecting people bringing people together.
38:15
I love doing those events.
38:16
I love t I found out, you know, I really love leading workshops.
38:20
I want to do more of that, moving into coaching and running some courses.
38:26
I love this community that we’re building for wellness, entrepreneurs and sharing with what I know and bringing other people to, to expand.
38:35
Because one of the other mottos I have is because when we all do better, we all do better.
38:41
I really want to uplift everybody because I know the ripple effect that, that creates.
38:46
So those are just mottos that I live by.
38:49
And I know that if I true to those, then everything else will flow seamlessly.
38:54
Thank you so much for sharing that love that and it’s been such a pleasure having you speak and share your story.
39:00
Thank you so much to offer and I just love the way that you view business and authenticity and how you’ve really leaned into this and the way that meets you in your life, which is so beautiful.
39:11
I would love to hear.
39:13
how can someone connect with you?
39:15
Where can they find you and if you have any other like maybe soon to be workshops or anything you want to share.
39:21
Thanks.
39:22
Yeah.
39:23
Locallywell.com is the website for finding all things Wellness news in San Diego or at locally.
39:30
Well, on Instagram, we have our podcast Wellness in San Diego, wherever you find your podcasts.
39:35
And then now we also have like I mentioned the collective, which is our membership community for wellness entrepreneurs, mainly in San Diego because we do have meetups.
39:45
But anyone can join that.
39:46
You can find information about that on our Instagram or website.
39:50
And now I’m starting locally while marketing because I can’t just do one thing.
39:54
So just started that Instagram account like last week.
39:58
So watch that space.
40:00
But if you’re wanting marketing coaching, support for your business honing in on your messaging, that’s something I can help you out or just accountability coaching.
40:09
I do have an MBA.
40:10
I, like I said, risen the ranks in corporate land so I can help you out with bis ops and operations and systems too.
40:17
So that’s me.
40:18
Yeah, you deserve a wealth of knowledge, you know, your desire to know and research so much.
40:23
I feel like you have so much wisdom to share and all these different containers in a different way.
40:27
So thank you so much for sharing that and really thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
40:32
Thanks, Karenna.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the Fully Expressed Podcast with Karenna.
0:03
This is the show where we have conversations that invite you into living a life, fully express, really finding relationships where you feel fully expressed and also, you know, creating a professional career or business where you can feel fully expressed.
0:17
And so we have these conversations where we generally just dive into different stories, healing modalities about how other people are getting to a place of living a life fully expressed.
0:28
Today’s episode is really sweet.
0:30
I have a very special guest.
0:33
Her name is Beth and Beth is someone that I met at a retreat a couple of years ago.
0:39
And I swear, I think that retreat was absolutely life changing, not just for me, but I think everyone and so I’ve talked about this on the podcast, but I feel like everyone that gets to come on this podcast are people that I met at retreats retreats and in person events are life changing as much as even like I would say like group containers or even online.
0:59
But there’s just something out in person when you just be so seen, so vulnerable.
1:04
You’re like, wait, I didn’t know this could happen.
1:06
And so we met at that exact retreat and then we friends ever since then and Beth has just been a part of my life and I love witnessing her from a distance and she is such a gem.
1:18
So I’m so excited for her to share her story with you because I think it’s just going to serve so many people in all the different ways.
1:26
So with that being said, hi, Beth, would you like to introduce yourself?
1:30
Hello, Karenna.
1:31
Oh my God.
1:32
About the retreat.
1:34
I’m just like, it really was so transformative.
1:37
That was actually my first retreat I ever went on.
1:39
Really?
1:40
Yes, I think it was mine too.
1:42
Was it?
1:43
I think I’ve done like women’s circles before that but not like a full day retreat.
1:47
I was like, yeah, that was my first one too.
1:50
Yes, it was so special.
1:52
I mean, obviously I got to meet you and we just connected.
1:55
I just pera in person is just, you’re so wonderful.
1:59
You just like this too.
2:00
But just feeling in your energy and feeling so safe and being around people that are like minded.
2:05
It was something I had never experienced before in that way.
2:08
And everyone being so vulnerable and man, the people on that retreat.
2:12
I we still keep in touch with so many of them and it’s really transformed my life.
2:16
So I’m so glad I got to meet you there.
2:18
And yeah, so I’m a a trauma informed life coach and a breath work facilitator.
2:23
I like to call myself an empowerment and self love coach.
2:27
So I work one among clients and in group settings.
2:30
And then I’ve facilitated a couple in person retreats, which truly is my favorite part or the in person things.
2:36
And I just help people come back home to themselves, loving all versions of themselves through healing and some somatic work and really just self discovery and helping people know like they’re just because they’re feeling anxiety or depression or, you know, a big emotion doesn’t mean there’s anything going wrong with them.
2:53
It’s just learning how to manage.
2:55
So that’s most of the work that I do and I just love it so much.
2:58
Thank you so much for sharing all of that.
3:00
I think what you’re doing is so important and just that fact, like there’s nothing wrong with you.
3:05
It’s just like how do you have the tools to be with it and manage it, which I think we’re not taught about enough.
3:11
We’re not talked about enough, you know, how to be with all of that that comes with that.
3:16
And then there’s all those shame spirals and guilt that I’m like, I have anxiety, I’m depressed.
3:21
You know, it just keeps us in that.
3:23
Yeah, we’re not taught in school how to manage our emotions.
3:26
We’re not taught what to do with anxiety or overwhelm or burnout.
3:31
And so when it happens, you’re like your body feels it and my old system to be like something’s going wrong.
3:36
There’s a problem with me or I don’t want to feel this.
3:38
So I need to take something in order to not feel it.
3:41
And now that I’ve learned how to embody and express all my emotions, I realize that’s the human experience and of this bull is here.
3:49
I love myself for having this.
3:50
Now, where is it taking me?
3:51
Where does it, where do I need healing?
3:53
What, what was my body need to come back to safety instead of I wish I didn’t have this anxiety.
3:58
You know, anxiety was a big one that I juggled with a lot in my life where I learned like how to manage it and welcome it.
4:06
Well, I’d love to either start there or even start like where we met at the retreat.
4:09
I feel like you were, how much however much you want to share.
4:12
But like, yeah, how was it for you when he recognized that you had so much anxiety and you know, what kind of kicked off learning about that or like wanting to work through that?
4:21
Yeah, I’m trying to think where, where it would be best to go.
4:25
Let’s see.
4:26
Well, with my anxiety, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I learned that I needed to go back to the root of where that began.
4:34
And that was my inner child.
4:36
I grew up in Southern California where there was earthquakes.
4:39
And as a little child, as a little girl, they were mostly in the middle of the night.
4:42
And so I started getting really, really anxious to go to sleep and that anxiety just stayed with me.
4:48
And then when I finally pinpointed it to the root, and I was to be able to go back to that little girl and help her feel safe and loved.
4:54
It made it huge difference.
4:55
And then in my own work with coaching, just learning how to process and allow emotions was huge, you know, naming the emotion, this is anxiety.
5:03
I’m experiencing anxiety, whereas in my body going in the body, right?
5:07
And just letting yourself welcome yourself into feeling it and then getting curious and allowing it to be there just takes so much charge out of the emotion and then just being so loving and compassionate with myself, it’s ok.
5:21
This is here.
5:22
But when I went on the retreat, I had just launched my coaching business maybe four months prior.
5:28
And I was going through a difficult time in my marriage, but no one really knew.
5:33
So like I launched my business, my marriage started to really a turn for the worse rug was swept out from under me and I was living in survival mode.
5:43
But this was before I knew anything about nervous system regulation.
5:46
Like I was a mindset coach, it was like change your thoughts and then you could change your feelings, which is so destructive doesn’t necessarily work that way.
5:56
Right.
5:56
And so for a long time, I tried to mindset my way through ignoring the signals of my body to try to save my marriage.
6:03
And I couldn’t figure out why this coaching model wasn’t working.
6:06
You know, like if I think that then I’ll feel this way and everything will be ok.
6:11
And so, yeah, I just followed my intuition and went on this retreat and I was in survival mode, total fight or flight.
6:19
I had just gotten more definitely ST news about my relationship.
6:22
And I just remember driving there, I didn’t know a soul.
6:24
I had never worked with the coach, never met anybody that was going on the retreat, but I knew that I needed that retreat and it was the first time I could stand up before people and it felt so safe, just the energy of everyone to vulnerably express everything that I was going through.
6:41
And I had had a therapist at the time, but it was different.
6:44
It was being able to voice what was happening and to have people hold space and not judge me was really powerful and to have all that support, all I felt was just just this overwhelming love from total strangers.
6:57
It was beautiful.
6:58
So, yeah, I learned that retreat.
7:01
I was introduced to breathwork and that was a crazy experience my first time and then the cold plunging.
7:06
Now today is like a part of my everyday practice for healing modalities and breath work is something that I do with my clients at almost every session.
7:15
Yeah.
7:15
Thank you so much for sharing all that because I feel like you talked to so many things like the fact that like expressing these parts of you that were just like buried underneath or being stuffed down or suppressed and then just having like the right space for it to just be loved on and supported, you know, and you even shared like at the beginning, you did that with your inner child.
7:35
So there’s this thing that you’re talking to so much about how you can be with the different parts of you and express it.
7:41
But really what these parts of us want is just to be loved, seen, heard and understood, not that they necessarily want to be changed, but there’s just so much power in allowing them just to be like, just be or allow them just to be expressed like you were talking to be aware that those parts are there.
7:57
Yes.
7:58
But like, I think so many of us were just kind of walking around and we’re like, why do I feel this way?
8:02
Why am I like this?
8:03
Why do I, why can’t I seem to get through this?
8:06
And it’s really just parts of us that are like, hey, like I’m here, you know, so learning to go back and be with those arts has been, I think inner child work has probably been the most magical healing modality for me.
8:19
And it’s not like you heal your inner child, right?
8:21
It’s a consistent, ongoing process of checking back in and loving them.
8:26
And I just, I just want to like tell everyone and help them because the peace you feel and the security and safety is like nothing I ever experienced because I never knew that’s what was, what was missing, right?
8:39
How did it feel back when before this all happened?
8:42
Right?
8:42
You were talking about like before I even knew these tools and you were just honestly just doing a life like, you know, showing up for your kids, showing up for your responsibilities, showing up for your marriage, you know, showing up for just life, things like what did it feel like in those moments before you got these tools before you became aware before you knew that this was even possible.
9:01
Like I’d love to talk to that version of you.
9:03
Like, what did that feel like?
9:04
Oh my gosh, I love that question.
9:06
Thank you.
9:07
Life tip of the week that I want to drop, take your shoes off when you are outside, go put your feet on the ground.
9:17
Yes though.
9:18
Take your shoes off, put your feet in the sand, feel the earth allow your body to ground and connect with the energy and the ions that are coming from the ground into your feet.
9:28
You will love yourself for that.
9:31
Your body will love you for it.
9:33
Oh, do it today.
9:35
I love that version of me too because she was so lost and trying to do everything perfect.
9:42
I have four kids and my anxiety really peaked around 2017.
9:48
All my kids had gone to school and for the first time I wanted to do something for me.
9:54
I wanted to coach the high school cheer team.
9:56
I’m a college cheerleader.
9:58
My girls were going to be doing that sport and I got approached to ask to do that to coach and brought it to my ex.
10:06
Now my husband at the time saying I really want to do this.
10:09
I felt excited.
10:10
I wanted to do it and I was met with, well, I don’t really want you to do that, but if you really want to, I’ll support you.
10:17
And so it was one of those things that I was like, wait, I could have something for me.
10:20
Like I raised the kids, they’re all in school now.
10:23
And so ultimately, I went ahead and took this job and this program was just mess when I first came into it.
10:29
And so it did take a lot of energy and I was making new changes and adding, actually holding the girls accountable and discipline and just trying to revamp this whole program to make it the best that I could.
10:40
And that came with a lot of added stress.
10:42
And so I started struggling to manage my anxiety.
10:45
I couldn’t sleep at night.
10:47
The laundry was, I was like feeling behind on things.
10:49
I was, you know, having some friction with my partner because, you know, my time was being, you know, divided a little bit.
10:56
And so I started taking Xanax.
10:58
I don’t know if I ever told you this story.
11:00
No.
11:01
So I started taking a half of Xanax at night to sleep and it was like a magic pill, right?
11:08
Like it put me out, I slept so good and but I hit it like I didn’t tell my husband that I was taking it.
11:15
I didn’t tell anyone about it.
11:17
And then it got to where I would try not to take it at night and I couldn’t, I would go stay up all night and I had insomnia some like a battle in my head because the anxiety or throughout the day, I’d be like, I’m not going to take the Xanax.
11:28
I don’t need the Xanax and then as the day would go on and on and on, I just, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
11:32
It was like I needed it to help me manage the anxiety.
11:36
And so it was about a six month period where I, I started taking it every night.
11:40
Well, then what happened was I started getting brain fog.
11:43
I started earlier in the day needing something more.
11:46
So what was I doing?
11:47
I was just pushing the anxiety down.
11:50
And at that time, I started finding some life coaching tools.
11:53
I started listening to some podcasts and hearing about the emotion and trying to process it.
11:59
And so I was finally able to start to practice that and come off the anxiety or come off the Xanax because I had to sit in the discomfort and we’re not taught to sit in the discomfort.
12:11
But once I learned that tool, so, but I went, it might have been, it was maybe six months to a year that I really felt like I was in a fog just doing all the things looking like everything was great.
12:21
But inside, I was not OK.
12:23
That what you just said right there, I could resonate so much, you know, looking like on the outside that I everything’s fine, you know, you know, rolling through life in the way of like I’m showing up for everything, executing on everything.
12:35
But like internally it’s a mess like I’m struggling, it’s chaotic.
12:40
It’s too much I can’t manage.
12:42
It’s just, it’s wild how we can have those two different worlds almost be completely separate, but they’re happening at the same time for us.
12:49
You don’t feel safe in your body.
12:51
You’re just like you don’t feel in control, you don’t feel like you can manage.
12:56
And my inner critic, which I learned later what the inner critic is but was being like, Beth, you should be able to handle all this.
13:03
What’s your problem?
13:04
What is the inner critic or anyone like that?
13:08
Yeah.
13:08
So we all have this voice in our head.
13:10
It’s a part of us and some people like to name their inner critic like a name that they don’t like.
13:16
And I don’t even want to say a name to offend anyone who might be listening, but you can name it like an ugly name that you don’t like.
13:22
And this part of us, this voice in our head is not us.
13:26
So we’re born inherently worthy.
13:29
And then the only thing that takes that away from us is when we’re told that we’re not in some way.
13:36
So it could be a parent, a teacher that tells you, you know, you’re fat or you’re not good at that or be quiet.
13:43
So you don’t be angry.
13:44
You know, it’s just that someone else telling us and then we take it on and believe it.
13:48
And so it’s that voice in our head that’s really not us, but it’s really most of the time people aren’t even aware that it’s not them, right?
13:57
And so for me, when I was young, the inner critic, it was like, you’re not good enough, right?
14:03
So then we can bring the religion, part of my story into this.
14:06
But I had a rupture when I was young in my religion that I felt like I, I was told that I had sinned, but I kept it in and just internally shamed myself.
14:15
My inner critics said you’re not good.
14:17
It’s like, not only did I do something bad, I was bad.
14:20
And so then I had to make up for it the rest of my life.
14:23
And so that a critic is the one that’s trying to tell us, you know, we look in the mirror at the gym and you might notice some cellulite or you notice the zit on your face or you’re like, oh my eyes are too small or I don’t like this or that.
14:34
That’s the inner critic talking to us and we’re not aware of it.
14:38
It can become this big huge part of our brain that can overpower us from our really our true essence.
14:45
So yeah, no, it totally makes sense.
14:49
So thank you for sharing that.
14:50
I think I have a very, very vivid memory that keeps coming up recently.
14:54
Like, so as I’m stepping into speaking, as I’m stepping, I’ve always wanted to sing too.
14:59
And I vividly remember my mom, I started singing and I vividly remember my mom saying like, don’t talk or like something like stop singing.
15:06
But I took that as like, oh, I’m a bad singer.
15:09
And so like talking to what you were talking about, like whenever I would sing now I’m like, oh, I don’t sound good like you are judging me because I’m not singing or like, I don’t want to sing.
15:17
I don’t want to use my voice.
15:19
And so, but that moment was the way that I perceived that as negative as bad, you know, I’m like, you know, that for you and then I want to just take little Kenna and be like, yeah, you’re perfect.
15:30
You’re beautiful.
15:31
Use your voice, you know.
15:33
Yeah.
15:33
Yeah.
15:34
No, I appreciate that.
15:35
And I think, you know, spending time with her is best thing I can do is to, like, try to almost like rework that event in a different way, right?
15:44
The way I perceived it was bad.
15:45
But at the end of the day, my mom generally probably was busy.
15:48
She wasn’t saying don’t use your voice, your voice is ugly, blah, blah, blah, even though that’s how I received it at the time.
15:57
So thanks, I’d love to learn a little bit more if you’re like, talking about the religious trauma you’re talking about because this is something that as I’ve worked with clients, they didn’t even realize that was thing.
16:09
And I’ve, I’ve even gone through my own religious awareness or breakthroughs because I was like, I feel guilty because I’m not showing up in the way that God or Jesus wants me to be or however the church would explain things.
16:20
So I’d love to hear a little bit more about your story.
16:22
I would love to share it because I do think I really love speaking to this because I didn’t even wasn’t even aware I had religious trauma until a few years ago.
16:30
And I was just like I have no beef with the church that I left.
16:34
Like there’s a lot of great, there was good things with it and I had a happy childhood, loving parents and there’s something wrong here until I really dug deep.
16:43
And I actually just published a book with 10 other women that where I write in depth about my religious experience.
16:50
and it was so healing to be able to write that book and then so freaking vulnerable to put it out into the world and have everybody reading about as Gary.
17:00
Yeah, I had a v vulnerability attack and now I realize like it, it was beautiful, how beautiful to have a vulnerability attack to be seen and, and just to let myself feel that and to know that it’s for a deeper purpose.
17:15
So my story is I think I was seven or eight and I was the youngest of six kids in a strict Mormon household, loving parents still have great relationship with my parents today.
17:26
And, but the rupture was which I literally hid this for my whole life until and I’ll tell the story because I had so much shame around it.
17:36
I couldn’t even talk to my coach about it.
17:38
Even I, I would say how many years ago is this three years ago?
17:41
So this is like, you know, I’m 43.
17:44
This was something I held on to for a really long time.
17:46
Just shows you what the shame the shame that lives in your body so impactful that is.
17:51
But we were having a little family meeting.
17:53
It’s called family home evening and, and my dad had a list of sins printed out on a piece of paper and he was just going through what, you know, the sins that we weren’t supposed to do and one of the sins was masturbation.
18:07
And I didn’t even know what that big word was.
18:09
I could read, but I didn’t even know what it was.
18:11
And then when I read the description, you know, to give yourself pleasure, it was like this instant like I had, I did that, but I did know I had done it like I didn’t even know that it was wrong.
18:22
And I remember like sitting, I still remember sitting in that moment and looking around at my siblings, like, can anyone tell that I did that?
18:30
And my parents tell that I did this and feeling so dirty and so bad and I didn’t say anything.
18:37
And then also I remember on the list was the ones that you had to go before a bishop to be able to be forgiven.
18:42
So some sins you could take care of just between you and God pray and repent and you’re forgiven.
18:47
But there were certain sins, you know, sexual sins, masturbation, those kinds of things.
18:52
You had to talk to a bishop in order to be clean again.
18:55
And masturbation was on there.
18:56
And I just remember feeling like, what am I going to do?
18:59
I literally, I can’t tell anybody about this.
19:01
I’m so bad.
19:02
Nobody else has done this.
19:04
You know, I felt so alone.
19:05
And I remember running up to the bathroom after the meeting was over and shutting my door and just looking at the paper and thinking there’s no way I could tell, man.
19:13
I mean, I’m like seven or eight years old.
19:14
Right.
19:14
Yeah, I was going to ask how old you were?
19:16
That’s seven or eight.
19:17
And I think the bishop in our ward at the time was, was a friend of my parents and I was like, I could never tell him.
19:23
And I just remember feeling so like I was just dirty and not working and then, and then I just decided I’m gonna do everything perfect to make up for this.
19:34
I can’t confess this, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna fix it by being perfect in every other way in my life.
19:39
And that’s where the perfectionist achiever was born.
19:43
Wow.
19:44
That decided I will never sin.
19:46
I will never do anything.
19:47
My parents don’t want me to do.
19:48
I will get straight A’s.
19:49
I will be, you know, all so I will check all the boxes.
19:53
And so, you know, it’s not like I thought about this every day, but I carried it with me.
19:58
And so then when I would go into seminary when I was older and they would talk about repentance and how, if you’re not repented, you’re going to be, you know, like all the threats, right, that were in the Bible about if you didn’t do that.
20:08
And so I never felt like I could be clean of it.
20:11
I would try to pray.
20:12
And then the second part of the story is, is funny, funny now, but I finally went to BYU to college away at school.
20:21
I decided, ok, now I can talk to the bishop because he doesn’t know me.
20:24
He doesn’t know my family.
20:25
It will be safe.
20:26
And I write about all this in the, in the chapter.
20:29
But I go, I make this appointment with the bishop.
20:31
It’s at his home and my heart’s racing like I don’t want to do this, but I’m so sick of holding on to this.
20:36
I just want to feel clean and he opens the door and he says, oh, hey, what are you doing here?
20:41
And I’m like, oh, I have an appointment and he’s like, oh, I don’t have you on the books and then literally inside.
20:46
I’m like, dude, I have got, you know, got to go down, I need, I need to do this now.
20:52
I need to get this off my chest.
20:53
So anyway, he ends up having me come in, I sit down with him.
20:56
I literally couldn’t tell him that I did it still.
20:59
I tried.
20:59
I was like, so my friend has a question about masturbation.
21:03
She wants to know, like, if this is something she needs to take care of with the bishop or if she can just be forgiven of it.
21:08
That’s how much shame I was carrying.
21:10
What was it?
21:11
I was like, it was so talking about shame.
21:14
Yeah.
21:14
Like, what was it?
21:15
I was embarrassed that I had touched myself like that.
21:18
Like I was taught that it was wrong that there was something wrong because I gave myself, It just felt good.
21:25
Yeah.
21:25
You know, and I was confused.
21:28
I couldn’t talk to a soul about it.
21:29
I didn’t feel safe with anyone.
21:31
I didn’t hear anyone else say, oh, I did that normal to do that.
21:36
It’s ok.
21:37
And so the bishop did tell me, well, yeah, you are supposed to, you know, tell a bishop about it, but there’s not a big repentance process.
21:43
And I was like, ok, I’ll tell her and then I left and I got in my car and I remember driving back to my apartment.
21:50
I was, I was angry.
21:52
I was like that I couldn’t do it.
21:53
I couldn’t just get rid of it.
21:55
And I’ve been like, and then I got the anger went into like, why do I have to tell a man about this?
22:01
This is my body.
22:02
I’m so freaking sick of thinking about this.
22:04
I’m just, I’m not, I’m not gonna do this anymore.
22:07
I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna feel bad about it and I drove back home but the truth is, is I still feel bad about, feel bad about it.
22:14
Yeah.
22:14
I get that too for a long time.
22:17
But I was like, it was, it was traumatic.
22:19
It was so traumatic.
22:20
And now the woman who meet today is like, you don’t have to tell anyone about anything to do with your body.
22:26
Yeah.
22:27
But I, I love to be a voice for that and I’ve talked openly about it with my kids and that it’s a natural, beautiful seeing.
22:32
It’s nothing to feel shame for.
22:34
But that sexual suppression and shame that is born in religion.
22:39
I know.
22:40
You know, Mormonism isn’t the only one.
22:41
, it really causes harm to the spirit, to the body, to the soul in a way that I just didn’t even realize how much it impacted me until later, until I started going.
22:52
Wow.
22:53
Thank you so much for sharing all of that because it’s so true.
22:57
I think what you’re talking to one thing.
22:58
Yeah.
22:59
It’s born in religion but I feel like it’s especially sexual expression or when you’re that young and you start to feel things and your body is just naturally warming things, right?
23:09
Like it’s not like we’re biologically like, you know, when we start to hit people, I remember when I would start masturbating and I would try and hide too.
23:16
I’d be like, I don’t want, you want to know.
23:18
I know this feels good.
23:19
But then there’s this, like weird voice that’s like, no, you shouldn’t be doing this.
23:24
You have to hide.
23:26
Right.
23:27
Do I know where that came from?
23:28
For me at the time?
23:29
I really don’t.
23:29
But I think it’s just also a part of our culture of like, no, totally some ways.
23:34
And I also think that, I mean, it’s so beautiful that you’re having these conversations with your kids because it normalizes.
23:42
That’s a normal thing, you know, in some way, shape or form.
23:45
It’s like it’s ok that this is happening.
23:47
And the other thing just like witness you and the fact that you carried that on for so many years and like, I’m sure that was also truly exhausting too, like constantly battling that thing that started at 76 or seven years old to the next 3040 years.
24:06
Well, yeah.
24:06
And then I didn’t, once I learned what it was, how bad it was.
24:09
I never did anything again.
24:11
Right.
24:11
So I like, yeah, explore myself sexually or didn’t feel like it was right until I, you know, got married.
24:17
So it’s like I almost feel like I robbed my own self of that exploration or allowing myself to have pleasure in a way.
24:26
Luckily it didn’t really show up in my marriage, in my, in that way.
24:30
But as I’ve shared it now and I talk about it openly, people are like me too.
24:35
I felt the same way.
24:36
I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.
24:38
Right.
24:39
And so I think it’s so, it’s so important to talk about.
24:42
Most kids.
24:43
Do.
24:44
Most adolescent, young adults are doing this yet?
24:47
They’re not talking about it and when we don’t talk about things, that’s when that’s when something becomes shameful.
24:52
So I think it’s so important to have these open conversations of.
24:55
Yeah.
24:56
I mean, do, does there need to be boundaries?
24:57
Do we do it in public?
24:58
Do we, you know, like those and how you share it?
25:01
Yeah.
25:02
Right.
25:02
How you share it and it just, I just love, I love having open dialogue and conversations with my kids so that, you know, sometimes when they bring something to me, I might have an internal reaction like they’ve asked me certain questions and I’m like, I almost, it’s like, but on the outside I’m like, OK, yeah, that’s not a problem.
25:21
Let’s talk about it.
25:22
Right.
25:23
Let me tell you about oral sex is since you’re asking natural, right?
25:27
But even as I first started into parenting different than I was parented which everything was shut, shoved under the rug.
25:33
There was no open dialogue, there was no sex conversation.
25:36
You know, my system was didn’t feel safe to do it.
25:39
And now it’s just like it’s totally and my, my body is just like, yeah, let’s talk about that.
25:44
OK, cool.
25:46
Oh This is happening to you.
25:47
Cool.
25:47
Let’s talk about it.
25:48
Yeah, I mean, I know there’s some moms that listen to this podcast and I’m just so curious, like how, what is there any advice or tips on how to have that conversation with your kids?
25:56
Like what has worked and what has been supportive and being comfortable to have those conversations in your home?
26:03
Yeah, I’d love that question.
26:05
And so for me, it was, you know, having the birds and the bees talk or like let’s talk about sex, right?
26:11
Is trying to create as much safety in the setting that we’re in of like in like casually just but speaking the words like this is what happens and saying penis and saying vagina and saying orgasm as if they’re just regular words, not like no, like calling them different things, but calling them what they are and letting them know like, listen, there’s nothing you can ask me that’s off limits and you could see like, you know, sometimes they get uncomfortable like mom, you know, I’m like, I get it, it feels uncomfortable.
26:43
I just want you to know that it’s safe to ask me anything.
26:45
And now my oldest is 18 and my youngest is he’ll be 12 this week.
26:49
And so it’s definitely evolved how I’ve done it over the years, but it’s just beautiful to when things come up, just open up the conversation.
26:59
Like think about that.
27:00
Yeah.
27:00
How does that feel to you?
27:02
Yeah.
27:02
Right.
27:02
And then talking about sex and oh, it’s such a beautiful thing.
27:05
Our bodies are so amazing.
27:07
They’re made to have pleasure you know, and so there’s a few little things sometimes where they’ll be like mom, I don’t want to talk about this and that’s ok.
27:14
, but mostly it’s them bringing stuff to me now and I love it.
27:18
I love being able to talk to them about anything and then they feel safe, you know, to come to me with things.
27:23
I think it’s so beautiful.
27:25
The first thing that kind of comes to mind as you’re talking about that, like, I could hear even like myself, like I have this internal voice of, well, if I start talking about it, will they start just having sex all the time?
27:36
You know, like this, like, fear of, like, if I normalize it and I almost giving them permission and I’d love to hear your response to that.
27:43
Yeah.
27:43
Well, that so interesting that’s coming up for you.
27:45
Corina, I wonder what’s underlying there.
27:48
No, I just think about other moms because I think when it comes to kids personally, like, I don’t have kids, but even just the fear of like, when they’re 12345 years old and they start to have conversations.
27:59
Like, how much do you say?
28:01
How much don’t you say?
28:02
Like, there is this, like part of me that’s like, what’s ok to say, oh, like the other day I, I ran into a friend and she was with her kid and he was playing, he plays baseball and I was like, I heard that you’ve been kicking and I wanted to say I heard you’ve been kicking ass.
28:17
But then there was this part of me, I was like, is that ok with how you parent your kids?
28:21
Like is it ok for me to say like, hey, I heard it’s you’re kicking ass.
28:25
Whereas I said I was like booty.
28:26
I don’t know, I just, I just got awkward, you know, because I was like, I don’t know how you parent your kids.
28:31
And I also don’t know how you feel about that.
28:33
And the mom and my friend that I was with, she’s like, oh no, he knows what that is.
28:36
We talk about it like normal in our house.
28:38
And so I think that kind of like filter or awareness I have of like, I don’t know how this is or like if this is ok.
28:48
And I also always want to respect what is the parents desires on how they raise their kids?
28:53
Right?
28:54
But back to the sex thing like, yeah, I mean my mom, she talks to me about sex all the time.
29:00
If my mom it tells you she’s like you love sex.
29:02
I love talking about sex.
29:03
I would tell her about everything and I love that she did that like I love that.
29:07
I felt safe enough to talk to her about what I heard my friends were doing, you know, or what I like me interested in like starting to have sex, like the idea of like these things and not things like she was here for all of it.
29:21
But there’s still this, like, whisper in the background or like curiosity, you know, for the parents that are thinking, well, if I talk about, will it permit it?
29:31
I know from my situation with my mom because it was so easy.
29:35
I wasn’t sleeping around, you know, I wasn’t hiding it.
29:38
It didn’t become this thing.
29:39
I didn’t want to do.
29:40
Like it was something that I chose to do in most ways growing up.
29:44
And I also had to learn how to figure all that out out, but I felt safe enough to tell her about it.
29:49
That’s beautiful.
29:50
Wow.
29:50
I love that.
29:51
She was like that for you.
29:53
Yeah, I think this is a great question.
29:55
I wanted to empower my kids to make this decision for them.
30:00
But then also is my, my responsibility to teach them the dangers to teach them how sex affects the body energetically what you’re giving to someone else, you know, being safe, you know, and I, and I did tell them, I told my older, my older girls like, listen, preferably I would not want you to have sex when you’re in high school because your brain is still developing and for all, for lots of different reasons.
30:24
However, I would never shame you for doing that.
30:27
But being a little bit older is always wiser, sell yourself more to bring yourself to safety.
30:33
So when I said that I wanted to make sure they knew like, no matter what you do, I’m gonna love you.
30:38
But it’s important to educate them on what it actually means to give your body to another person only.
30:45
And so having those conversations, I also feel too, you know, when you, you tell, tell a kid, like you are not allowed to drink alcohol, you are not allowed to have sex.
30:55
You have to, you know, when you’re really rigid, it almost makes them want to do it more totally because that’s the thing you can’t have.
31:00
Right?
31:01
And so when you’re just like, hey, you know, if you’re gonna, if you want to drink, let me know and let’s do it safely in the home when I’m here, things like that, right?
31:11
And then just letting them know like this is your life, this is your human experience and you get to choose with your comes consequences, pregnancy STD S all that they, you know, just putting yourself.
31:24
So, yeah, I’ve had a lot.
31:26
It’s, it opens up for more conversations about all that and I just really try to trust my kids and, and, and another thing I think that is so important is our reactions to their, what they’re telling us.
31:39
So back to nervous system regulation.
31:41
Like if I manage that.
31:42
Yeah.
31:43
Yeah, if I’m not in a grounded space, if I start to feel myself being getting triggered about something.
31:47
Or if I’m pretty worn out from like being on coaching sessions or whatever and then I come to them dis regulated, then they’re dysregulated.
31:56
It’s not work, it’s not happening.
31:58
This has been a huge thing that I’ve, I’ve worked on for myself is understanding when I’m not regulated.
32:03
Let’s have this conversation later and I go and I meditate or I take a 20 minute rest or I just remove myself from the situation before I come back because our reactions are everything.
32:12
Those are the things that they remember.
32:14
And just because our kids disregulation, it doesn’t mean that we have to show up in the same way we can stay calm.
32:20
Yeah, super powerful.
32:23
I am so powerful.
32:24
I hope everyone’s listening to that part really did sometimes too.
32:28
But, you know, with my own mom friends, I think we, you know, talk with each other.
32:32
I have a friend that’s like she’s just made like makes me so mad and I’m so triggered because of her and right, and I’m like, I love you so much and your triggers and your reactions are yours.
32:44
No matter what our kids are doing, it’s our responsibility to take care of our emotions.
32:48
Let me tell you, I do lose it sometimes.
32:50
Of course we’re human but me doing my own inner work and healing and learning how to get myself into a regulated state has been life changing the way I show up for my kids.
33:01
I’m so grateful every day for the tools.
33:04
Yeah.
33:04
How could a mom start that process?
33:06
Because I feel like becoming a mom is so much already.
33:11
Yeah, like there’s such an identity shift in that.
33:13
There’s such, I’ve never been through it, but I can only imagine, you know, like really stepping into this new role, you’re doing all these different things.
33:20
Your nervous system isn’t in the state of like, oh, I’ve been doing this all the time, right?
33:24
So like your nervous system just has to create capacity for what are some tools or some things that a mom could start to practice today or even just anyone that’s listening to this, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in regards to your kids.
33:38
I mean, being regulated in life is just so in your work or, you know, you have employee or that, you know, that coworker that triggers you like, yeah, awesome.
33:48
Like you get to learn how to practice how these tools on, on that or, and you know, your mother in law or, you know, whatever person is in your life.
33:56
But yeah, for moms especially, I think just dedicating even 20 minutes a day, like getting a morning practice and if it’s happy in the morning, if it’s when the baby’s napping or depending on what, where your kids are at is taking time to just be stiff, you know, the phone off, no distractions and I get it, it can be hard with kids.
34:16
Believe me, I have four.
34:17
But there is time where you can take that little bit of time to meditate, do some breath work, do some journaling.
34:24
, I love, I mean, I have my whole, I’m sure you do too.
34:26
I have my whole morning practice.
34:27
Like I don’t, there’s no way that I could do life the way I do it from a place of grounded this and safety if I didn’t have that daily practice.
34:37
So whatever that looks like I’m going on a walk.
34:39
I love one of my favorite things to do.
34:41
I’ll share.
34:42
This is a 20 to 30 minute walk with either quiet or calming music if you can’t preferably outside.
34:49
But I check in with my inner Children.
34:51
I call them like my little be so like the coach that taught this to me, she’s like check with my queens that resonate with me.
34:58
So my little bee is just, just dropping in and being in nature listening to music.
35:03
Hey, how are you guys say?
35:05
What do you need, inviting any memories in that need healing and going through that process when you do that regularly.
35:12
It’s game changing though.
35:14
Beautiful to check in with those parts of us.
35:16
And I’m trying to remember what you oh earlier in our conversation when you said you’ve gone back to your inner child and reworked something that happened.
35:24
This was wild to me when this first started happening to me but I remember one time when I was in this meditative state on a walk, my little like four or five year old self, she wanted to have a tea party.
35:33
Like I was the youngest of six kids, like loving parents.
35:36
But like I was alone a lot.
35:37
Like my mom was, you know, go, go going with all the things and she wanted me to sit and have a tea party with her.
35:43
So like in my imagination, I sat with my younger so pictured her in this dress.
35:48
Pictured me in this dress.
35:49
Just saw how cute she was and took that meditation that 10 or 15 minutes to have a tea party with her.
35:55
It was so healing.
35:56
Another one that I did was well, I was really tiny and took a long time for me to mature.
36:03
But I wanted a bra and I went to my mom and she was like, you don’t need a bra.
36:07
And I was like in seventh grade.
36:08
Ok.
36:09
And so when one of my, my inner child work meditative walks, I took my younger self to the mall and we drove there and we went bra shopping and I made a big deal about looking outlook with her even though she didn’t need it.
36:21
And we went to lunch and I’m telling you like this, it could sound a little crazy to like people who’ve never done the work, done this kind of work, little things like that have been so profound in my healing, taking care of those younger versions of me and just so fun and playful, like the things that you didn’t get now you can be like unto yourself later.
36:43
Isn’t that?
36:44
That’s, that was just so beautiful.
36:46
It makes I was just smiling the entire time.
36:48
You were saying that because it’s, it’s so wild when we see our little, the little me back then, you know, and you’re like, and you go back to her and you see her and you hold her and in some moments like maybe she’s crying and she literally just needs a hug and then you give her a hug and then she’s like, oh, this is all that I needed at that time.
37:06
You know, where all I needed is reassurance.
37:09
And so like, it’s a really powerful work because to your point, like you’re meeting our little mes in those times and you are the one like actively giving that to yourself.
37:22
And it’s this love, unconditional love and support.
37:25
That’s just like on repeat that you’re just repeating.
37:28
It’s so and yeah, and to the parents out there too when your kids are triggering you, it’s like a mirror for your inner child.
37:38
It’s recognizing like what part of me is this?
37:40
Triggering, right?
37:41
And being able to go back, take care of you.
37:44
I had a client on a call the other day.
37:45
She was like, my daughter’s going through something.
37:47
It’s triggering me.
37:48
She’s like, and I realized like this is triggering my inner child.
37:52
She had, her daughter’s friends were not including her.
37:55
She’s like 13 and she was witnessing it and she was like, why aren’t they including my daughter?
38:00
And then she realized it was her younger self.
38:02
So she’s like, before I could even talk to her, like we went in and we did some breath work and we connected her with that version of her.
38:07
But like how beautiful is that to be able to recognize like, oh, this is within me and then we can help our kids and support them in a way that is so completely different than, than like the mama bear coming out, right?
38:20
Which she, the mama bear can come out sometimes, but we can teach our kids the same exact thing.
38:25
So beautiful.
38:27
Something that comes up for mom and I would love your answer on this is, you know, I feel like moms really stretch sometimes.
38:33
I’m like 100% prioritizing their kids and their lives and their responsibilities.
38:38
Like, what does your process or what is your balance in that?
38:43
Because, you know, I think yeah, there’s just a lot of moms out there that are 100% giving their kids everything that the kids need.
38:51
And there’s a part of them that forgets about themselves.
38:53
And so what is your balance in making sure you’re taking care of in a way like you’re talking about regulating your system just so you’re not just regulated for your kids.
39:02
And also how does that feel the most be like, you know, making sure you’re going after the things that you love in life or the things that you’re interested in also while loving your kids.
39:14
What does that balance look like?
39:16
That’s the best questions Karen and I love.
39:19
Yeah.
39:20
So I think it is like most women are putting themselves in the back burner.
39:25
They just are and then it’s just, it’s a cycle.
39:28
And I think first recognizing why do I feel like I have to put everyone before me.
39:33
Where did that come from?
39:34
So for me, I like that’s what I saw my mom doing and in society it’s almost like a badge of honor like putting the kids first, putting everyone’s needs before me.
39:41
Right?
39:41
And I think that as a collective that people are starting to wake up to it.
39:45
So I, I truly believe that it’s finding the parts of us that don’t feel worthy of putting yourself first and see and letting those parts know that it’s safe and that they deserve to be put first and that it’s OK.
39:59
One of the biggest things that I’ve healed is overachieving.
40:02
I mean, I was the achiever that was just like I can do more and I will and I should, I could be doing more.
40:07
I should be doing more and then beating myself up if I wasn’t meeting that level.
40:11
So it’s really allowing your system to rest and not feel guilty for resting.
40:17
And also like letting your kids figure more things out for themselves, empowering them.
40:21
Like we don’t have to do everything for them.
40:24
And in fact, we’re doing an injustice if we’re doing everything for them.
40:27
And so it’s, it’s being ok with not being perfect.
40:30
Like I had to just be like, what can I let go of?
40:33
Right.
40:33
I, during COVID I started teaching my three daughters to do their laundry.
40:39
They were see, 1012 and 14 at the time.
40:43
And I was like, listen, because I was doing so much laundry, it was never ending and it was just like, I couldn’t keep up on it and I was like, they could do their laundry, they can figure this out.
40:54
And it was actually my friend that’s a mom of five.
40:56
That was like, why are you doing your kids’ laundry?
40:58
I was like, isn’t that what we do?
41:00
Yeah.
41:01
So it’s been such a beautiful thing to see.
41:03
They don’t even ask me.
41:04
I mean, of course now and then if they need help I’ll help them out.
41:07
But I haven’t done their laundry since 2020.
41:09
Now.
41:10
Who’s almost 12?
41:11
I haven’t, I need to implement that for him because he’s like the baby of the family.
41:15
But so what can you empower your kids?
41:17
What can you give more of to them?
41:19
Right.
41:19
And then, and what can you let go of more so that you can, you can pour more into what to your needs.
41:25
I mean, you’re going to find when you take care of you and your needs, you show up so much better for your kids.
41:31
You’re not as triggered, you’re not as reactive when I start reacting and get triggered.
41:34
And I’m like, you know, kind of lashing out a little about my kids.
41:37
I’m like, OK, yeah, I need to take care of me like peace out like I gotta go, right?
41:43
So I’m aware of it now, but I wasn’t before and then I would just beat myself up if I got really worked up and said something to my kid that I didn’t want to.
41:51
Yeah.
41:51
You know, as you’re talking to that, you know, what about that moment?
41:54
Right?
41:55
Because I feel like a mom that’s been, is this for anyone?
41:58
I know we’re talking about moms, but this could totally be applied to anyone.
42:00
Like you start delegating, you start inviting people to do all these different things.
42:04
There can also be this part of you that’s like, but I’m, I’m used to doing this, you know, or like I want to control the way that it’s being done or like, do I fully trust them?
42:12
Like in that moment of transition?
42:14
You know, that like peak moment you’re like, OK, I’m going to start doing this and I’m uncomfortable to start doing this, right?
42:20
There’s this uncomfortability, this sense of tension, the anxiety might come up, things are just looking differently.
42:25
You might want to control the way that it happens all these, right?
42:28
And that like little juiciness transition before it actually becomes something that you can embody.
42:33
What can someone do in that?
42:35
Oh, I love that.
42:37
OK.
42:37
Yeah.
42:37
So when it’s feeling super uncomfortable because you’re breaking the old pattern.
42:41
Right.
42:41
Exactly.
42:42
Yeah.
42:42
So that’s where I like to really be intentional with.
42:45
What are you trying to do?
42:47
What is your goal here?
42:48
What are you wanting to have happen while I’m wanting to empower my kids more and I’m wanting to let go of the to control everything.
42:56
So when it comes so and noticing too, because patterns are so uncomfortable to break, but I always like to remind myself I’m uncomfortable with the way things are going like that’s uncomfortable, but it’s a discomfort that I’m used to.
43:08
So just being like, OK, I’m noticing how uncomfortable this is.
43:11
I’m in a instead of like, you know, with, you know, somatic work too any time you are resisting, what is your body naturally?
43:17
Just braces?
43:18
So it’s like tightening, it’s not, it’s wanting to hold on.
43:21
So when you can recognize like, OK, am I starting to resist?
43:25
What is this is uncomfortable because I’m doing something differently and just breathe into it.
43:30
I’m going to allow this discomfort to be here in my body for the greater good of creating a new pattern, right?
43:36
Even when I was talking and I was all tight and I even just breathing and feel that I just felt myself relax.
43:42
Like I’m wanting this discomfort as I shift into the pattern that I really want or the discomfort of running around with my head cut off because I’m literally doing everything and trying to control everything, but just like preparing yourself for your system to know that.
43:57
Ok.
43:58
Yeah, there’s going to be some different kind of discomfort and I can feel this discomfort is just a different vibration in my body.
44:04
I got this and just allowing, I think that’s so much of all the work is just allowing the emotions that are here instead of resisting them.
44:13
Yeah, it sounds like what I was gonna say is like this sounds like a very serving intention, right?
44:20
So like the un uncomfortability is like very serving and pouring back into you versus like, you know, operating in the high achiever, I can do everything I am taking care of all the responsibilities, running with your head, shaking your head cut off.
44:35
Like maybe that there’s parts of you that kind of enjoy that you can do that.
44:39
But then overall there’s could be those parts of you that are like I’m absolutely depleted and exhausted and I’m tired and that energy is so much more different, but the energy you’re talking about, it’s like you’re uncomfortable for a little bit, but it’s for the good intention of more versus the other energy just feels so like chaotic and all over the place versus this is so much more supportive.
45:03
You gotta get a little uncomfortable before you get there.
45:06
You do and then, and you start to, when you start to practice it and lean into it, it feels so good to let go.
45:12
Yeah, it feels so good to let go of hearing and doing so much right and beautiful work to, to witness it in, in clients and see them be able to be like, ok, it’s ok.
45:25
I don’t have to do everything.
45:26
Everything doesn’t have to be perfect.
45:28
And also like this might be a whole another dive, but it’s letting our kids have their human experience and not trying to like safeguard and control everything that they’re doing.
45:38
Like let them figure it out, you know, it’s not ours, it’s not, we, we can carry so much and it just, it gets so stressful and chaotic.
45:46
Like you were saying, we can just let go and let the kids figure it out like this is their path.
45:52
It’s OK if it’s not exactly what you think is supposed to be happening.
45:56
The first thing that comes to mind when you say that is like, I always say that you don’t know anything until you experience it.
46:01
So like me as a human being today, as I’m starting new things as I’m doing these things like getting really uncomfortable with like, well, I really don’t know what’s gonna happen if I do this, you know, but being comfortable to be like in my experience, I will learn, right?
46:15
I will learn what the tools to navigate whatever comes up from that.
46:18
And for your kids, it sounds like by allowing them to have their own human experience, they’re also practicing that muscle of, oh maybe I should not put my hand there.
46:27
Learn for later versus my mom always telling me, you know, like they’re actually building this muscle.
46:32
Like I can truly do these things and experience them and learn how to be ok in that too.
46:39
Like they’re going through this entire process and it’s just as important to them as it is to us today totally.
46:46
And then if I not trying to control and tell them everything what to do, they can trust, start to learn how to trust myself.
46:52
Yes.
46:53
You know, that self trust to build that.
46:55
And that’s a, that’s a beautiful thing to teach them how to start to.
47:00
What do you think?
47:00
What do you want to do?
47:01
How does that feel to you and let, and then letting them decide it so powerful?
47:06
I’m just, I’m just grateful because there’s been such a shift in my parenting from all of this work that it’s so much more freeing for me to let go to not hold on to it all and let them learn so beautiful.
47:20
Well, thank you so much for, for sharing everything today, like truly just being so open and vulnerable and vulnerably expressing because I think it’s such a gift now that you’ve like normalized.
47:31
A lot of these conversations almost like I think that’s like the other thing is like taking away the shame and the guilt to a lot of these conversations, whether they’re with your kids or whether they’re in your own life and things like that.
47:42
So just so beautiful.
47:44
I would love for you to share, how can someone connect with you, how can someone find you?
47:50
And if you have anything else you want share like an offering?
47:53
Yeah.
47:53
Thank you so much for having me, Karenna.
47:55
I just, I just love sitting and you’re like, I know we’re like in different states, but just being in your energy is just this calming, grounding, safe feeling that I just love, you’re just so special.
48:06
So my, my Instagram is shiftwithbeth and shiftwithbeth.com is my website.
48:11
And yeah, if you wanna, if you’re interested in one on one coaching, you know, always offering new things.
48:18
So just staying up to date that way.
48:20
I love in person retreats, but I don’t have one on the books right now and I’m getting ready to offer a group coaching program like a subscription.
48:28
So that’s coming up.
48:29
But yeah, I just love connecting with people and just helping them to feel the freedom that I feel and it’s all just it’s all from within and it’s possible for everyone to be, to have that peace and that inner love and that inner knowing.
48:43
So I just, yeah, thank you for having might be so beautiful.
48:46
No, I love, I mean I’ve just loved witnessing you grow and be on your journey and like where you’re at today and like if anyone does get a, get a chance to work with you, like they’re super, super blessed.
48:55
So thank you, I appreciate you.
48:58
I love you, love you so much.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the fully expressed podcast with Karenna.
0:03
I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto and on this podcast and on this show, we have conversations that are here to invite you into living your life fully expressed into creating a life where you have relationships where you feel so embodied and safe to fully express yourself and to really create a business and a career where you feel so expressed in your essence and who you are and who you were meant to be in this world.
0:32
So this podcast is entirely meant to be a full invitation to show you what is actually possible and what’s available to you.
0:42
So today, I’m going to get a little raw and vulnerable with you.
0:47
We’re going to have a little solo session with me.
0:49
I’m gonna give you some light into the season that I have been in the last couple of months, honestly, in the last year.
0:55
And I’ve sprinkled this a little bit throughout the podcast and I thought it was a good time to come up here and talk about it because in the last two episodes that we had this month, the very first one was very much about, you know, diving into what does it actually mean to be confidently expressive in your body.
1:11
And in that episode with Ali Sepic, we really dove into kind of digging deeper into the layers, like really understand the roots of where all that is coming from.
1:20
And then in the most previous episode with Carry Montgomery, one of my dearest friends who is serious, so elegant in who she is.
1:28
And she just brings so much wisdom that we talked all about nervous system regulation and how to show up and what it feels like to attract a life to be in body, to express yourself from a regulated state in those two episodes.
1:43
Like there were so many night drops that I got goosebumps.
1:46
So if you haven’t had the opportunity to go back and listen to those I highly recommend and then you go back and listen to those because they were just so good and so valuable.
1:54
And today I want to share with you what, what my season has been in and truly almost in a stretching season.
2:01
And I have found myself in a stretching season every single time, like stretching my nervous system expanding myself because I know that I’m here to be an expander.
2:10
I know that I’m here to not only be an expander for other people, be an invitation, but for me to learn how to be expanding and like what that actually looks like.
2:19
And so back up just a little bit for context.
2:22
If you’re new here, 2023 was the year of really, really challenging a lot of my roles, you know, the titles, the positions, the roles that I’ve stepped to into my life personally and professionally and even more professionally.
2:40
Right.
2:41
So, and where I landed and all of that, I was so craving to rid of these fucking labels to be frank.
2:49
I was like, why can’t I just be me?
2:51
Like, why can’t I just be MS soto and what I realized what I was craving is like, I had lived a lot of my world coming from this place of, oh I’m a salesperson.
3:03
Oh I’m in tech.
3:04
Oh I’m a woman in business.
3:06
Oh I’m a coach.
3:07
I’m a woman’s mentor and I started to challenge every single character or quality that I have stepped into when I’m doing those things all the way down to who I am when I’m a sister, who am I when I’m a girlfriend, who am I when I’m a partner, who am I when I’m a friend who am I stepping into when I’m a best friend, we take on these titles and these labels all day long.
3:30
And I got very, very curious with my experience in those and how I ended up getting into those experiences and in doing so I found myself just craving to be fucking me, to crave to be like, why, how is this supporting who I feel called to be.
3:50
What is my deepest expression of self?
3:53
How do I want to express myself?
3:54
What feels good one makes me feel alive in that.
3:57
And I landed on, oh my God.
4:00
I’ve always wanted a podcast that I’ve talked about that for years and I’ve always wanted to be a speaker.
4:07
And so I decided, and I chose to honestly say my coaching business, how I show up in that space is no longer serving the version of me that I want to step into and that comes with a lot of shit you guys.
4:23
And the biggest one is the financial pivot the identities that I’m shifting from.
4:30
I mean, today, I want to focus on a little bit more of how my nervous system is adjusting and reacting to this and how it’s showing up in the other ways.
4:40
So when I decided to leave my coaching business behind, it was, it was like a fuck.
4:46
Yeah, for sure.
4:47
Like it was a full body.
4:48
Yes.
4:49
And I knew it even when parts of me were like, oh but Karenna, this is how people know you, this is how you know, this is how you do.
4:57
This is how you show up.
4:58
These are the kinds of containers, this is how someone works with you.
5:01
And also even parts of me that were like, oh but I’ve seen solely amazing women transform like I’ve been a part of that process.
5:09
It’s such an incredible experience to witness someone fucking grow.
5:14
It is literally like every single time I saw a client testimonial or a client told me what progress they’ve made or where they’ve been like, I would get chills in my eyes and tears like I literally feel the tears coming down highers because every client that I’ve ever worked with is not just a client, was not just a client to me, it’s I’m literally emotionally invested, which is kind of even more like as a mentor because I truly believe and want the most for every freaking person that I come across.
5:44
And I also want to hold a vision of what’s available to them.
5:47
But I’ve realized that I don’t necessarily have the same capacity in a one on one Kate detainer that I wanna make on a, on a bigger impact.
5:54
And so speaking was calling to me and ever to be honest, not gonna lie.
6:01
Years ago, 10 plus years ago when I was sitting in the car with my best friend and she asked me, she’s like, what do you want to do with your life?
6:07
And the answer I had is like, all I want to do is inspire.
6:09
I want to be one of those motivational speakers.
6:11
I want to be able to share wisdom.
6:13
I just want to make an impact on a really big level and be on these stages.
6:17
And so funny enough, it’s just a part of her journeys that’s where her Britney wanted to start.
6:22
I had a coach for four or five years.
6:24
I needed to learn life.
6:25
I needed to go through the certification programs that I’ve been on.
6:28
I needed to create so much wisdom that I wanted to have something to share.
6:33
Now, challenging me then I could have probably started there to be honest.
6:37
Like, I don’t know why I did it, but I knew that the way that I did it and the way that I’m coming to now is exactly what I needed because I’m in a much deeper version of me than I’ve ever been.
6:48
And so making these big decisions to shift your identity to expand into their versions of you into becoming more fully expressed version of yourself is going to be hard.
7:01
You do end up letting go of old versions of you old identities of you and also how people relate to you in general.
7:11
Like I’m going through so much massive shifts in my life.
7:15
Like I feel like layers, not just the layers in my life, but the way that I look at life, the relationships I have in my life are starting to peel away.
7:24
Like there’s these things that are happening as I’m stepping into this new identity of myself and I’m sharing this with you because one if you’re in this season or also want you to know what’s fucking real.
7:35
And so jumping in here to remind you that we do have an online virtual community called the fully expressed Community for women.
7:44
If you are craving to have these conversations to see, talk more about in detail, what it actually means to live a life fully expressed, to have access to other women that are also wanting to opt their lives, wanting to be regulated and wanting to fully express themselves in their relationships and their business and just in life and attract those kinds of opportunities.
8:08
I want to invite you into the fully expressed community where we meet every second Wednesday of every single month, we’re only $27 a month.
8:17
So go check it out.
8:18
Send me ad m if you’re interested and I’ll get you right in there.
8:23
So talking outside of, you know, what my external world is going on, you know, something that has been really deep in my season and my presence this last month has been this financial pressure that I have felt in my life three times.
8:39
The first time, I felt deep financial pressure to the point that I’m on my knees crying asking why do I feel this?
8:48
Why?
8:48
Why does it have to be this hard?
8:50
Was one time in college with one of my really good friends at the time, Sarah, I went into her room and I just started bawling and crying because I was working three jobs.
9:02
I was the social chair of my sorority.
9:05
I was trying to do school.
9:07
I was trying to keep up.
9:09
I mean, I was waking up the crack.
9:10
They are good da as a server and I was paying my rent for school.
9:14
I was paying my light for school and my family was going through a lot of big changes.
9:20
It was big except my parents were going through a separation.
9:22
By the way, they’re doing so much better.
9:24
They, they’re so much love so they’re back together.
9:26
But during that season, financial finances were really fucking hard for me and I just broke down.
9:32
I was like, why, why me, why does this have to feel so suffocating and it truly felt suffocating.
9:38
And then fast forward to the next time in my life, which I’ve been blessed the rest of my life to feel pretty good financially.
9:45
Always in this place of like, oh, I know I can figure it out.
9:48
More money is going to come in.
9:49
I’m not scared of making more money making money is my jam.
9:53
Like in a way, like not to say that I’m making a total lot of funny.
9:57
But there was this easiness in my energy, there was this confidence in my energy.
10:01
Fast forward to a year ago, my partner Nick Paleta, which most of you guys know, he, we’re going to end up coming on the podcast, actually talk about this in full depth.
10:12
He got diagnosed with PTSD and he was also let go from his job that he was making at the time.
10:19
And you know, could Coretta me that can take on all the pressure like jumped in and was like, babe, don’t worry, I’ve got this however much time you need.
10:30
We got to figure out what’s going on with your mental health.
10:32
I try to take on all the weight, the financial pressure that we were feeling at the time.
10:37
And of course, there’s so many parts of me that wanted to create this ease for him because in full transparency, I’m like, now that I’ve learned so much about the nervous system, now that I’ve learned so much about mental health.
10:50
Now that I’ve learned so much about just pity.
10:53
I knew that he needed a breather, like especially where he was at.
10:56
He was not just navigating his mental health, he was navigating, burn out.
11:00
He was navigating all these things that he had gone through as an entrepreneur.
11:04
It’s, it’s so difficult to do entrepreneurship.
11:07
You guys have no idea how difficult it is.
11:10
It’s a very triggering passion and in a lot of ways it does.
11:15
So there’s so much inner work and literally like if you want to exude in your business, if you want to dive into deep in your work, run your business, do your things because you’re, you’re constantly navigating all these triggers that come up for you and you’re being asked to continue to show up, not just for your own passions, but also just to be able to live and thrive in this world in this corporate system of how we do things.
11:39
And so come a few months later, after financially supporting us for a little bit, felt that overwhelm again, I felt back to this place of almost like it felt like a deep depression.
11:52
It felt like every negative thought just kept coming through my mind of like, I’m not capable of doing this.
11:59
I can’t do this.
12:01
Like I’m someone that for the most part thinks very positively and very optimistic and always sees the opportunity and truly believes in figuring out.
12:10
But at this point, I felt like I was suffocating again and I felt like I started just to kind of review everything that I’ve done in the past so long that I was like, did I miss something?
12:21
Did I mess up somewhere?
12:23
So there was this pressure that I was putting on myself and I finally broke down the nick in the car and I sat with him and I was like, I can’t hold all this financial pressure anymore and where I started to hold this financial pressure one for me, what was the most healing thing at that point was being able to admit that I can’t do it all on my own that I don’t want to do it all on my own and that I need his help.
12:48
And I asked him for that and I told them that and so he decided to go out and get a job.
12:53
And I was like, and not that he was bringing in so much into our financial home to how things were going.
12:59
But like, I felt like this was an all on me, which is the second time that I have felt to this extreme financial pressure.
13:07
And the key signs for me when I know that my nervous system is too stretched out, is that too much capacity is when I lose this confidence in myself, it’s when, when I forget everything that I’ve accomplished, when I can’t see who I am or what I want.
13:28
And I, I just, I’m stuck in this like negative self talk spirals and gratefully and graciously, I’m so proud of all of the certifications.
13:39
I’ve invested in every program that I’ve ever done because I was able to witness them myself in this second season of overwhelm in a completely different light.
13:49
I was able to say, holy cow, ok.
13:51
I know these thoughts are coming through my mind.
13:54
This is not me, what the hell is going on.
13:57
I got super curious and in that moment, just the fact that I was able to vent and say I can’t do this was exactly what the parts of me needed because I got really curious with me and I was like, what do I need in this moment?
14:12
And what I really needed was the reassurance that I wasn’t going to do this all on my own.
14:16
But I had a pattern of always doing it on my own.
14:19
And so just by letting Nick in by just by saying like I can’t do this all I can’t hold all this financial pressure, I immediately felt really, oh my gosh, and just speaking it out loud and being honest about where I was at and completely being unattached to that experience, I realized, wow, this is all I needed.
14:40
I needed to express what was actually happening in my experience and ask for what I needed and wanted.
14:45
Beautiful.
14:46
So we moved through that season together so beautifully, so comfortably, most of 2023 I was in this like, I’m gonna be ok and being in that, I’m going to be ok, energy, trusting, and surrendering energy.
15:01
I felt so much ease and flow and things just felt easy.
15:06
And I knew that I totally knew that so fast track to just about a month ago.
15:13
even dishonestly going through it this month.
15:15
Currently, I found myself in this season again of financial pressure and overwhelm and second guessing myself.
15:24
And you know what I want to bring up about what has come up for me now, is that right now since I’ve made this transition?
15:33
And this pivot the second source of income that I was making, that was super supportive to my life and my lifestyle is no longer coming in because of coaching.
15:42
And as I step into creating this professional speaking business.
15:47
I, I’m starting fresh.
15:49
You know, I’ve been paid for speaking in events before, but right now I’m re leveraging my network, I’m re leveraging my relationships.
15:57
I’m starting fresh and building from the bottom up in a lot of ways.
16:00
And so the financial income that I had coming in before from coaching is no longer there and finally hit me with this chunk of money or this amount of money that was coming in was no longer there.
16:14
So there’s this emptiness and this fear just came running right through where it knew it could and basically saying you’re not making enough money, you guys aren’t going to survive.
16:26
How are you going to do this?
16:28
You’re not capable, just focus on making more money and don’t go after what you need or what?
16:33
You don’t go after the speaking business.
16:36
I started to challenge again.
16:38
Every single reason why I’m deciding to go through living this life fully expressed, right?
16:45
Going through the versions of me that are fully expressed and I started challenging and being like, is it wrong?
16:50
Is it wrong timing?
16:52
Why am I doing this?
16:53
Like I literally have tears coming up at you guys in my eyes because I’m still processing a lot of the emotions that came from it.
16:59
But I hit a low low again most recently and tears crying like literally, I felt like every morning, I had these like silver dollar pancakes swelling on my eyeballs just because I was releasing so much of this fear and overwhelmed that it is just like stuck within me and this like internal belief that like that just keeps coming up.
17:22
And so I released it all and I had an emotional hangover for a few days afterwards, right?
17:29
So I knew that I needed to release all of that.
17:31
I knew I needed to be gentle with my body.
17:33
And what’s been the most challenging in those seasons is keeping my eye on the vision, keeping my eye on why I’m doing this.
17:42
And I also know energetically and in when it comes to expanding my nervous system, expanding my vision that these kinds of things tend to happen.
17:54
So every single time I step into these bigger versions of myself, a lot of things start crashing down.
18:00
It feels like internally for me because things start to get uncomfortable, things start to get different.
18:05
And so knowing this and not just that like the world and God and the universe is also taking away and has been removing people in my life that no longer support this vision and, and this version of me and this standard that I’m stepping into like truly the things that I’m embodying and in in the middle of navigating all this financial stress and pressure, I’ve had friendships start to step away and there’s no nothing wrong with that, right.
18:36
We do naturally separate and grow, but that doesn’t take away from some of the pain and the grieving process stepping into this version of me.
18:44
And so I say this all because I feel like I’ve been warming up for this experience.
18:50
So 20 starting month of November, going into December, we started having a lot of conversations with what this year was going to look like financially, for us, our visions, what we inspired to do.
19:02
And so I already felt this building.
19:05
I felt this like, OK, CRE you’re about to step on to state, basically, you’re about to be publicly viewed.
19:11
Who do you need to be in order to do that?
19:13
And I feel like all these experiences are giving me the opportunity to stretch my nervous system enough to where I have to gain capacity to be at this new level of me.
19:26
And I’m in this process right now of releasing all the different versions and limiting beliefs of me that no longer sit with that person that I’m stepping into and I’m sharing this with you because this is the most important part, what I’m so grateful for through all the work that I’ve ever done through all the healing and all the challenges and our heartbreak and everything that I’ve ever faced.
19:49
One, I remind myself that it’s important to express those experiences.
19:55
I ain’t here to stuff that down, suppress it no more.
19:58
I’m here to be with that shit because I know that if I, if I’m able to release faster its not gonna catch up to me later.
20:05
If anything I’m gonna release and move forward, its actually the most productive thing that we can do.
20:09
And ironically as people, we tend to suck at doing that, we do ourselves such a disservice by suppressing our emotions by not being with what’s actually fucking happening because it catches up to us later.
20:21
And the way that it catches up to us later, kind of like the snowball effect.
20:25
It starts really, really small and then all of a sudden it builds, it builds to the point that it’s like an avalanche and that takes us out so much more than we actually think internally.
20:35
And so I say this.
20:37
So the biggest thing is I’ve been present with what is I’ve been truly allowing myself to express to the extent that every emotion wants to express itself.
20:48
I’ve been unattached but fully expressing every story that is coming up for me, every negative thought I’m not necessarily holding on to those thoughts of those negative stories or those limiting beliefs as true.
21:03
I’m witnessing the fact that they’re coming up for me right now and also practicing dabbling into and holding space into this bigger vision that I’m manifesting.
21:14
And what I’m so grateful for is like is being with both because this vision that I have for myself, who I envisioned myself becoming in this new season of life and this new stage of life and this new level that I’m stepping into is the level of being able to hold that even more, having the capacity to be with the heart and be with the really fucking good be with who I am today and where I want to go because when we start to separate the two, right?
21:44
Only focusing on one or the other one or the other ends up getting left behind and starts knocking at our door like hello, you forgot about me and I ain’t trying to do that.
21:54
But in doing this, I have also learned the power of discernment.
21:58
So knowing what is my capacity to feel every emotion, every negative self thought without allowing it to become a story that is concrete and attached to my current self worth.
22:11
And also no, when dreaming too much and acting like whatever’s happening isn’t true is not going to serve me either.
22:19
And so there is this beautiful dance that you get to learn as you do life.
22:23
But for this episode and for this show that I so badly want you to listen to and hear from me is that when you are in these seasons of transition into leveling up into basically quantum leaping, however, you want to use it and stepping into other versions of yourself, there are going to these parts of you that are going to come up too, that are asking to be witness, seen and held throughout the experience because they’re like, whoa whoa, whoa Kenna, you’re trying to go in this direction.
22:58
I don’t know if I’m ready yet.
23:00
I don’t know if I can do that.
23:01
I don’t know if I can hold that much that you’re asking for.
23:06
And I’m like, OK, I hear you.
23:08
What do you need?
23:09
How can I love you and support you and make sure and remind you that you are capable of stepping into the version that I’m taking us to.
23:17
And I say that so that you hear clearly that one, this is real.
23:23
This is the most raw notable episode.
23:26
This is how it really is.
23:28
I am not saying that this is sugar coated, but I do know that the power and the capacity to meet your nervous system in that and get ready for the new versions of you is so important with every level up because what a lot of us do is that we run so fast, so quick we hit, burn out our system.
23:49
Doesn’t our nervous system can’t keep up with that version of ourselves with that much things, we self sabotage and things come coming down and so truly taking our nervous system to meet us with every level that we want to step into is such a freaking gift.
24:07
And so how do you actually do that?
24:09
Well, you can actually feel that right?
24:11
If you listen to Carrie Montgomery’s episode, I really highly recommend going to that past episode and not just that, but listening specifically to the parts of our energetic aura.
24:23
What that actually looks like, what that actually feels like because you know, when it comes to the nervous system, you are you, when you start to pay attention to your body and the body awareness that you have in moments of contraction, we feel smaller, big moments of expansion and bigger, we feel bigger.
24:38
And there’s this energy, this big mess, this available to us.
24:42
And when you step into that magic comes.
24:46
And so this experience I’m having with pivoting and transitioning and expanding my nervous system, I’m meeting my edge.
24:54
So I create more room to expand in it, to even hold bigger, to be bigger, to do those things.
25:01
And so I really wanted to share that with you.
25:04
And I hope you see that every version of me, for example, that I’m stepping into, I practicing these tools every single day, which is why a lot of this podcast is about that, you know, becoming very comfortable in being with your emotions, expressing every part of yourself regulating your nervous system.
25:26
Because these things you’re kind of put on repeat, you’re going to express, you’re going to expand, you’re going to stretch and integrate.
25:33
That’s it.
25:34
That is what we do for the woman that wants to live a life.
25:38
Will they express for the woman that wants to have relationships that is so expressive and expansive where you feel so untapped, right?
25:48
These kinds of things every single time you come up against a trigger, every single time you come up against a challenge, every single time you come up against something that wants to keep you where you’re at and not evolving through it.
26:02
You’re going to practice these steps.
26:04
And so I really hope that you found this episode helpful if you or your friends or someone is going through this exact thing right now, where you find yourself really wanting to step into this other version, you into this latest and greatest version of you fully expressed in your freaking lives.
26:26
Whatever that is, please share this with your friends.
26:30
Please share this with those people that are connected to you and let me know what this episode means to you.
26:36
Truly like.
26:37
I would love to hear from you.
26:39
You could send me DM at I am Crea Soto.
26:42
So I can actually hear from you.
26:44
I want to make sure that these are hitting home.
26:46
And most importantly, you are craving to be in a space with other women that are also wanting to learn these tools to live regulated, to live a life fully expressed from that place and create a life that is absolutely incredible and expansive.
27:02
Come join the community that I have.
27:04
It’s called the fully expressed community.
27:06
You can send me ad M and I in creno soto if you’re interested in learning more and we’ll talk.
27:11
But with that being said, I’ll see you on the next episode I’m sending you so much love.
27:16
I love you and have a great fucking day.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the Fully Expressed Podcast with Karenna.
0:03
This is the show where we have conversations and discussions that are here to invite you into your fullest expression and what that really means in your life, relationships and business.
0:13
And today is going to be such a beautiful conversation one because I know the juiciness that we’re going to dive into the conversation.
0:20
But also because I have a really dear friend of mine on here with us today, my dear friend Ken Montgomery is on with us and just to give you a little bit of light in how I met Carrie, we met through a different program that we both took.
0:33
I think back in 2022 which is crazy to think about.
0:37
I almost think it’s like 2022 going into 2023 was when we ended, it was just wild and we instantly connected, I think throughout the program, but primarily the region streets and I really want to talk about that.
0:49
It’s like the in person part of this program was probably where I made a lot of my connections.
0:55
And I felt like with Carrie, like being in the room with her.
0:58
I was instantly drawn.
0:59
I loved her wisdom.
1:01
She has been in this world end to end.
1:04
And I feel like I constantly get to learn from her.
1:06
So I’m so excited that you guys get to experience her.
1:09
So I’ll let her introduce yourself.
1:11
Hi, Carrie.
1:12
Thank you.
1:14
It’s just so amazing.
1:16
Thank you so much for being here.
1:17
Yeah, I mean, life is a journey, right?
1:21
Literally, I was raised to think that it was like a very linear like stage by stage process that, you know, you graduated college and then you’d meet the man and then you would have the kids and, and like, my life just didn’t happen that way, like at all and it was chaotic and it was stressful and it was messy and it was painful and I had to like learn.
1:44
Yeah.
1:45
Yeah.
1:46
I, I entered into like the healing space at 18 years old after I had breath in my back and had to have a major surgery and I was so devastated from it that I moved to a spiritual community.
1:58
I couldn’t go to college.
1:59
I just was like, not on board.
2:02
I couldn’t sit in the class.
2:03
I couldn’t, I was like completely lost focus when I was already like an alternative artist type.
2:09
So then you’d like put this kind of trauma into their life and I was like, literally was living on another planet.
2:16
And so I moved to a spiritual community and I didn’t know that this, it’s like now I get to learn new things about you on this call.
2:24
Like I feel like I’ve learned so much about you because you have so many amazing stories.
2:28
And like I said, I think wisdom is the best thing and experience.
2:32
But I had no idea that you went to a spiritual community at like 19 years old.
2:38
Wow.
2:39
My friend said to me the other day, you’re like a Lexus on, oh my God.
2:43
Shit’s creek because you’re like, and then I was in Abu Dhabi or so I like had just that I was like, I was like, I jumped on one of those like metal horses in Abu Dhabi and she was like, who are you?
2:56
So, yeah, I was raised by a family that travels a lot.
2:59
I was raised internationally.
3:00
My dad worked a lot in the Middle East.
3:02
So we just, we just didn’t like there were, the world had no borders and all people were open and welcome.
3:12
And that meant I was exposed to some pretty bad people and then I was exposed to some pretty great people, you know.
3:18
Yeah, but it’s a gift because I can go anywhere in the world and one, I always know someone and two, I know how to navigate like anything, you know, like I can just do it.
3:31
And so it’s created a real sense of independence in me just to go back to the healing journey.
3:37
You know, after that surgery, I really committed to my healing in this lifetime and I didn’t have the knowledge of like intergenerational trauma.
3:45
But I had the wisdom of I want to heal for my whole family.
3:51
Like I wanna heal this line.
3:53
I know that there is some disea in my family and I want, I want to do that for the generations and I’d be ahead of me and I just knew that and I like, put a tattoo on my foot and it was more about like the lifetime and the life cycles.
4:08
And so that was my commitment at 18 years old.
4:11
And I’ve just been fulfilling that and like, also trying to be like a normal human being, surviving, having a career, being responsible, being totally irresponsible at the same time, you know, after I lived at Findhorn, and that’s a whole epic journey.
4:29
That’s like a podcast in itself very empowering.
4:31
I say, I came back to America and I drove across America with this guy.
4:36
We rock climbed and it was like fun and weird.
4:39
I moved to Santa Fe New Mexico and I called my parents and I was like, ok, I moved there to learn to teach Pilates because my back pain was so bad that I just like, I needed to do something to keep my body knitted together.
4:54
And so I called my parents and I was like, ok, I get this life thing like holy should I, I need to go to college.
5:00
Like I need an education, I get it.
5:02
And so they had moved to Maine.
5:04
So I came back to Maine and I started like doing school in Boston and I went to school for film and I really wanted to tell story first.
5:11
It was acting and performance.
5:13
So I got in for her performance and then, you know, I got all this training and I was like, I don’t, I can’t handle the scrutiny of the camera, like how people treat you.
5:22
I just don’t, I don’t have it like, I don’t have it in me.
5:26
It’s such a harsh industry and I just didn’t, I didn’t have the internal like fortitude to do that fight in this life.
5:35
I was already fighting for my body every day.
5:37
The pain cycles were so intense and still are, but I know how to manage them better now.
5:42
And you know, I got into the film industry, like met a ton of celebrities worked in Hollywood, then moved back to New Mexico to run the film union there.
5:52
And, you know, I was like the height of the industry, like I was like running New Mexico film industry and like bringing it back to life with this whole rebate program with my boss and with the governor and just really like creating opportunity and safety for the laborers in that union.
6:11
And like making sure I ask a question about what was that energy, like, you know, to be like the person in New Mexico, like, kind of leading way that I was so young.
6:22
I had no clue.
6:24
And that, that I had, I was, like, 24 years old.
6:26
I was making no money.
6:28
I was still teaching Pilates and I was still, you know, like doing all the things and I just had a lot of, like, I’m not enough my running through me.
6:36
And so I did what I do really?
6:38
Well, I ran, I was like, I’m gonna move back to New York.
6:42
I was born in New York.
6:43
So I was born in New York, grew up in London and then we moved around a lot since then.
6:48
And I like, literally was like, I’m just gonna run towards opportunity and I took like a very like open mentality of like, I’m gonna just, it’s gonna happen, I’m gonna manifest it.
7:00
And I had so many relationships in New Mexico that I just kind of left behind and it’s a big regret.
7:06
Like I, I walked away from some real opportunity and, but I was young, I didn’t get it.
7:12
I didn’t get it and I was panicked.
7:14
Like none of the things that happened at work that I wasn’t really comfortable with.
7:18
I didn’t really know how to digest or even though I was in therapy that we, I was just still dealing with my lack, not the, the situations that were coming up.
7:26
And I you know, there wasn’t a lot of,, safety or a job, I would say that against sense.
7:33
So a lot of eat those when you’re ok with creatives then the ers, but like, energetically, like, you know, I met Cate Blanchett and it was like, hi.
7:43
And it was just a total, like, energetic match.
7:45
I went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
7:47
And so I had no ability to see or receive my power.
7:52
Right?
7:52
Like, I couldn’t see what people saw in me at all and I was actually afraid of what they saw in me.
7:58
And so I ran, yeah, I was, like, really afraid I was like, what are they talking about?
8:02
What are they looking at?
8:03
Why are they?
8:04
I totally was, like, defensive with it.
8:06
Oh, I resonate to that.
8:08
Yeah.
8:09
Yeah, it’s crazy.
8:10
Right.
8:11
No.
8:11
Yeah, there is a moment for me, like, in, at least in my corporate job, you know, the, the legal world.
8:16
Like, when I first came to the part, there was this one moment where everywhere these conferences are, like, well, I know Kenna, like, almost like this.
8:25
Like, I don’t know, pride or, like, proud of themselves that they knew me.
8:29
And I was like, why do you, why are you saying that?
8:31
I was like, wait, I’m not OK, like, no, I’m, I’m humble.
8:35
I don’t know.
8:35
That’s too much like, it was a lot and I didn’t know how to, I didn’t know how to receive it.
8:41
I didn’t know how to be with that.
8:43
And also, like, parts of me weren’t necessarily looking for that, but people were making that.
8:47
I don’t know, like it was an interesting, like, not knowing how to be in it or receive it, having capacity to hold your own power.
8:55
I mean, that’s what I’ve come to learn and yeah, that’s what I’ve been working on, you know, and that’s how I got really deep into nervous system work.
9:02
So like fast forward in New York for 10 years, like got out of the film industry, got went through some really major health cycles, like almost died a couple of times.
9:12
And then I retrained and went into sales because I was like, I’m gonna, you know, tell story for companies, right?
9:20
And like, I know how to tell stories.
9:22
So I’m gonna tell story companies and it was great, but it also like, it just, I just like, don’t like working for the man, you know, I don’t like being told what to do.
9:35
And and I also, I was working in the health care field but integrative health care.
9:40
So it was like teaching doctors, lifestyle medicine to reverse chronic illness.
9:44
I’ve gone into like high end resort real estate had a project in Maui and which we sold like 100 and 76 million in a, in one day at a relaunch construction.
9:55
Well, I mean, and, but it was during the 2008, 29.
10:00
And so we didn’t get paid a whole crazy to work really hard and then be like, hey, I’m just going to put my tail between my legs and yeah.
10:10
Wow.
10:11
So yeah, going into sales and telling stories for company, I just felt like this is great and doing it in integrated health care.
10:20
I could kind of like integrate some of my physical health journey and from the back surgery, best born until I was like 38.
10:30
I’m 47.
10:31
Now.
10:32
I had like 10 surgeries on my ovaries and uterus because of the interference of the metal rocks.
10:39
And so my cycle was really bad.
10:41
I was anemic all the time, hemorrhaging.
10:43
Like I just, I was completely drained all the time.
10:46
And the only way I tried alternative routes, like no one could restore balance in my body.
10:52
And you know, I’m deeply committed to my healing journey.
10:56
So I would take breaks from working and be like, OK, I’m just gonna spend the next six months like on healing and like literally do that and it would work.
11:04
But the minute I hit a stress response or a stress cycle, I had, I just would literally melt down again.
11:09
And I saw this pattern and I was like, this just is not sustainable, like this is not OK.
11:15
And when I left my job in New York City in integrated health care, I was very sick and I was having episodic paralysis collapsing, like in the street, paralyzed for like eight hours at a time, my clients that were doctors would like, let me lay in their beds, their free beds in their office until I would be able to move again.
11:34
And they’d give me like hydration like ivs and stuff while I just like to recover.
11:39
And it was freaking scary.
11:42
Like my parents found me on the side of the road once because like, I drive my car like very scary and I became really afraid of my comedy.
11:51
And then I almost died and I was like, holy.
11:55
It’s like, what?
11:56
And it was, I almost died in the launch of my new business as a coach coming out as like a business coach and a lifestyle coach, like, you know, passionate rebel lifestyle, like leading the charge.
12:08
And in my first launch, I was dying and that’s how I created the somatic styling process.
12:13
And that was really cultivating energy and presence and using the somatics that I learned over the years of my healing journey, understanding how to map the body.
12:24
What I didn’t know is that that was all about building like autonomic awareness inside the nervous system.
12:31
And like, I was already doing things without the real scientific knowledge, which I found fascinating that I like intuitively just did the stuff and was teaching it and, and but really from a spiritual soulful place, you know, like this is how you cultivate presents.
12:47
And I was using my acting trainings and all my like performance trainings to help people cultivate presents and then all my healing to like work on their energy and all these things.
12:57
And, and then using a very somatic process to apply clothing, like really dress for your energy.
13:03
And that last surgery when I was 38 I, I lost my ability to have Children and I just was devastated.
13:11
And so about two years later, I just, I ran again.
13:15
I was like, I’m a, not all my friends are having babies and I can’t.
13:19
And I moved to Spain.
13:20
I was like, I’m gonna move to an island in Spain.
13:22
I think it’s like, there’s not gonna be a lot of kids there.
13:25
My first friend got herself pregnant by herself.
13:29
It was like our first friend date and she’s like, I’m having a glass of wine and she’s like having tea and she’s like, I’m pregnant and I was like, you have got to be busy.
13:41
It was funny how life is.
13:42
Like you’re going to keep running, but then I’m just going to keep showing you go there you are and where you’re running from, it’s going to show up.
13:52
And so I just, I really did move there to learn to relax though.
13:56
Like I wanted to be in a culture that could just down regulate me.
14:01
Yeah.
14:01
So it sounds, it’s so interesting, like, as you shared your story one.
14:04
Thank you so much for telling everyone all of that because I think it’s, it’s more real than we know that’s happening to other people, you know, just like, I mean, your story specifically is very unique to yours.
14:15
But this like search for regulation like this like, oh I’m going to work hard, I’m gonna take six months off, you know, or like, I’m going to go run and I’m gonna do something else.
14:23
And I’m so curious, like looking back, maybe like, as you look back to like the parts of you that were constantly dysregulated because we’re gonna be talking a lot about like nervous system regulation.
14:33
What were the patterns that were keeping you dysregulated?
14:36
You know?
14:37
And then you’d go to like, oh, I can’t do life anymore.
14:39
I got to do six months of healing and then I go back into it and then it got to a point where like you were really, really sick.
14:44
Like, what was the thing that kept you in that?
14:48
All right.
14:48
Quickly jumping in here to drop a couple of live tips for you because I think they’re so necessary when I was healing from burnout, started paying attention to my energy levels, did all these things.
15:01
But the one thing that has changed life and has been more progress than anything else has been not drinking coffee when I’m tired.
15:14
So what does it actually mean?
15:15
It means I go rest I close my eyes.
15:20
I take a quick nap.
15:21
I wake up from that nap and I feel energized to tackle.
15:25
The next thing I gained back so much of my energy from that quick little nap.
15:30
Instead of overextending myself, harming my adrenals and doing all these other things that are not great for me and my hormones and can show up for the world.
15:39
It has been the biggest life hack and this doesn’t have to necessarily be a nap.
15:45
It can go be, go for a walk, go ride a bike or get outside, go do something different but do not drink the coffee.
15:52
Listen to your body.
15:55
Yeah, I look at emotions as like buckets.
15:58
And if you like if you think of your whole body as a bucket, right?
16:01
And then all of a sudden you hit this threshold and the buckets spilling over.
16:05
But then if you start actually look what’s inside that bucket, I really look at what emotions are running your system and, you know, it’s taken me a lot of therapy to learn that I lived in fear, like the amount of fear, not just like feel the fear and do it anyway.
16:25
Right.
16:25
I am talking about forcing toxic blistering, autoimmune fear and I’ve done a lot of deep, deep, deep work on, you know, I know I’ve always known where it stemmed from.
16:37
But I also like, I just thought like, if, you know, you know, but I couldn’t change the pattern of the emotion.
16:43
Yeah.
16:44
Right.
16:44
And even just so magically getting it out, it still came back.
16:47
I would still get triggered.
16:48
Right.
16:49
And I couldn’t, I couldn’t rewire myself and like, I’m like, aware of all this healing stuff.
16:54
Like I’m aware of like you can be and what you can do and I’m like, I can’t fucking get there.
17:01
What is wrong with me?
17:03
So then it plays this other story that I’m broken right over and over and then the evidence stacks on top and then it’s like this thing inside my head is like, see, you know, the playing the lawyer.
17:14
Yeah.
17:14
And it’s like the feedback loop of like, yeah, see you can, you can’t do it whatever.
17:19
And I wonder, I mean, that’s I can totally relate and I think I understand that like people getting stuck in their self awareness loops and then you get to the next stage of like, oh now I see my emotions playing their role.
17:30
OK?
17:30
I’m gonna try somatic.
17:31
So I’m going to try and release my fear, but it’s still coming up.
17:35
Yeah.
17:35
And so because of my chronic pain and having these metal rods in my back and the things that have happened to my body, I have incredible awareness of what’s going on inside my body.
17:48
So it’s called interception.
17:49
I really understand and sometimes my interception is triggered, right?
17:55
It’s like on hypervigilance, high, high, high alert and it’s like actually, it’s mis communicating and misfiring too at the same time.
18:04
But because I was an athlete growing up a gymnast or horseback rider or a diver, I have really strong proprioception.
18:10
So I understand like where I am in space and how I relate to my body in space.
18:15
And so in a lot of those healing cycles, I would have moments where I would lose my set, my proprioception and I would really be like, what is going on here?
18:25
Like, I’m really disconnected.
18:27
Like a thing that I would always come back to is movement, therapies, Pilates, yoga, Gyrotonic, just even walking, right?
18:37
Some sort of physical movement that allowed me to know that like my feet were on the ground still.
18:43
And I wasn’t like living in this movie of my trauma, the things that had happened to me and the things that I wasn’t even aware that had happened to me.
18:51
So like a lot of the surgeries, you know, now I’ve had 14 surgeries and I’ve learned that like the anesthesia can really mess with your sleep cycle and it really can like run your body even when you don’t want to.
19:04
So if I wake up in the middle of the night, like coursing with fear, it’s actually like a fear response from my body being paralyzed, medically induced, right?
19:15
And I just having so much more compassion for the states of my body that it goes into because it’s, it’s doing it based on a, a response to what’s happened to it.
19:25
Yeah.
19:26
Can you, you can see Cusco in the background.
19:28
They all, if you see the video, you always know Cusco is behind.
19:33
But I think, yeah, when you told me about that with the surgeries piece and like being under anesthesia, like I was really aware about that, like going into my own surgery recently.
19:43
But like you’ve had, you said 14, I thought I had 19 surgeries and 14 surgeries.
19:48
I understand anesthesia 19.
19:50
And you know, it makes sense.
19:52
You know, we’re in a state where things are happening to our bodies, but we’re not giving it permanent in a way, right?
19:58
We’re almost like completely taken out and I cannot believe.
20:02
And it’s what I think it’s beautiful about your journey is that you’ve been able to see how these things click together.
20:08
But we, you weren’t aware that these things were playing a role in how they were showing up until you got the answers to them.
20:14
And like I, I would say, like I’ve spent almost 30 years studying, being a student and a teacher of the body in multiple different capacities.
20:24
And whenever I was still working in like a sales space, I was still kind of doing something with the body.
20:30
You know, I just, that’s because it was part of my commitment and like the the body really tells the story and we’re not taught that in life, right?
20:40
Like we’re taught to think we’re since I’m just cerebral society and there I see such a beautiful movement for embodiment right now.
20:47
And to really understand your own presence and to understand like this beautiful human technology that we have.
20:58
Like there’s a, I used to hold things against science because I was mad at medicine for what it had done to me.
21:04
And I now am like, wow, but like we’re seeing like biop photons and like the nervousness, like we’re seeing so many different things come forward that will help us operate more freely, efficiently, more filled with joy, more expression and like less attachment to this is how it has to work, right?
21:28
It’s more like there’s so much potential inside our body.
21:33
How do we like maximize this and go further and explore more?
21:37
I’d love to know more about that because I love what you just said, the body is the story, you know, or the answers are in the body.
21:43
They really are though.
21:45
And in a lot of my work, we do body stories because it’s like, what is your body actually telling you?
21:50
And it’s a whole mapping system and it brings consciousness to how you’re responding.
21:57
Yeah.
21:57
And how can someone do that?
21:59
Like start that process almost, you know, like really starting to be like, like I think you hear that, you know, your listen to your body.
22:07
And I would say for so many years, you know, for so many years.
22:10
I was like, sure I am listening to my body.
22:12
What do you mean?
22:13
And then, you know, something different had to click.
22:15
I’m like, oh, this is what you mean by listening to my body.
22:20
And I wonder if you have any like, shares on how you got there or like, how could someone get there?
22:25
Because there is a awareness, like, logically we can say like, yeah, our body speaks to us but there is a whole different thing when you’re actually living from the body.
22:34
Yeah.
22:34
Well, I want to hear what you like where your aha was like what I vividly remember at the Phoenix bath at the retreat.
22:43
It was so interesting.
22:44
I was in a season of my life where I was, I was recovering from burnout, things were crazy.
22:49
You know, I didn’t have a lot to do and we did, we did, I felt like on that retreat, we did a lot, but we didn’t do a lot like we learned a lot, but we did even more like meditation, shaking things out moving.
23:02
And I remember texting Nick and I was like, holy cow.
23:06
My body is hurting like I was just like, I didn’t realize that my lower back hurt so much or my my neck was hurting or that I was genuinely so tired and it was so funny at that moment in that retreat that we did.
23:18
Like I was asked to slow down but slowing down was the lesson I was learning.
23:23
That was a part of the retreat for me in that moment was like somatic.
23:27
How do I slow down?
23:28
How do I be in my body?
23:29
And then I started to kind of wake up to like, oh, this is what my body has been feeling like and I just haven’t been in it.
23:37
It’s almost like I was completely living in this disassociation of like running adrenaline, like aliveness comes from go, go, go.
23:48
And the minute that I slowed down it was like, holy cow, my body is hurting.
23:52
My body ain’t happy.
23:53
She’s tired.
23:54
She needs rest, she needs to stretch.
23:57
Oh my God.
23:57
There were so many, I mean, really for me, I just wasn’t so aware of how much in pain I was until I slowed down.
24:05
And that’s like also part of the restorative process, like slowing down is one of the most important things to do in our world.
24:12
I just, I think we live in a clip that is, it’s amazing and it’s a bit too much, right?
24:19
And so like learning how to create rest cycles and to know like our limits and our boundaries is so important so that we get the restorative, like an athlete understands the rest cycle because they want their muscle recovery so they can go out and do it again.
24:34
And for the most part, the average human is not living for a rest cycle.
24:40
They’re like in full survival mode.
24:42
And I get it like I’ve been there, you know, I was an athlete and then I went into like major medical meltdown and then I went into survival mode and it was like, I felt forced to have to do things to survive, take jobs, make money, not live in my purpose.
24:57
Keep going worse myself from how I was feeling.
24:59
Just keep going.
25:00
You got to just fill up the bank account, like, keep going, keep going and then the joy factor just disappears completely.
25:07
And then you’re like, well, let’s have a drink because that’s easier.
25:11
Or we find these other ways to, to and drop us down.
25:14
Yeah.
25:15
Yeah.
25:15
And then you just suppress it.
25:17
And so then you’re like, oh, I’m just gonna suppress that.
25:18
I’m gonna push that down.
25:19
I’m gonna push that down.
25:20
So I look at it like some people are suppressors and some people are express.
25:24
So, you know how those people have like that wild fire or anger, those are express and then the suppressors were the one that just keeps and then they’ll have their one huge explosion every six months, 36, whatever it is for their cycle.
25:36
But like, I definitely, I’m a suppressor.
25:39
Like I’m like, everything’s good.
25:41
Everything looks good.
25:42
I’m just gonna, like, I’m gonna hold this, I’m gonna hold it.
25:44
Yeah, I can do this.
25:45
I can do this and like, of course I want to be good.
25:48
But like in the background over the years, I wasn’t good and I was physically not good.
25:53
So just to go back to your question around, like, how do people do this?
25:57
And like, how do they start to learn?
25:59
There’s something called autonomic awareness.
26:01
So we, we have a nervous system, there’s a part that just operates on its own, right?
26:08
Our autonomic nervous system and that’s like our rest and our parasympathetic is our rest and digest.
26:13
But the part that operates on its own is your saliva, your digestion, your heartbeat, your hormones, all these things that like our bodies magically do their job.
26:24
But then you hit the stress response, right?
26:28
So you hit toxins, environmental toxins, emotions, stress like pain, you name it trauma, all of those things once they start to like load in the body starts to get, we call dysregulated out of sync.
26:44
So I was diagnosed after my surgery at 38 with something called dysautonomia dysregulation of the central nervous system.
26:51
They tried to give me a pill, didn’t work.
26:54
I tried to do a r aholic but so got this information.
26:59
You know, it must have been like nine years ago and I was like, OK, like I can just do yoga, I can just like, I can just do these things.
27:07
And in my somatic styling process, I created body mapping.
27:12
So really associating the energy of your body, understanding like the chakra system, energy and power that we actually hold inside ourselves.
27:22
That’s actually magic.
27:24
But it’s freaking real, like, it’s very, very real and then the emotions and where we store those emotions and really just like, I mean, I have my clients, like, draw it on, I have a body and I have them draw it on and the colors they see and the things that happen so that they’re physically doing something outside of their brain and putting it on paper in life size.
27:43
We do it like we draw their whole body and then we do it like, you know, all over.
27:47
So and then I go through like the wheel of light and we start telling story and how it associates to the part of the body, to their chakra system.
27:56
So all of a sudden you have this experience, this story, this journey, this pain or this joy, you see the motions and you’re seeing where it’s stored and what that chakra means.
28:08
And all of a sudden you have like a completely rewired view of your own story, but that doesn’t heal the nervous system is what I’ve learned.
28:18
Like I created this unique creative process, right?
28:21
To, to get people dressed, right?
28:24
So they feel more powerful and free and self expressed and like amazing and they become more magnetic like they really, really do because they’re less attached to their story, right?
28:37
But for me, I like even though I do this subconsciously like this is how I survived many years of trauma is dressing this way.
28:48
And I basically that was my recovery from like almost dying and losing my ability to have Children.
28:54
I just analyzed how I got dressed and what I did to energetically like pull myself together to wrap something around me, to protect me, to cover my head up, to protect my head, to wear a flowy dress, to really release that energy to, to so maly embody the sensations that I needed to modulate my presence.
29:14
So I needed to like activate myself.
29:16
I needed to release some energy or if I need to be held together.
29:20
And so that’s so really no, but that’s beautiful.
29:23
I just want to like stop there for a second.
29:25
I think somatic styling is something I definitely think is so beautiful, but it sounds like subconsciously like you dressed yourself in ways that you wanted to feel or that you were currently feel and needed and practical.
29:38
And I’m not like your average stylist, I’m not like, and then this is the latest trend.
29:42
Like I’ve always been anti trends.
29:44
I don’t care.
29:45
And it’s like, what does your body need to be the most effective and powerful as possible?
29:50
But what I learned when I moved to Spain was that I had deep fear and deep anxiety and it was really showing up in many different ways and it was really not OK.
30:01
And I, I got into poly vagal theory.
30:05
I got COVID before we knew what COVID was.
30:07
And I was really sick and it was very scary.
30:10
It was the first time in my life that I felt stopped by everything, like nothing mattered.
30:16
I was completely frozen and also so aware at the same time and I remember it was like Christmas 2019 and I was laying there and I couldn’t pick up the phone and I couldn’t contact anyone and I was just like, I’m giving into that and whatever.
30:33
And I had a friend, like, I was very afraid of being alone and I had a friend, he’s like, we come in alone, we leave alone like it’s ok, you’re gonna be ok.
30:41
You may have to leave sooner than you want, but you’re gonna be alone and I just had to like, make peace with that and coming out of that, I mean, I was, I was very physically and mentally different.
30:54
A lot of fear, a lot of discomfort.
30:57
and I just, I knew there was answers on the nervous system and that information was just coming to me, right?
31:02
Like, you know, when you’re ready, when all of a sudden you’re just being served the information.
31:06
And like, I, I’m an open channel and I’m taking it all.
31:09
I very invested in human design and I’m a 51.
31:13
I also, I’m like incredible researcher, you know, I really should have my phd or hand, but so I’m like a heretic.
31:21
So I like challenge everything I research deeply.
31:24
And then I’m like, let’s create something new.
31:26
Let’s do this differently because it’s actually not working.
31:28
And that is, you know, when I got back to America, I got stuck here because of a medical situation.
31:37
And from having long COVID and a major, I’m not gonna go into it but all intents and purposes.
31:43
My body said you’re not going back to Spain and I had to go through it.
31:47
I had the thing that I said to my family.
31:49
I was like, can I please stay here?
31:51
I really need to feel safe.
31:53
I don’t feel safe anywhere.
31:54
And it was the first time I had admitted to anyone this deep sense of fear and lack of safety.
32:02
And it was such a pinnacle moment for me.
32:06
And they were like, what do you mean you don’t feel sick?
32:08
I’m like, I literally, I’m afraid to leave the house and I had to go through it.
32:14
Like I really, really did.
32:15
My body had been through so much the surgery I had to have.
32:19
It was my 14th surgery and my body was just like we’re not up for that and we got, you have a lot to deal with and it just, it is the immune system, it is the nervous system, it is the medical system is the lack of healing environments available.
32:34
And so I met my mentor Elizabeth Christoph through this process of coming back into America and Frank God said, like she is an angel and, you know, we met at Phoenix Path and we went in and I needed more structure, right?
32:51
Like I’d already been out in the Ethers for a long time and I really needed more structure and I appreciated that program because it like, gave me clear, this is what I need and I had to keep searching.
33:05
And when I found Elizabeth, I, she does something called neuros Somatic Intelligence, which is now what I’m trained and certified in.
33:12
I teach insider program when I say like we need an operating manual for the body.
33:18
This is it like it’s so simple.
33:21
I have been able to step, I’m gonna cry.
33:24
I’ve been able to step out of pattern in my life that I never thought was possible things that I’ve just fall victim to because of reaction and my system was so, you know, we there’s something called neuro exception.
33:36
So like proprioception, interoceptive neuro section is like how fast your brain.
33:41
And if you look at poly vagal theory, you’ll learn more about that.
33:43
But it’s like how fast your brain and body respond to what’s happening.
33:47
And so it’s faster than any thought you’ll ever have because it’s your body responding, your fans can’t even operate that fast, but you can feel that defense, you can feel that shut down like you know what’s happening.
34:00
But our emotions sometimes let us fall victim to those things and I got to learn how to drive that stuff and it was really held by her through things that would normally take me months to recover from.
34:12
And I’d be like, a week later.
34:14
Ok.
34:15
Cool.
34:15
I got that and it’s a little, like when I say rewiring your body, it is completely rewiring your body.
34:24
So I guess my question is, is that actually really possible to, like, completely rewire?
34:29
I mean, it sounds like it is based off what you said, right?
34:32
Like I think it’s really beautiful and you know, it sounds like it’s on a different level of rewiring.
34:38
So people think like you see, oh my my new word for this year is reprogram, rewire and they’re, they’re meditating, they’re, they’re reading more books, they’re becoming more logically aware of things.
34:51
And what you’re physically talking about is the actual experience that is happening internally from like I don’t know the right word to say, but from what you said, it’s like situation thought happens, both body immediately reacts before the thought even happens, right?
35:08
And we are aware of that.
35:10
And so it’s a, it’s a different, you’re not using your brain for thoughts, right?
35:13
So if people lean on thoughts as a way to rewire their mind or subsequent, yeah, we want to make sense of it.
35:20
Yeah.
35:21
And in this, it’s like so much of like, how can I rewire this?
35:26
I know this people aren’t seeing me on the video, maybe your body.
35:29
Yeah.
35:30
So like when you’re doing neuros, somatics, it’s applied to neurology, neuropsychology, Somatics and Vegas, right?
35:37
So you’re working in those four arenas and you’re literally going OK, this emotions activated?
35:44
Cool.
35:44
So what happened?
35:45
OK.
35:45
This is the feeling in my body.
35:47
OK.
35:48
I, so I’ll give like a very clear, simple example.
35:52
Yep.
35:53
So I still teach Pilates.
35:54
Yep.
35:54
And one, I have a male client and one day and I just teach like six hours a week.
36:00
It’s really good for my brain and my body to do it.
36:02
One day this client, he, we finished the session, he walked towards me and I went into full fight or flight of like what the fuck does he want for me?
36:11
And he was just walking to get his phone like he was just walking past me.
36:15
The proximity was like a little close and I was like, and I went into panic, right?
36:19
And I could have then been dysregulated in that panic for hours or days on end.
36:26
And I instantly, it was like, whoa, like you just were really afraid.
36:31
Ok, let’s do some Vegas Star deep compression.
36:34
Ok?
36:34
Let’s, let’s just spend some time shaking out the fear, ok?
36:38
Like I could rally, walk through the sensation and move it out of my body so that I could be a clear channel again and available for the people around me.
36:47
But otherwise if you’re not a clear channel you’re just living in reaction.
36:51
You literally are just one reaction after the next.
36:56
And that was a lot of my life because I was, I was so filled with fear that like I couldn’t respond to people.
37:04
I mean, I, you know, I got good at responding but it also felt performative at times because I had this deep pain inside me.
37:10
Yeah, I hear that.
37:11
And it’s, I mean, what you just walk through in that sample sounds so simple, but it’s not that simple.
37:17
It’s wild.
37:18
You know, like in our day to day today, like we are constantly reacting.
37:22
There is some kind of a trigger like our systems are, I look at them as like our systems are constantly scanning the room.
37:28
I mean, like how can I protect myself, you know, in a way and these triggers come in and that’s so much faster than we think.
37:35
And then we’re in this whole experience and some people live in this experience for days, for weeks, they can’t shake it out and you were able to do it second minute hour, which is incredible because people live in these States all the days and the years go shopping.
37:54
Yeah.
37:55
Spoon use all these other ways to kind of get a dopamine hit.
37:59
Yeah.
38:00
To shift it back.
38:01
Yeah.
38:02
Like all of it.
38:03
Yeah.
38:03
And so, and I had seen that like addictive cycle in my life like I’ve been sober, I’ve had sex addiction like I’ve done all, like, I’ve had a eating disorder.
38:11
Like I’ve had all these things that are quote unquote disordered in our world.
38:15
You start to look at everything.
38:17
So I say that like I have a nervous system in informed practice, I look at every human being through the lens of the nervous system.
38:25
And so I’m like, oh, are they in fight or flight?
38:27
Are they fawning right now or like, oh, they’re super frozen.
38:30
My compassion compass is so big now.
38:34
I don’t have issues with people.
38:36
I’m just like, or if I’m triggered, I’m like, hey, I’m triggered.
38:39
I just want to take care of myself and then can we have a conversation?
38:42
But I also can be like my God, they’re like, really?
38:45
I think that’s one of the most beautiful gifts of learning this work really is because it more people knew this, did this our world.
38:54
We would not have war later even though it’s a freaking huge billion dollar industry.
39:01
And I was at dinner last night with like number 20 defense and I was like, why am I eat dinner right now?
39:07
Like what is happening?
39:08
I mean, it’s diversity of the world.
39:10
Like you need to know lots of people and there’s goods and bads.
39:13
Yeah.
39:13
But I think to your point like I feel like sometimes when I think about it in that lens, I think about like our world or walking around, everyone’s just triggering off each other.
39:21
Like people are just running off each other and bouncing off each other.
39:23
Reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting, reacting like the entire time.
39:28
The way I see it is like these like electronic balls, we’re just running into each other all day.
39:34
Like so let’s just talk about the human energetic field.
39:37
So the institute, so anyone who wants to just go Google Heart Math Institute and look at the Taurus Taurs or it’s not, it’s not spelled the same way as the Taurs, not the zodiac sign.
39:50
You can also send me the link Dylan.
39:51
I’ll put it, it’ll be a lot easier know how to spell anymore.
39:56
Oh, dyslexic, not there.
40:00
So anyway, it’s a donut.
40:01
Basically there.
40:03
Our energetic field is a big, our central vessel is the whole of the donut.
40:07
And you have like spiral, not spiral links coming out and around.
40:11
And like every day, I literally use my hands to work with my tourists to work with my energetic field so that I’m contained, I’m like, oh, I feel it right.
40:24
I’m not going to say everyone knows what an aura is, but for the most part, people understand like let’s to say you’re standing in front of someone who’s really angry and you get closer to them and you can feel their anger, right?
40:37
And you can feel it as palpable or let’s just do this.
40:40
So everyone listening to this, take your two hands and just start them far away.
40:45
So, like 5 ft away or maybe you might not be that tall.
40:49
So, 3 ft away.
40:51
I love this.
40:52
This is a really good, yeah.
40:54
And then start to bring your hands closer together and stop when you feel them energetically.
41:02
So there’s gonna be a force field and just go very slow and as they start to come together you’re gonna all of a sudden feel a little bit of a reverberation of bounce back.
41:13
That’s your energetic field.
41:15
And if it’s really small, it could be like closer together, right?
41:19
It’s there.
41:20
So just work on that, like understanding like feeling that in yourself.
41:25
So just playing with your Taurus and understanding there is this energetic field.
41:29
And so if you’re in a room with a lot of people, all of your tauruses are intertwined, right?
41:33
They’re working around each other and you’re looping in.
41:37
And so we are connected literally.
41:40
Yeah, literally.
41:41
And our nervous systems because like the nervous system literally takes all racism out of things.
41:48
It takes all contrast out of things because we all have a nervous system and it’s actually equal.
41:54
Everyone’s nervous system responds differently based on their trauma or in their history, but we all have a nervous system and it’s the same.
42:02
And so when you start to feel someone else, you’re feeling their system, you’re not just feeling them, you’re really feeling their system.
42:12
You ever been around someone that’s like super hyper vigilant and it gets you kind of, like, uncomfortable.
42:16
That’s their nervous system, like, basically dis regulating you.
42:21
Oh, yeah.
42:22
Right.
42:22
There’s people you’re like, I don’t want to be around them like that doesn’t feel good.
42:25
That’s their system deregulating you and you going, that’s too much for me.
42:29
It’s almost like, you know, and you are really calm and grounded and you didnt feel like someone comes in rushed and fiery and da, da, da, da, da, da da.
42:36
Like you feel like you’re like, whoa, well, that’s a lot, you know, it’s like I’m not there.
42:41
But you can also feel like to your point like when someone’s really angry and like they’re boiling inside but they’re not talking about it and you’re like some things are tense, something’s off.
42:52
Yeah, but you can just, you’re to your point, you can feel that and I thank you so much for walking all of us through that exercise because it really puts depth and feeling to what you’re describing that is around us every day.
43:06
Yeah, it’s simple and it gives us context for what might be happening.
43:10
And like some people are like, how can you be around that person?
43:13
I’m like, because I have so much compassion for them like I understand them and like, I’m not taking on their stuff anymore.
43:20
I have a clear boundary, right?
43:22
And I can also like walk away to an agency to say like, and I’m over like this is done.
43:28
But some people don’t understand my capacity to be around certain people.
43:32
And I’m like, I don’t know, I love you.
43:34
I want to ask that question though.
43:35
Do you think it’s possible?
43:36
I mean, I’m asking you the question and like, is it possible for someone to build capacity to be around things like to hold different emotions?
43:45
Right.
43:45
So it’s one thing that we get affected by emotions.
43:48
But do you think it’s possible to be like, oh, I have the capacity to be in this emotion and you no longer affect me in the same way you did before?
43:56
Yeah.
43:57
So that actually the whole purpose, right?
43:59
Because working with your nervous system is 100% about building capacity.
44:03
Like why else are you really doing it?
44:06
But then to like have a better experience in what you’re doing in the world or how you’re showing up or how you’re engaging and like everything is about relationship, it’s about the relationship with yourself, relationship with other people and these emotions are part of who you are and when one is so big, we have to learn how to move it through us and out or get support with it, right?
44:32
Co regulate.
44:33
But the more you like that threshold moment, right?
44:36
Where you, you there’s too much going on, there’s too much that’s filled the bucket the that’s in there more time we’ll have to like clean this stuff up.
44:44
Right.
44:45
Right.
44:45
But the goal is to build capacity to actually, like, I’m actually sending this email to my list tomorrow about how like capacity was the, the one thing that I knew that I needed that I didn’t have.
44:58
And it was coming out of having COVID one, you know, an early adopter of COVID and really having my body pretty destroyed already having autoimmune stuff.
45:06
I was, I was really affected by it and I kept saying like, I need to build capacity.
45:12
I hired a capacity coach like, you know, like, but didn’t, I couldn’t do it until I understood my nervous system and what was triggering it?
45:22
And like now I literally, I can be in a conversation with someone that would like historically trigger the fuck out of me and I would yell back, right?
45:32
And my response is, do you really want to speak to me that way?
45:34
Like can we try this another way?
45:36
I am like who?
45:38
It’s like what?
45:40
Because I know myself as like fight or flight, right?
45:42
Like I just know like a drama, chaos like Strat and and yet I can like put on good composure and then I can like get fucking angry too and and so to then all of a sudden have this other presence show up in me from literally having like a not a crazy long nervousness practice daily, but like being committed to the process, right?
46:04
Like 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there triggered.
46:07
OK.
46:08
Do five minute drills and these are drills.
46:10
We’re not like, I don’t need to do a whole long, so bad.
46:13
I bla bla bla, bla bla bla thing.
46:15
Like, because I don’t, I don’t have a lot of patience for it anymore because I’ve been in it for so long that I’m like, it’s sure every once in a while I love a great workshop.
46:22
I like a deep dive.
46:23
But on a daily practice, like, no, I need it like, yeah.
46:27
And to the point and so doing these neuros somatic drills, I have a whole, you know, there’s like there’s 53 basic ones and then there’s like 100 and hundreds really.
46:36
But you understand like you’re checking with your body if you’re building capacity or if you’re decreasing capacity because we have rotational assessments.
46:44
And so the assessment was tell you, oh, this one has challenged your capacity today.
46:49
Let’s go do a rescue drill.
46:51
And so then I have a whole bucket of rescue drills.
46:53
It’s like very well resourced.
46:55
It’s very clear that my body will respond positively because I’ve built this bucket of resources from practicing them.
47:03
And I know that there are positive responses, but I have real vestibular damage from having viruses, injuries, accidents.
47:11
Like I was in a major boating accident right before New Year’s 2000.
47:15
I didn’t know I really had damaged myself until I started to learn more about this in the vestibular system.
47:20
And I was like, oh my God, that’s actually what happened.
47:23
And so now I get to really work on my vestibular system, which is a passive threat that’s happening to me all the time that I didn’t even know was actually creating anxiety, but like I’m feeling it all the time and so there’s just this heightened state and until I can take down that threat, I won’t get to that sense of peace.
47:41
And like all I want is peace, right?
47:43
I know that that’s my life’s mission is to feel peace.
47:46
And so when you start to find the drills and the tools that work for you and then you can practice them and know like positive response, positive response challenge.
47:56
Ok, let’s do this.
47:57
Let’s do a positive one.
47:59
Do the challenge, one, do another positive one.
48:00
You bracket it and you’re like, oh, I feel safe, my body feels safe.
48:04
I feel safe and I feel safe for the first time in my life.
48:07
What I realized is that I never felt safe given my childhood and that the places we moved and like just how, how much moving around we did.
48:15
I was exposed and not badly.
48:17
Like it wasn’t horrible stuff.
48:19
It just was, I was exposed to some and for my own system, I didn’t feel safe.
48:24
And that’s the i that me, my parents could ever understand.
48:27
That’s not, that’s not knowledge, right?
48:29
And now that you’re in this state, it’s like safety.
48:31
And by the way, those drills are so good.
48:34
I love that.
48:35
They just like little snippets, which obviously people can come find more information and like, learn that from you.
48:41
I’m so curious from this place of safety from this regulated state that you’ve like cultivated in your day to day life and in your nervous system, how, what’s become more available to you and how do you express, like, what’s the difference in your expression?
48:55
I’m very curious, like, how did you express yourself before?
48:58
Compared to like, how you can express yourself today?
49:01
And maybe it’s even just like the energy differences of those.
49:07
I think I love this question.
49:09
I’m gonna say one thing first before I answer the question about like manifestation.
49:15
So you know that like energetic frequency that if you’re in this personal development space and you know, the law of attraction, you’re like, oh, I wanna, I wanna, I want to manifest this in my life, right?
49:26
Like, and I didn’t know that like actually just really need to manifest safety in my body and like, that’s actually what I needed to work on to then be able to be available for the things that I desired.
49:38
And I in this journey of healing and pain and suffering, like kind of lost the magic for a lot of the personal development stuff.
49:47
I was like, I’m calling BS on all of it.
49:49
Like it’s just a sales tactic and in a regulated state, you become available for the most seismically shifting quantum experiences.
50:01
That so yeah.
50:03
And so it’s so wild because it completely changes how you operate.
50:09
It completely changes how you communicate.
50:11
It completely changes how you engage with people.
50:14
My self trust is so much greater than it ever has been.
50:17
And that was something that I broke as a child.
50:19
And so I spent a lot of time trying to repair that and, and then, you know, after the surgery, like, just so many times I’ve tried to repair it and I’ve broken it and repair and when you live in a regulated nervous system, you know how to repair it really fast and actually just listen to it and you trust it, right?
50:35
And so I can share vulnerably without shame.
50:39
Like I can share this whole crazy journey without being ashamed of it in the past.
50:44
When I would do podcast interviews in the past, I would, I just would walk away with so much toxic shame for the things that had happened to me, which really meant that I was like, exposing myself, not actually being vulnerable, right?
50:58
Like, and I think I really misunderstood the vulnerability movement by like just telling your story, like, no, you’re totally like opening up an open wound.
51:08
And so I think there’s multiple aspects to when you’re regulated, you know, your boundaries, you know what you’re available for, you know, it works for you and how you wanna be treated, you know how to ask for what you need.
51:24
And it’s not dramatic.
51:25
It’s like this is just kind of a fact like this is, this is it.
51:29
And I’d say there’s less drama and less chaos, clear boundaries, there’s so much more aliveness and attraction and chemistry and safety within my friendships because I can call it out.
51:43
I can be like, hey, I’m not feeling safe or like I need support.
51:46
Can you walk me through this?
51:47
Not like, oh my God, this is happening, me and then this guy and that da da, da, da da, you know, it’s like, no, like, hey, this is a sensation in my body and I’m working through it and I’ve regulated, but it’s still kind of there, right?
52:00
Like there’s that will happen.
52:02
Like some things do carry over for a couple of days.
52:04
Like I, I did an amazing breathwork class this morning and it just like popped my heart open and I, I had felt it kind of like constrict down and even though I’d been regulating, like I just needed that extra burst to like come back to the energy that I wanted to be in.
52:20
It’s literally like it’s the definition of know thyself.
52:24
Thank you.
52:24
That was so beautiful.
52:26
I literally like had chills going through my entire body because there’s nothing.
52:31
And I think I’m still constantly learning this for myself, but there’s nothing from that expression that you talk to from like a grounded state, there’s like this space you get to like move into and actually experience the world without your system completely taking over and you could see it and your energy like when you were talking, you got so there’s so much aliveness in regu regulation.
52:54
I don’t have to say it like in regulation and being regulated.
52:57
Well, because there’s safety there, right?
52:59
And there’s trust and those are like the foundations of any relationship.
53:03
And so if you look at your relationship with yourself as like the most paramount relationship there is you have that, then you can figure out the relationship with someone else and then with your money and with your animal, like whatever it is, you can figure those out.
53:18
But it, it’s changed the way I treat people engage with people.
53:22
There was something I wanted to say around the commodification of spirituality and like manifestation, like I’m just gonna manifest a million dollars and I wanna manifest a new home and a new car and da da da.
53:36
And it can really put people in a very dysregulated state.
53:39
And so I’d actually call it like weaponizing spirituality and manifestation trauma, right?
53:46
Because people get into a dysregulated cycle around having dreams and desires and not being able to live into them.
53:54
And they don’t understand why.
53:56
Wow, we need to do another episode on just that holy cow.
54:00
Can we talk about that some more like that is, it’s really crazy.
54:04
And so the, this is so interesting, Carrie, when we look at like wanting something in the world in my experience when you and this is so hard to say because when you’re hurt, it’s hard to be open to the outcome.
54:22
When you’re in fear, it’s hard to be open to the outcome.
54:25
It’s hard to just say like go do this and then let whatever happens happen, right?
54:31
But when you’re regulated, you can literally let go and be open to the outcome because you trust and that actually the outcome doesn’t matter.
54:39
And that’s actually the only success for me is knowing that I’m safe.
54:44
Like that’s the only kind of success that I need.
54:47
Everything else will compound from there.
54:49
Amen.
54:50
Amen.
54:51
This whole concept.
54:53
I mean, I swear there will be another podcast episode on Just Manifestation because I really think like, I think I’m also an advocate like a part of that I’ve experienced that, you know, like, you know, you hear manifest like I’ve, I’ve always thought of manifestation.
55:08
Wow, we talk about this.
55:09
I’m going to try and make this short and sweet so we can wrap this up.
55:12
But like I’ve always thought I was like, be do have, right?
55:15
Like in order to receive the thing, I have to be the thing, right?
55:19
And so I was, you’re constantly striking for this thing that you’re working towards and then let’s say you constantly don’t receive it and you’re just regulating yourself and then there’s this trauma of manipulation.
55:32
Yeah.
55:32
So it’s wild and it’s so true and you are in such a regulated space, like everything else just compounds.
55:39
It just comes in.
55:41
There’s this open availability versus this reaching energy or like I need to do this to save myself or to survive or like I need more money because I need this and that bla bla bla bla wow, we are going to do an episode on just that because that is really, really important.
55:58
And I just see it and it’s so interesting now being on this other side of this cycle, like I see the new generations just drinking the Kool aid if that makes sense.
56:06
Like constantly drinking the Kool aid.
56:09
Yeah.
56:09
And it’s a cycle and I’m like, oh but manifest but an emotions audit to really understand where they’re coming from and look, I was a suppressor.
56:20
So my nature is to stuff it down and not, not deal with it.
56:24
Just don’t, I don’t want to and I just want everything to be ok.
56:29
And I just want the money and I just want the guy and I want the house and the dog and the car and the like who doesn’t want that?
56:35
But that is not security.
56:36
That shit can go away in two fucking minutes.
56:38
I’ve seen it come, I’ve seen it go, I’ve seen it come, I’ve seen it go, I’ve had millions.
56:43
I’ve had nothing like it’s real.
56:45
It’s come and gone.
56:46
The one thing I never had was safety and then, and I had to create that myself.
56:51
I can’t go to someone.
56:53
I mean, I learned the skills and the tools but I had to come and do the practice myself.
56:57
And this gave me agency.
56:58
It gave me sovereignty, it gave me my life so good.
57:03
I’m, I swear I could talk to you for longer.
57:05
Love you so much.
57:06
I love you so much.
57:07
And this is so important for people to hear.
57:11
You know, like I think what you’re talking to this internal safety and internal self trust is the thing that keeps us going in life because everything can get taken away, everything can come your way and everything get taken away tomorrow, right?
57:23
Like it’s practicing the internal safety that gives you the opportunity to continue to evolve as a human, to continue to express it, continue to feel joy to receive, to be open if you’re living in this safety.
57:37
But if you’re constantly holding on, so I was gonna say if you’re constantly holding on to like, oh, I just want to make more money or the more money is going to solve the issue or the minute that I get married, I’m going to feel like in a better relationship and I can be held fully and it’s like those things can shift and change and they are all the time.
57:55
Your safety is your anger anchor is the anchor.
57:59
Yeah.
58:00
You know, I do say often that if I had known these tools 28 years ago when I came out of my surgery, I would have gone through a lot less pain, a lot.
58:11
I would have known how to operate my body.
58:12
I wouldn’t have been afraid of it.
58:14
What’s going on, all the things that I felt that I was going to doctors for it, for help.
58:19
But I was being told I was crazy even though I literally had no red blood cells wild and like this gives you agency so beautiful.
58:29
Yeah, I’m so happy that we have met.
58:33
And also I’m just, I have tears in my eyes just to see your journey because I feel like I caught you at the beginning of finding all these things, you know, and so just like, truly like the last end of it, right?
58:45
Like I wasn’t part you’ve lived so much more life than I have and in the most beautiful way and I’d say like the end of it, but just truly like witnessing you like get to this place of really finding this for you.
58:59
And now that you are now taking that and sharing that with other people and incorporating it into your work.
59:06
Like it’s just so beautiful and thank you so much, I just love you.
59:11
You’re a source of wisdom and just a source of experience I think.
59:15
And I believe like you don’t know anything until you experience it and you’ve experienced it.
59:21
And that’s something that you’re sharing from, which is so incredible.
59:24
I would love for you to share, you know, what is your work today?
59:28
How can someone contact you if they want to or get connected with you and just kind of witness as you continue to share this with leaders with CEO S with people around your world that are learning this for themselves too.
59:42
So I really work with the energetics and the aesthetics.
59:46
So I still do the styling, but I really do it like elegantly.
59:50
So I’m looking at how people lead themselves in the world.
59:54
And so this is, I created a, a product called Elegant Leadership.
59:58
And it is a coaching portal with me, 1 to 1 at this moment.
1:00:02
And it is, it is this work and it is about cultivating your personal brands, not only your image, but the internal self image and the system and how you operate to a new level.
1:00:15
And I work with high performing entrepreneurs and executives.
1:00:19
Actually, both I really enjoy that high level function.
1:00:24
They’re pretty primed and yet there’s really some opportunity to refine and fine tune.
1:00:29
And then I’m launching a sanctuary, an online sanctuary and it’s really very narco system healing and it’s going through within a group people working through your self image, your external image, your personal brand, like how all those things are all together, but really creating an integrated this because I like it is about the journey and the skills compounded are what actually make change in your life.
1:00:58
So it gives you clarity when you do the skills of the drills.
1:01:03
And so, and how can someone find you or can they find you?
1:01:07
two places?
1:01:08
There’s my website Carrie montgomery.com and then Instagram is real Carrie montgomery.com or just RealCarrie.
1:01:16
Yeah, and I’ll put that all in the show notes too.
1:01:18
But thank you.
1:01:20
Thank you.
1:01:20
Thank you so much for this conversation and for sharing your story and for truly bringing like this really important piece to the world, truly, so wonderful to be here.
1:01:32
And thank you everyone for listening and showing up and I look forward to connecting.
1:01:36
Thank you, love you.

Full Transcript0:00
Welcome to the fully expressed podcast with Karenna, where we talk and have conversations all about what it means to live a life, fully expressed.
0:08
Every conversation that we have on this podcast is truly an invitation for you to live more express in your life relation and business.
0:17
So thank you so much for tuning in today.
0:19
I’m really stoked because I have Ali Sempek.
0:24
Is that how I pronounce your last name?
0:25
I might have meant that I might have messed that up.
0:28
I’m really bad with that part, but with lie and lie, I’m going to let her introduce herself, but I want to share with you how Ali and I met.
0:37
I think we met through Instagram.
0:39
And this was kind of even early on in my coaching journey.
0:43
Like I know you were early on in your coaching journey.
0:45
I was early on in my coaching journey.
0:47
And we got on the conversation.
0:49
I just loved your energy and you were exploring the idea of wanting to become a coach and what that actually looked like and what it was going to be like to empower women in the way that you felt called to at the time.
1:00
And it’s so fun to have Ali here now.
1:03
Like I think literally four years later to catch up on what she is doing and how she is supporting women.
1:10
And honestly, just to witness your growth, Ali, I think it’s really, really beautiful what you’re doing for women, how you’re showing up on Instagram.
1:18
And I just cannot wait to dive into the details of your story truly from what it was like to fall in love with your body again.
1:28
You know what it was like to step into the confidence that you literally like like vibrate all the time and now you help women doing that.
1:38
And so with that being said, I’m going to pass it over to you ali.
1:41
So go ahead and just introduce yourselves for me.
1:43
Absolutely.
1:44
Well, I’m so glad I’m here.
1:46
I’m Ali or more commonly known as coach Ali.
1:49
I’m a women’s wellness coach and empowerment speaker.
1:52
So what I do is I help women break up with dieting with food rules with bad body image days in order to feel happier and healthier and more confident.
2:02
So much of what I coach on, like you said, has to do with my own story, really lacking the self-confidence, struggling with my body since I was younger and never really being able to find someone or the resources to help me get out of it.
2:18
Dive into that a little bit further.
2:20
But like you mentioned, you and I met, yeah, it would have been four years ago on Instagram.
2:25
I actually was living in Austin, Texas at the time.
2:29
I’m from Nebraska, so I was in a new city.
2:32
Hated my job.
2:33
I was working a 9 to 5 event and marketing job at the time was taking different courses, online, different certifications and had a friend in Austin that actually said, you know, you need to follow crea, she’s in California.
2:49
you like would absolutely click with her vibe so well and she does what you’re kind of thinking of doing.
2:56
So, knowing me, I like to just slide on in and make my presence known.
3:02
And I just remember reaching out to you and just asking like, how are you doing what you’re doing?
3:06
Like, does this even really exist?
3:09
Right?
3:09
And almost being so intimidated.
3:11
I remember this is so silly, but I remember your Instagram being like so aesthetically pleasing and like so light and airy and you’re on the beach.
3:21
And I was over here thinking, OK, I live in a new city, a pandemic is about to happen.
3:28
I’m going to most likely move back to the Midwest.
3:31
How can you even start this business?
3:33
Let alone something that people are going to be gravitated towards wild, wild.
3:38
I think that’s so important.
3:40
I mean, well, I could just peel back the latest one.
3:41
Thank you so much for sharing all of that.
3:43
And it’s so funny to talk about the brand and the Instagram when I first started, I was, I was trying to be like on brand and so beautiful.
3:50
Now you look at my, my Instagram.
3:52
It is all over the place because I’ve, you know, I think I started from a place of like, I want things to look a certain way.
3:57
I want things to show off a certain way image matters.
4:00
And then to me now recently, like in the more common years, I’m like, I’m going to show up the most raw, real vulnerable version of myself.
4:07
And I don’t necessarily have a run.
4:10
I have a brand but there’s no like concurrency, I’d say in my Instagram feed.
4:15
So I love that feedback.
4:16
And then I also, I think it’s important for others to hear just that like, wow, this one person has this, that I admire so much.
4:25
Is it actually possible for me?
4:26
And it sounds like you made it possible for yourself.
4:30
And I’d love to hear what was that like, you know, really taking it from this place of like, oh, I admire what this person is doing because one, I also believe when we admire something in someone, usually it means that we also have that special gift within ourselves and you did and you do.
4:45
And so I’d love to hear what it was like to take this desire of like, oh this is something I like, I feel called to do and actually take the first couple of steps in that direction.
4:54
And I love what you just said because a quote that I say to my clients a lot is if it’s on your heart, then it’s possible to achieve it.
5:01
I truly believe that you are never given a dream or the strong inclination to do something or experience something without it being possible for you to do, no matter how impossible it feels at the time.
5:16
Right.
5:17
And to your point, that’s exactly where I was at.
5:19
The pandemic hit.
5:20
I actually moved back to Nebraska, moved in with my parents at 26 years old, I lost my full time job.
5:27
So had no health insurance, had no government assistance and basically said, ok, this is the time to do it.
5:35
And if it doesn’t work, ok, I can always go back to what I was doing, but I was miserable and it wasn’t, it wasn’t who I was.
5:43
So what I need to do to get to where I want to be.
5:47
And I think I love that.
5:48
You mentioned like, oh, we have this idea of what it’s supposed to look like, right?
5:55
We love to shoot ourselves to death literally.
5:57
And instead of following the aesthetic or following what all these other coaches were doing, I really just started showing up.
6:05
I just started sharing my story and seeing how one could relate to it, just putting it out there and trying to see, you know, ok, I know, I’ve been through it.
6:15
Someone else has to have been through it too.
6:17
It can’t just be me.
6:18
That feels this way.
6:19
And now four years later it’s definitely not just me that feels this way.
6:24
I think it’s a big piece of our society as women that we don’t talk about.
6:29
We’ve almost normalized wanting to be healthy, but in an aesthetic way.
6:34
Right.
6:35
And so every woman is on a diet and that’s normal.
6:38
We’re supposed to talk about that every woman is supposed to want to be smaller or look different and that’s to talk about.
6:46
And so it’s almost more uncomfortable to call it out and say, hey, this is not normal.
6:50
What would it look like if you actually just genuinely liked yourself and you like your life, what would that look like?
6:57
And most women that I talk to have no idea, they’ve never felt that.
7:00
Wow.
7:01
Yeah, I love what you’re talking to and just to clarify, you know, we’re really going to be talking about dieting body image and all the things that you’ve gone through.
7:09
But it is so funny to witness how, how someone looks is quote unquote healthy, what I have experienced personally.
7:20
And maybe you can relate to this.
7:21
Like, honestly, like if you, one of my smallest days when I was the tiniest or when quote uno everyone was like, you’re so skinny, you look so small, blah, blah, blah.
7:31
I wasn’t, I didn’t feel my best.
7:34
I actually felt miserable inside my energy levels were all over the place.
7:39
My mind didn’t feel good.
7:41
And so I truly started to think more of like, ok, if health doesn’t look a certain way, what does health actually feel like?
7:49
What does healthy feel like that is so drastically different from what I feel like people are shooting for or striving for when it comes to.
7:59
Oh, health looks a certain way.
8:01
And it’s funny to what you were just saying.
8:03
It’s like everyone celebrates that too.
8:06
It’s insane.
8:07
It’s like, oh well, let’s celebrate the fact that people look a certain way but they’re dieting, they can’t sleep well, their energy levels are all over the place.
8:16
We’re not looking at the, you know, the root cause of all the whole thing.
8:22
Yeah, at all.
8:24
Not, not to go down a rabbit hole, but I I always challenge my clients to look at where’s the money coming from?
8:30
Because realistically, right, our society is not going to look at OK.
8:35
What is healthy feel like?
8:36
Right.
8:37
Because they make more money based off of what healthy quote unquote looks like, right?
8:42
If we’re constantly changing what the expected beauty standards are of women, especially, right?
8:49
Body image, what size you are, what aesthetics are in, right?
8:54
It’s just constantly going to be making more money because we’re feeding off of women’s insecurities.
9:00
A healthy and confident woman doesn’t cost a lot of money, right?
9:04
So why would we want them?
9:05
And that’s almost where I joke that I did not go into this business to become a millionaire.
9:11
I didn’t because the women that I help, I hope they never come back to me because I hope that in their heart, they know who they are, what their worthiness is and what actually works for them so that they can kind of tune out all of the noise and something I know you’ve talked a lot about in your own story.
9:30
But I was actually reflecting on this after the last time you and I chatted was again, just even how our own journey kind of evolves as we coach because I first started coaching, I was still counting macros, which I told my clients not to do.
9:45
But I was so scared that if I fully leaned into intuitive eating into the wellness practices that I was coaching, that my body would change.
9:54
And if I gained weight, what kind of wellness coach would I be if my body was?
9:58
Can we peel that back a little bit?
10:02
What do you?
10:02
So I’d love to hear a little bit more about what that was like, you know, like really leaning in and saying, hey, I help you in this way.
10:10
But I’m also scared that I look like this, maybe, I don’t know if that’s the right way to say it, but I think it was, it’s always been very contradictory for me.
10:19
I’ve never been in a body that was big enough to be plus sized.
10:22
And I’ve never been in a body small enough to be seen as small or skinny or petite like our society.
10:30
So I’ve always lived in this middle space where I feel like again, we’ve always talked about, you must get authority based upon what someone looks like rather than their education or their story or, you know, their own experience.
10:45
And so it was, it was a lot of self reflection.
10:48
It was a lot of like honest conversation with myself of saying, ok, if you’re going to do this, a lot of your own triggers and trauma is going to show up that you’re going to have to work through as you help these women work through it, right?
11:02
And a lot of that for me and I’m an open book, you’re welcome to ask whatever.
11:06
But a lot of that for me was growing up.
11:08
I always knew I was beautiful.
11:10
I was always told I had a beautiful face or I had beautiful hair, but I was also always told, oh, well, maybe you should drink water instead of eat that.
11:18
Oh, you’d be perfect if you just lost x amount of weight, right?
11:23
It was always you have such a pretty face but right?
11:27
So so much of the mixed messaging caused my my own narrative to become, oh, I’m beautiful.
11:35
However, there are pieces of me that are not, there are pieces of me that do not match and it’s my body.
11:41
So if I can just change my body, if I can just fix this piece and everything else about me already fits what they want it to fit.
11:49
So as I went into coaching, I had to truly say, ok, if this is the body I have for the rest of my life, this is where we’re at.
11:57
Can I be happy in it?
11:58
And I always laugh that the one thing I said to my mom that actually changed a lot for me was saying, if I can’t have chocolate, what’s the point?
12:08
Right?
12:08
If I can’t go out to eat with friends and actually enjoy their presence, what’s the point?
12:14
Right?
12:15
And that’s, you know, that’s I never lied to anybody that’s a constant battle, right?
12:19
We will always have to work on this piece of us, but it was really that kind of come to Jesus moment with myself of OK, if I’m going to be the face of this, yeah, my body is going to be a constant conversation topic.
12:32
I’m gonna have to be really strong in how I feel about who I am and what my purpose is not necessarily how my body might fluctuate.
12:39
I think just that thank you so much for sharing that.
12:42
But just that is like the one of the most bravest and most courageous things that you could do.
12:46
No one really talks about, especially being a coach.
12:49
Or being on social media and you quote unquote, being a representation of what people want.
12:55
And it’s also like, it takes a lot to be like, hey, I want this for you and I have to practice this too and I’m going to constantly work through my own thing.
13:06
It’s almost like it’s like the journey is just like, it’s on hyper alert.
13:11
I don’t know how to say it.
13:12
Like everything is intense and high intensity because one, you’re putting yourself out there and talking about these very triggering topics rather, rather, you know, they’re not necessarily going to go away like we’re so wounded, we have our things, right?
13:25
These very triggering topics, we’re putting ourselves in situations that are very freaking uncomfortable and we’re actively, you’re actively choosing to be uncomfortable in that.
13:35
So you’re actively choosing to be like, I have to show up confidently and expressive and myself in these moments and share these very vulnerable things about myself and tackle my internal dialogue about that like, oh yeah, it’s so fun.
13:55
It’s a lot.
13:55
And so I love to hear what was like something that really helped you step into that, like knowing that this was your calling, right?
14:02
Because one thing is I feel like we always get called to do, but December, our callings are never necessarily going to be the most comfortable ride.
14:09
It’s not like you’re getting on a road trip.
14:10
It’s like, oh, I’m gonna go see the scenery the entire time.
14:12
And it’s like, no, actually, the thing you feel called to do is probably gonna be one of the most hardest things that you’re gonna face in some ways.
14:19
And so I’d love to know like, what was like your North Star or what was your anchor and, like, constantly showing up while you’re still navigating your own body, image relationship with your body conversations and showing people that there’s another way.
14:35
You know, and to your point, I think with our doves being so much on social media, right?
14:41
It is seen as, oh, well, it must be so fun.
14:44
It’s so easy to do your job.
14:46
It’s so enjoyable and it is don’t get me wrong.
14:49
I love what I do but holy smokes.
14:52
Is it hard to show up when you are going through those triggers?
14:56
You’re going through different life battles?
14:58
Because one thing I do want to note for anyone listening is this journey is not a I’m going to do this action, get this result and never have to work on it again.
15:07
There is not an end.
15:09
There just isn’t no matter how much society leads you to believe if you do this and you’ll get this.
15:14
It’s not how it works.
15:15
It’s constant growth and evolution and, and change, not only with clients but within myself, right?
15:23
And so I do have to hold a lot of space for myself.
15:26
So to your to your question my north star was really always my, why my, why was I doing this?
15:33
Right.
15:33
When I could easily get another 9 to 5 job, I could be in, in sales or I could be in marketing again and I could probably make a lot more money doing a lot less work.
15:42
Right.
15:43
For me, it was, I knew that I was put on this earth to leave an impact even if that was with one person.
15:50
And I knew that the way I would put it is that there is only one of you that will ever be created ever, right?
15:58
There is only one of you.
15:59
And so you are also the only one that has the gifts you have to give.
16:03
And so if my gift, if my reasoning for going through a decade of body dysmorphia and eating disorders and you know, self insecurity, if the reason I went through all of that was so that I could help women get out of it so that I could help women teach their daughters to not go through that.
16:23
OK?
16:23
Then I just need to show up, I need to find ways to pivot.
16:27
So that’s kind of always held true of like that is why I do what I do because I in the place where I felt, I mean, severe anxiety.
16:37
So such a dark depression to a point where I, I could not get out of it.
16:42
I literally remember telling my parents, I’m like, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
16:47
Like I, I feel crazy and it seems like no one can relate to it.
16:51
And so being able to be that person that says I get it.
16:54
You’re not crazy.
16:55
There’s nothing wrong with you, right?
16:57
We’ve just normalized something that is not normal.
17:00
And then in order to continue that why I’ve learned that I do need to pour into myself in a lot of ways, right?
17:07
In order to pour into others, you have to make sure your cup is filled and that’s easier said than done a lot of the time, right?
17:15
You and I were talking about this before.
17:17
Even recording.
17:18
Big thing for me is being in like creative energetic spaces, being with like minded women or purposely giving myself some self care and self care is not just like, oh, I’m gonna go get a facial every week.
17:32
I wish it was, that would be great, right?
17:35
But being intentional about like my non negotiables.
17:39
So for me that’s going to the gym that’s moving my body in some way for me that’s spending time with people who do really pour into me that’s reading, right?
17:48
Like shutting off the world, shutting off the phone and being in a completely different like creative space.
17:54
So that’s kind of a long, a long winded answer to your question.
17:58
Yeah.
17:59
There’s so many facets to it.
18:00
How did you figure that out though?
18:02
Like, I’m so curious because like, I think, you know, we can say all those things, you know, everyone can tell you like, hey, these are the ways that would be the most supportive to you.
18:14
Don’t forget to fill you up your own cup.
18:16
Don’t forget, you know, you’re really leaning into your why.
18:18
Like, I love all of that and I kind of want to peel back a little bit more of like, how did you actually figure that out?
18:25
Like, did you, did you run into a situation where you’re like, holy shit?
18:28
I have nothing left within me.
18:30
I need to like, look back and see like, how do I give back to myself?
18:33
Like, did you run into these walls or challenges or like almost like pauses that the universe was like, hey, all you got to step back a little bit and evaluate, was it something like that or was it different because I want to appeal that back a little bit of like, how did you figure that out for yourself?
18:50
Yeah, I think it wasn’t as apparent.
18:53
I would love, I would love if God was just like here, Ali, I want to just drop this download real quick for it.
18:59
This is what you need to do and this is why you need to do it.
19:03
I think it was like little instances along the way.
19:05
And one that I remember is I was severely depressed.
19:09
I had like anxiety attack that was last seen.
19:12
Multiple days in a row.
19:14
And I was living in my college town at the time, working my 9 to 5 account management position.
19:20
And I was driving the 45 minutes every night back to my parents’ house in Omaha because I just couldn’t, I couldn’t go to bed alone.
19:29
And my dad said doing the same thing every single different day and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
19:39
And I had, I had heard that before, but it wasn’t until that point that I realized every single thing I kept trying was basically the same thing just in different wrapping, right?
19:50
And so that, I mean, that was four or five years before I even started coaching.
19:55
That was the very first pivotal point of saying, OK, something has to give here.
20:00
What about my current situation?
20:02
Am I constantly trying to change in order to be happy?
20:06
Well, for me, it was, oh, I’m going to control food.
20:08
I’m going to control my body because once I can control that, then I’ll be happy.
20:13
But you have to go steps deeper to your point of saying, OK, why do I think that that’s gonna make me happy?
20:19
What do I actually want?
20:21
And for me it was OK, I want connection.
20:24
I want community.
20:25
I wanna be accepted.
20:27
OK.
20:28
So at that point, I didn’t quite know how to make that change.
20:31
So all I did was I changed my environment.
20:33
I moved to a different city in my state.
20:37
Right.
20:37
And then I realized, ok, this job that I just took something off here, I’m still not quite, it doesn’t quite feel right.
20:45
And I kept journaling on it of like, what are the commonalities?
20:48
What do I keep doing?
20:50
Thinking?
20:51
It’s going to be different while I kept taking marketing positions where I was sitting at a desk all day thinking, oh, this job will let me talk to people.
20:58
I never talk to people.
21:00
I talk to myself most of the time, right?
21:02
So I, I tried something different.
21:05
And I think, you know, honestly, the biggest piece of my past that I take like reflection and feedback from is that if, if you can just try one different thing, take it in the sense of it’s not failure, it’s not success.
21:18
It’s truly OK.
21:19
How am I going to get feedback from this?
21:20
Do I like it or do I not like it?
21:22
And most of my feedback was from things I didn’t like, but it led me to understand myself better.
21:28
And now I think as a coach to get into that space of saying, OK, I need to pour into my own cup.
21:34
I need to take steps away, right?
21:36
I need to be involved in community.
21:39
A lot of that has been writing down and journaling of what’s valuable to me.
21:44
Where do I feel energy and where do I feel energy depleted?
21:49
Right.
21:49
Sometimes that’s the easiest way to look at it is OK?
21:52
Does this thing action person give you energy?
21:56
Do you feel just like lit up after you’re with them or after you’re there?
22:00
Or is your energy depleted?
22:02
Do you start to notice?
22:03
OK, I’m sleeping more.
22:05
I don’t really want to take care of myself.
22:07
Right?
22:07
There’s a commonality of how your energy ebbs and flows.
22:11
So, so much of that for me was just being more intuitive and being honest with myself of OK, this is not, this is not allowing me to be who I am.
22:21
What is the one thing I can do right now?
22:23
That’s gonna shift that so good.
22:25
Thank you for walking us through all of that.
22:27
I think to add to that, you know, I think the way I think about it sometimes we do get a to a breaking point.
22:33
We’re like, all right, something has to freaking shift and it’s insane that we don’t even recognize it in the moment, you know.
22:39
So for anyone that’s listening a it’s OK if you, you’re at your edge, right?
22:44
You’re at the the brink of like, OK, something really needs to change.
22:48
Like, don’t get hard on yourself for not realizing that something needed to change way earlier because I think sometimes we can run into that of like holy cow.
22:55
I’ve been sitting in this pattern in this experience for weeks, for months, for years and I haven’t shifted anything.
23:02
And a that’s OK.
23:03
Now you’re listening to this now and maybe that’s like sparking something and saying, oh OK.
23:08
I can easily start to peel back the layers.
23:11
I think too to add to this.
23:12
Like I love all that.
23:13
I know this is the same, but the more that you practice becoming aware of right before you meet your edge, you’ll catch it way earlier, right?
23:21
And I think a lot of the work, at least I’ve learned as a trauma informed somatic practitioner is like our bodies will speak to us.
23:29
They will tell us like, hey, this is too much.
23:33
You are crossing a boundary, you’re at capacity, things have to shift, things have to change.
23:38
And the more that we tune into how our body is speaking to us or how our internal dialogue is speaking to us, we’ll catch on, but we have to start listening so we can start trusting it and being like, ok, I listen, I did I trust.
23:53
Wow, result, validating.
23:55
OK.
23:55
And then we get this feedback loop of like I’m doing the thing, it’s working.
24:00
I should do this more.
24:01
And it sounds like you’ve implemented that alley like directly into your life continuously.
24:06
As like now you have it as a practice in these new areas of life and the new days and the new years to come that Yeah, absolutely.
24:14
I think, you know, to be transparent, it’s still happening.
24:20
Jake, I’ve been coaching now for four years.
24:23
I have a very successful coaching business.
24:25
I’ve hoped hundreds of women and you and I were talking, I’m now at another kind of catalyst in my life of OK, I want to move.
24:33
I want to take the next step with my business.
24:35
I have no idea what that looks like.
24:36
No clue.
24:37
Right.
24:38
But rather than trying to constantly control it being more open to receding, I think I’ve seen that in the past, all I did was try to hold it so tightly and there’s no room for that to breathe.
24:50
Rather than allowing it to expand, allowing conversations and connections and opportunities to come to you because truly believe like energy attracts, right?
25:01
When we talk about like manifestation, I always joke with people that you can manifest until you’re blue in the face.
25:07
But unless you’re doing actions to allow that manifestation to happen, nothing’s going to change, right?
25:15
And so I look at it as like energy attracts.
25:17
Who are you being in order to get where you want to be?
25:21
Not?
25:21
What are you doing?
25:23
Yeah, so beautifully said, I love that, you know, and one thing I just want to call out too, like we’re just so similar in a lot of ways like, and I love hearing that because I’m also in a transition and a pivot and I’ve shared that with people, I think where you’re coming from is like really being adaptable and flexible to that.
25:39
And I think we get so like, I don’t know what this is going to look like or I’m going to try and control it, whether we’re aware of it or not.
25:46
Like our subconscious is just going to be like, well, you know, this very well, let’s just stay here.
25:52
It’s safe.
25:53
Why not?
25:53
Even if safety is more painful.
25:56
Right.
25:56
That’s where the ego is.
25:57
Like, well, even though this is still hurting you or maybe this is something that doesn’t feel in alignment, but we know it, you know how to show up every day in it.
26:07
So you’re somewhat comfortable and your system’s like, I want to stay, why can’t I stay?
26:12
And you’re like, no, I’m being called to something different and, and that takes so much.
26:18
Yeah, like flexibility, openness and adaptability.
26:21
And so I think that’s so beautiful that you mention that and it’s an ongoing practice.
26:26
Oh, absolutely.
26:27
And I literally say this in my coaching that as humans, the only three things that we look for are love safety and belonging.
26:35
And the hard part is a lot of times we’re finding those in places that we’ve outgrown, right?
26:40
Because our body loves security.
26:43
It loves to feel like, ok, I know what’s going to happen, right?
26:46
We don’t, we don’t love change.
26:48
That’s not how we were built, right?
26:50
We’re fearful of that because it’s unknown.
26:52
And I had a coach say this to me once that the difference, you know, between where you are now and where you want to be is just knowledge.
27:00
We’re scared of it because we don’t know what it is yet.
27:03
But how powerful is that?
27:04
We just don’t know it.
27:06
So that means we can go out and look for it.
27:08
You know, we don’t experience it until we know it.
27:10
So we have to experience it in order to know it.
27:13
And by like Cusco snoring, I’m like, can you hear him?
27:16
I can’t, but I put honey in her bed too.
27:19
Oh I’m like, dude, wake up just kidding.
27:22
It’s fine.
27:24
But yeah, we don’t know until we experience it.
27:26
I think that’s the most beautiful thing.
27:27
And so I really do wanna get back a little bit to like body image and feeling confident just a little bit as to like, you know, if there is someone out there that’s listening to like, well, I don’t feel comfortable in my body.
27:39
I don’t feel confident.
27:40
I feel like I’m gonna be insecure for the rest of my life.
27:43
I don’t know if this can change.
27:45
I don’t know even know how to change.
27:46
It even looks like to start.
27:48
Where can someone start?
27:50
Oh, a big question with so many different answers.
27:54
I think honestly the first place to start is being honest with yourself around.
27:59
Why do you feel this way in your body?
28:02
Right?
28:02
For, for me, I was always questioning that of saying, well, I feel disconnected to my body because I’m heavier because I’m not this size because I’m not this weight and I always blamed it on my outward appearance.
28:16
But to what you and I have been talking about is it’s taking a step deeper and saying, hey, but why, why do you feel disconnected in your body?
28:25
Who or what experience taught you that?
28:28
What about that?
28:29
Makes you feel unsafe or unloved or unworthy?
28:33
Right?
28:33
Because it’s rarely a topic.
28:35
Ok.
28:36
I, I want to be in a smaller body.
28:37
It’s usually the why?
28:38
Under the why?
28:39
Well, I watched my mom struggle with her body and her appearance, her whole life.
28:45
I watched my parents get divorced and I was, you know, going through this at a young age, it’s, I had a boy break up with me because I didn’t look like the girl in the magazine, right?
28:57
It’s always a reason or an experience or a person.
29:01
And it could just be society’s expectations too that you’ve been through.
29:05
But I think the first step is really articulating.
29:08
Like, why do I feel this way?
29:09
Who, what experience taught me this?
29:12
Because once we can establish that we can recognize that it wasn’t us in the first place.
29:18
It wasn’t our thoughts, it wasn’t our feelings.
29:20
We were not born feeling this way about ourselves.
29:24
One of my favorite things.
29:25
And it’s just like a little fun fact that I ask people is there are two things that we are born being fearful of.
29:32
Ok, only two things.
29:34
And when I asked that most people say being alone or not being loved or, you know, being hurt in some way and the two things that we’re born being fearful of are falling and loud noises, that’s it.
29:48
Everything else is a learned experience.
29:51
So if it’s been earned, you can unlearn it drop.
29:56
Let me just walk away from that for a second.
29:58
But truly, I think, you know, we always want to start with the action and the result.
30:02
But the biggest piece of advice that I ever took from my own journey and what I teach all my clients to do is we have to do the mental and emotional first.
30:11
Your thoughts and your feelings drastically make a bigger impact on your results than any action ever could.
30:17
100% totally.
30:19
I really love that.
30:19
You said that I think it’s so beautiful and so powerful to recognize that nothing that we are scared of today was something that we were born with.
30:27
Everything was learned and it’s so powerful to say like everything that we’ve learned is also ability, you can unlearn it, you can go through the undoing, you can go through the the shedding of the layers, which is so beautiful.
30:39
And so how does someone go from that to like actually what is, I guess what does it feel like to be like really confident in your body?
30:49
Like really expressive in your body and not just like in your like, I think I’m using the word body, but I almost just want to be like your essence, right?
30:57
Because I like your soul.
30:59
Like, how do you, I think you do this very well just as a human being.
31:03
And I think you really embody this in general and I think, you know, the body image is a thing for sure.
31:09
And you feel a relationship with your body.
31:11
But I’d love to hear your perspective on how do you step into that really confident, expressive boldness that comes from your essence, from your soul, from just who you be not what you look like, I guess.
31:25
Yeah.
31:25
No, that totally makes sense.
31:27
I think we use body or body image almost as like a wall or a construct if you will because it’s something that we can tangibly see so we can change it, we can manipulate it, right?
31:38
Versus your soul, your essence like your spirit, right?
31:42
I always kind of say like my energy that is where confidence truly lies.
31:48
Like confidence cannot be bought, borrowed or stolen.
31:51
You can’t take it from someone else.
31:53
You can’t copy what someone else looks like or what they wear or how they act.
31:58
And magically become confident.
32:00
Confidence is when you are being authentically you, right?
32:03
It’s when your worthiness comes from who you are rather than what you do or what you look like.
32:08
So I think in order to ask the question of like how to get that right?
32:12
There’s so many different ways and so many different steps.
32:15
But I think the biggest piece there is asking, OK, how do I respect myself so that I am capable of being the most authentic version of me?
32:24
Right?
32:24
And for a lot of us, we’re not realizing that most of the actions we’re taking on a daily basis are actually disrespectful to who we are, right?
32:33
So when we say yes, but we really want to say no, but we’re not sure how to put up boundaries, right?
32:38
When we pour into others and don’t make time to pour into ourselves, or we put our own needs on the back burner because we believe they’re not worthy enough or, or a burden if we ask someone to take care of our needs.
32:52
You know, I think a big piece is like self sabotage.
32:54
We love to say, ok, well, I have this to do list first and then I have to do this for everyone else.
33:01
Right?
33:02
Again, we’re ignoring ourselves.
33:04
And I love to use the analogy of like if you’re reading a story, right?
33:08
And you’re the main character, ok?
33:09
You have all these supplemental characters that are gonna come in throughout the course of your life, you’re going to have the best friend and maybe the spouse and like the weird person down the street that bothers you when you order coffee.
33:21
I don’t know.
33:22
Right.
33:22
You’re gonna have all these supplemental characters.
33:24
But if one leaves the story, if you’re no longer friends with them, if someone passes away, the story continues.
33:32
But if the main character, if you do not show up in the story, it doesn’t exist.
33:37
Right?
33:38
And so it is, it’s truly looking at your life and saying, ok, in what areas am I maybe not showing up as myself or I don’t feel connected to who I am or what I’m doing in that space.
33:50
OK.
33:51
Well, then we maybe need to look at, is it the environment?
33:54
Is it the people?
33:55
Is it the the action?
33:56
Let’s investigate a little bit.
33:58
What about that?
33:59
Do you not feel authentic in?
34:01
And I think sometimes the bigger question for women is, you know, I don’t, I don’t even know who I am.
34:06
I don’t know the authentic part of me in order to be confident.
34:09
I don’t even know who that is.
34:11
Ok.
34:11
I would say the first step is talking to someone because for so many of us, we’ve been taught in order to be a strong woman, we have to do it on our own.
34:20
We’re not supposed to be emotional, we’re not supposed to be expressive, we’re not supposed to be indecisive, right?
34:27
Because then you’re seen as weak or, you know, so many other words that it can use that women have had to challenge forever.
34:35
But I think the biggest piece is have someone else hold space for you.
34:39
That’s the first thing that I did when I finally got to that breaking point.
34:43
I didn’t even, I didn’t even tell my parents, I was struggling before I reached out to someone and said, here you go.
34:48
Here’s all my crap.
34:50
I don’t know who I am or what I want to do or what’s wrong with me.
34:53
But can you tell me?
34:55
But right.
34:57
And, and to your point, it’s the unraveling that gets you to the point where you’re like, holy crap.
35:02
This person existed underneath all of that the whole time.
35:06
I just couldn’t see her.
35:07
Yeah, so well said and so beautiful.
35:10
And I think, yeah, if we just start talking, I think, you know, a lot of parts of ourselves, but you’re kind of talking to, they want to be heard, they want to be seen, they want to be loved.
35:19
And it’s so funny how ironically the world is like, no, you can’t show these parts but the parts within us, they’re like, no, please.
35:26
I’d love to be loved on, I’d love to be seen.
35:28
I’d love to be heard.
35:30
And you just tackle that with just, just step one talking to someone because when you let someone else into your world, those parts are getting the opportunity to just share and be and it’s the journey ends up leading you to that inner respect that you talk to, which is it truly I love that you took that route with sharing this because the confidence does come from an inner respect that you have for yourself.
35:54
And the more that you give these different parts of yourself, the opportunity to share, be be honest, be authentic.
36:01
You are respecting those parts.
36:03
You are loving those parts.
36:05
You are saying, hey, you are more than welcome to be in the room with me.
36:09
Come on in and be a part of me because then all of that comes through your confidence, all of that comes to your expression, all of that comes through your embodiment.
36:18
All of that comes to your essence.
36:20
It’s the shunning of the parts that are like, that’s what keeps us insecure or scared or shy or small.
36:29
This is, I don’t really think there’s, you can choose if you want to be small or big whatever your authentic essence is.
36:35
But by giving those parts of you’re giving yourself a chance to choose that love what you just said of, of shunning the pieces of you that you don’t want other people to see.
36:45
And we see that so much more even now it’s so much more prevalent because of social media because we only see the high, the highlight reels, we only or show what we want people to see and the vulnerability, the dark parts of us, the messy parts we hide in this back closet and we think it’s never going to open again.
37:07
But we keep stacking it so full that, that door is going to fling wide open and all that crap is going to come out and you’re going to wonder what the hell do I do with it now?
37:17
Right.
37:17
Yeah.
37:17
You know what I think is so funny.
37:19
I’ve told Nick this a million times.
37:21
I was like, we’re all trying to connect and we talk about all these surface level things all trying to resonate.
37:28
And the number one thing that we all as human beings have in common are these insecurities.
37:34
Are these things that we’re hiding?
37:36
Like are these parts of ourselves?
37:38
And it’s the last thing that we feel safe enough to bring up in conversation.
37:42
I’m like, what, please tell me how the world was turned upside down and been like, OK, so there’s one thing that we all have in common that we truly all navigate fear and security, lack of confidence.
37:57
All these things that are coming up is the last thing that we share with someone and it is the most common thing that we have worldwide.
38:04
And I wonder even will ask you this question, why do you think we do that?
38:09
Do you think it comes from pride?
38:10
Do you think it comes from, it’s what’s normalized or that people don’t want to be a burden?
38:15
Like, why do you think we do that?
38:17
I think, well, I think biologically we are all like, there’s definitely parts within us that want to keep us safe and protected and that is just such a scary thing.
38:24
But even societally, right?
38:26
As a culture, as community, we want to be included, right?
38:30
We want to be like, oh I want to be like you, we automatically start to shift and change because we’re like, I want to be accepted in community.
38:38
And I think because of a lot of our community and our culture is like social media, any culture you dive into anything, you know, there’s something that looks accepted and then our internal sides are like that’s accepted.
38:51
So I’m just going to do that.
38:52
No one’s talking about this over here.
38:53
So I’m not going to bring it up.
38:55
So I think there’s just multiple different angles.
38:57
There’s our own internal dialogue of like I want to stay safe biologically speaking, we have this part of us that want to keep, that wants to protective.
39:05
It’s also the same part of us that keeps us out of harm.
39:09
I just don’t know, we know how to leverage it, right?
39:10
So that keeps us out of harm.
39:11
So like what keeps us from running in front of a car?
39:14
What keeps us aware when you’re running down a black alley?
39:17
And you’re like, this is really dark and scary.
39:19
I should be on alert that the primal part of us is being used as in any other ways.
39:25
And I think to the talking of someone to like being aware of someone of our things and doing the unraveling.
39:32
We get to choose when we want that protection to be there, right?
39:36
When we want to listen to the parts of us and be like, ok, I need to be on alert right now.
39:41
I need to be aware of like I don’t feel safe and I need to listen to that, but I don’t think we know the spectrum or I don’t want to say battery life or like what that actually looks like in our day to day lives because we overuse that internal skill in ways that are keeping us back.
39:58
I hope that answers your question and I sure you believe the same exact thing.
40:02
But I think we just have, we have to learn those things so we can choose something different.
40:06
Yeah, I completely agree and not to go down a completely different path.
40:10
But no, let’s go for it where you want to go.
40:13
It literally makes me think of even just the outside of the body image conversation, the confidence conversation.
40:19
I always tell women that that drips into the rest of our lives, right?
40:23
Our confidence in work, our confidence in dating and relationships.
40:28
And I think what you said holds so much truth to that as well of we’ve almost biologically created these defense mechanisms because we want to be accepted, right?
40:37
The love, the safety of belonging.
40:39
And so I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I even think that’s transitioned, our relationships where we are less likely to let people in.
40:48
We do hold up such higher walls to the point where we don’t understand.
40:53
How do I let someone in?
40:54
How am I vulnerable?
40:55
How do I do this and potentially get hurt?
40:58
But you always get the greater reward in the end.
41:01
And I think I see that even more and more in my clients right now.
41:04
120%.
41:05
I mean, this is a lot of what we talk about on the podcast.
41:07
I’m so glad you’re bringing it up because I think one, it’s interesting, vulnerability is a catalyst of connection.
41:13
Renee Brown literally says that vulnerability is everything, it is everything, but you’re so right.
41:21
We almost are like we want literally brings us closer in relationships.
41:25
It creates the kind of like soul fire relationships that we’re all craving, but we’re so scared and I think that ends up taking there’s so much there one is like you learning to be responsible for your own feelings and other people are being responsible for themselves.
41:40
This is why it’s so beautiful for both people in relationship to do the work.
41:44
Because when you start to realize like I’m holding my back myself back because of a past experience that I experience and I’m not opening up oh, vulnerably.
41:54
And so I’m not even giving you the opportunity to hold me to see me to love me.
41:58
And I’m taking that away from you.
42:00
But all I want is for you to love me, see me.
42:02
Do you get it?
42:03
And so I think that a way to do that is truly through communication, like feeling safe enough to communicate these things.
42:10
But there’s so much skill set that comes into that, that we just haven’t learned.
42:14
But it starts with ourselves, like us becoming safe with the parts of ourselves.
42:18
So then we can let someone in and then knowingly if we let someone in and it’s not received, well, it doesn’t mean anything about you.
42:25
It doesn’t change your experience.
42:27
It does not affect your worthiness.
42:29
It does not say that you are not lovable.
42:31
It shows that maybe that person doesn’t have the skills to support you in that way or maybe they just haven’t loved any.
42:38
They just know how to respond to that and you cannot control or change that about them.
42:42
But we can’t keep ourselves from sharing.
42:45
We can’t keep ourselves from putting up a wall because if we do, then we’re never going to receive the thing that we want so badly and what we’re all meant to receive, right?
42:54
Deep, deep connection.
42:56
I love that.
42:56
And I think that can be said just about so many, so many other aspects of our lives 100%.
43:02
And I see that, you know, to bring it back to food and body image and the coaching that I do.
43:08
I see that in even just the control mechanisms that we have, right?
43:12
We put up walls with our relationships because we don’t want to be vulnerable.
43:15
We don’t want to show, hey, I am, I’m struggling in this way.
43:19
I need, it’s so hard for us to ask for help, right?
43:23
We even do that with, you know, I look at like food and dieting for instance, we say, ok, well, I’m going to restrict this because it’s control when in reality, what we want comes from fueling our bodies and from treating them with respect and yet we are doing the exact opposite expecting that result.
43:39
Yeah.
43:39
Something that I just thought about when you said that was like, the restriction is such rigid that at least we feel like, oh, I have these two lanes that I can follow like this feels safe.
43:50
I know what direction I’m going in.
43:52
I’m supposed to eat this way.
43:53
I’m supposed to count this many calories, whatever we want to do.
43:56
This is what this looked like and like what intuitive eating has taught me and what you’re talking to.
44:01
It’s a lot more gray.
44:03
There’s no definite like, hey, you’re supposed to eat like this or this is what the lanes look like.
44:09
And I think we, so as human beings love to hold on to that control of clarity, that control of direction of like this is what it’s supposed to look like.
44:18
But we lack the intuitive sense and the ability to be fluid to be dynamic to be like, I feel like I’m on a burger today or, you know, I’m really craving meat today or I know I need some greens and like allowing us to choose those thoughts versus letting the standards, not the rules around eating, right?
44:38
That we all subconsciously construct and so on.
44:41
So it’s so interesting to hear you say that because it’s so true, like in the rigidity in the control that is like, oh, I know where I’m going.
44:50
What we’re asking people to do is to be like a little bit more go where we’re going, right.
44:56
That’s the other thing is like there’s so much assumption and that we know, but do we, I and I think it all ties back to that authenticity piece, right?
45:06
We, we love to, it would be wonderful if we had our entire life planned out and we could see every single step and we knew exactly what was going to happen with every single choice and you never had to question what was going to happen next or what scary thing might be around the next corner, right?
45:23
And so as humans, it’s human nature to hold tightly to control, to like you’re saying, the rigidity gives us almost that false sense of security rather than recognizing that, that security, that control might be the exact thing that’s keeping us from a life of confidence, of freedom of this just energetic vibrancy, right?
45:45
And I love that, you know, tying all the way back to what we were saying at the beginning, you said like that’s, that’s just the energy that I bring out when I talk.
45:53
That’s how I feel.
45:54
And I think the more you lean into it, you more you lean into the gray space, you start to ask the question, why and how a lot more than what you start to ask, ask those questions.
46:07
And you become more intuitive to where the control or where those walls in your life are showing up.
46:14
Yeah, but they still show up.
46:15
They definitely do, but you’re more aware of them and now you have the tools to move past them and to the authenticity before we like wrap up here, it’s like what it is for you, right?
46:27
Because what it is for me is so different than what it is for you, which not trying to make this more complicated, but it really comes down to like you cracking your own code on like what that y looks like?
46:38
How is my wall showing up?
46:40
Where does this look like in my life?
46:42
And because when you crack your own code, then you’re, you’re good, you’re good.
46:47
Doesn’t matter how someone else is doing it.
46:49
Like as long as they’re doing it in the way that supports them and they’ve cracked their own code.
46:53
I think a lot of what we’re talking about here too is like you feeling empowered be like, OK, what does this, how does is apply to me?
47:02
What does my wife look like to me?
47:04
Where is this pattern coming from in my life?
47:07
To me?
47:08
Not what it looks like to all these other people on social media, CNN or like the people down the street.
47:16
Because to be honest, I think we’re all here in our world to go figure that out.
47:19
Like what is my own?
47:21
How do I crack my own code?
47:22
What is my own evolution look like?
47:24
What does my journey look like?
47:26
What if I want to make a right instead of a left?
47:28
Like you can, you don’t have to choose one or the other.
47:31
You’re not stuck in the narrative that someone wrote for you.
47:37
I mean, that’s a, that’s a topic for a different day of generational trauma.
47:41
And you know, we’ll go down that route soon, I think to wrap up into your point, it’s, we all have had different experiences that have created who we are.
47:51
But your past does not define who you become jumping in here to remind you that we do have an online virtual community called the fully expressed Community for women.
48:02
If you are craving to have these conversations to see, talk more about in detail, what it actually means to live a life fully expressed, to have access to other women that are also wanting to optimize our life, wanting to be regulated and wanting to fully express themselves in their relationships and their business and just in life and attract those kinds of opportunities.
48:26
I want to invite you into the fully expressed community where we meet every second Wednesday of every single month, we’re only $27 a month.
48:35
So go check it out, send me ad m if you’re interested and I’ll get you right in there.
48:41
I love that.
48:42
So I’m going to ask you one question or maybe two.
48:46
But, you know, as you’re on this path of like, really leaning into like you’re on evolution, like being open to like what your next pivot is, what your career is, you know, really, really unlocking your fullest expression in your life and in your business.
48:58
Where do you feel called to go in this next step of life?
49:03
That’s such a good question.
49:05
I really, it’s interesting.
49:07
I felt like 2023 was very much a year of growth and self discovery and hardship for myself, but for a lot of people and I feel like this new year just has so much like opportunity and I feel so hopeful and optimistic for it.
49:24
But where I see it taking me is so much bigger picture.
49:28
I don’t have any of the fine tuned steps and I think that’s the beauty of it.
49:31
I, I see myself speaking to women on a larger platform, whatever that might be, whether that’s in person or podcasting or, you know, connecting at events, but actually getting to be face to face with people again in that kind of connection.
49:47
I think a lot of it for me, my own personal journey, the self growth is going to be still challenging the shoulds.
49:55
I turned 30 this year.
49:56
I’m from the Midwest.
49:58
Right.
49:58
The shoulds are, I should be married with kids and have a home and be settled down.
50:03
And so much of my spirit is telling me, go, go and see the world, go and explore, go and connect, get out of your comfort zone.
50:12
And I have no idea what that looks like.
50:14
But I think that’s really exciting.
50:15
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely beautiful and I love that.
50:18
It’s almost like 2023 years of the year of like, ok, I know you’re growing a lot, like 2024 is like, well, let me show you why.
50:25
Yeah.
50:26
And I really do think you’re an amazing speaker.
50:29
Like it was so beautiful.
50:30
Thank you so much for coming out of the podcast.
50:32
And I’m so excited for you to like, get on those stages, you know, find the right stages, find the right rooms where you feel like you’re seen and heard as well and connected and so so beautiful.
50:42
So, thank you so much for coming on and bless you all ask or share.
50:45
Can you share with everyone?
50:46
How can someone find you?
50:48
How can someone connect?
50:49
You kind of just follow along with your journey or if someone wants to hire you as a speaker, you know, where can they reach out to you?
50:54
Yeah.
50:54
Come hang out.
50:55
You can find me on all social media at Ask coach Ali just Ali, my website is also ask coachali.com slide in my DM i have never met a stranger.
51:07
I am always open to talking to anyone about anything if you need the support.
51:11
That’s why I’m here.
51:12
I mean, saying, well, thank you so much for being here.
51:15
I love you so much and yeah, I just can’t wait for us to continue to stick along with each other’s journeys and see what’s coming for you.
51:22
Thank you so much for having me.