The Motivate Collective Podcast by Melanie Suzanne Wilson

Keywords

wellness, vision therapy, trauma, self-care, emotional health, holistic healing, mindfulness, intuition, behavioural optometry, personal growth

Summary

In this enlightening conversation, Melanie Suzanne Wilson and Hannah explore the multifaceted world of wellness, focusing on vision therapy, the impact of trauma on our perception, and the importance of self-care. Hannah shares her journey as a vision therapist, emphasising the connection between emotional health and physical well-being. They discuss the significance of intuition in therapy, the challenges of navigating multiple health professionals, and the creation of the Wild Woman Gateway, an online sanctuary for self-discovery. The conversation culminates in key lessons for achieving sustainable success through mindfulness and emotional awareness.

Takeaways

Connection and sharing stories are powerful for healing. Vision therapy encompasses more than just eyesight; it's holistic. Trauma can shrink our emotional and physical periphery. Self-care practices are essential for maintaining balance. Breathwork can help regulate the nervous system. The Wild Woman Gateway offers resources for self-discovery. Emotions need to be felt and released to avoid physical pain. Nutrition and movement are foundational to wellness. Listening to our intuition is crucial in therapy. Sustainable success requires slowing down and self-awareness.

Titles

Exploring Wild Wellness with Hannah The Power of Vision Therapy

Sound bites

"The eyes are talking to the brain." "An emotion lasts for 90 seconds." "The wisdom is already in us."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Wild Wellness 01:30 Understanding Vision Therapy 05:57 The Connection Between Trauma and Vision 12:13 Integrating Intuition with Mainstream Therapy 17:49 Navigating Multiple Health Professionals 22:08 The Wild Woman Gateway: A Sanctuary for Self-Discovery 28:31 Emotional Release and Physical Pain 33:08 The Importance of Self-Care and Nutrition 34:52 Key Lessons for Sustainable Success

— Hannah says: "I am an ACBO Accredited Vision Therapist, Intuitive Wellness Guide, Certified Practitioner & Coach of Neuro Transformation Therapy (NTT), Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), a Human Design Chart Reader and a facilitator of Breathwork for Emotional Release."

"Thank you for a sensational start to my day."

Motivate Collective: https://www.motivatecollective.com

Heidi K. Brown: www.heidikristinbrown.com

Melanie Suzanne Wilson: https://www.melaniesuzannewilson.com

Show Notes

Keywords

Heidi Brown, public speaking, authenticity, imposter syndrome, personal branding, self-care, law professor, introverted lawyer, vulnerability, performance anxiety, self-care, public speaking, anxiety, authenticity, criticism, personal branding, communication skills, fear management, law, education

Summary

In this conversation, Heidi Brown shares her journey from being a lawyer to a law professor, emphasising the importance of authenticity in professional settings. She discusses the challenges of public speaking, particularly for introverts, and how she overcame her own struggles with performance anxiety. Heidi highlights the significance of vulnerability and self-care in public speaking, advocating for a more authentic approach to personal branding. Through her experiences, she encourages others to embrace their true selves and connect with their audiences on a deeper level. In this conversation, Heidi K. Brown and Melanie Suzanne Wilson explore the intricate relationship between self-care, public speaking, and the management of anxiety. They discuss the importance of authenticity in communication, the challenges of facing criticism, and the significance of finding one's audience. The dialogue emphasises the need for personal branding in a world increasingly influenced by AI, advocating for a balance between utilising technology and maintaining one's unique voice.

Takeaways

Heidi Brown transitioned from a lawyer to a law professor.

She emphasises the importance of authenticity in professional settings.

Introverts can leverage their strengths instead of faking extroversion.

Vulnerability in public speaking can create stronger connections with the audience.

Self-care strategies are crucial for effective public speaking.

Heidi's boxing lessons helped her manage performance anxiety.

Overcoming imposter syndrome requires holistic approaches.

Creating a unique public speaking style can enhance audience engagement.

Personal branding should reflect one's true self and values.

Mistakes in public speaking are normal and should be embraced. Self-care is essential for feeling comfortable and professional.

Public speaking training often lacks focus on managing anxiety.

Preparation should include personal rituals to ease nerves.

Understanding fear is crucial for effective public speaking.

Authenticity is key in a world dominated by AI.

Criticism can be reframed as a reflection of the critic's perspective.

It's important to focus on reaching your intended audience.

Not everyone will resonate with your message, and that's okay.

Finding your unique voice is vital in personal branding.

Embrace the learning process from each speaking experience.

Titles

Navigating the Intersection of Self-Care and Professionalism

Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety: Strategies and Insights

Finding Your Rhythm: Preparation Techniques for Public Speaking

Understanding Fear: The Science Behind Public Speaking Anxiety

Authenticity in Communication: The Key to Connection

Sound bites

"I kept listening to all this well-meaning advice"

"Give yourself permission to not fake it"

"It's about overcoming our imposter syndrome"

"I had to completely create a ritual"

"It's okay to stumble over your words"

"There's no real training, except workshops."

"What do I do the 10 seconds before?"

"I used to always over-prepare and practice."

"It's pure science."

"Haters are just confused admirers."

"We don't need everyone to like us."

Chapters

00:00 Heidi Brown's Journey: From Lawyer to Law Professor

02:07 Embracing Authenticity in Tough Industries

05:38 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Faking It

10:02 The Power of Vulnerability in Public Speaking

13:53 Creating a Unique Public Speaking Style

18:05 The Importance of Authenticity in Personal Branding

22:11 Self-Care Strategies for Public Speaking

27:07 The Intersection of Self-Care and Professionalism

28:34 Navigating Public Speaking Anxiety

30:32 Finding Your Own Rhythm in Preparation

33:26 Understanding and Managing Fear

36:13 The Importance of Authenticity in Communication

40:42 Embracing Criticism and Finding Your Audience

52:17 The Power of Connection and Personal Branding

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:01)

We have Heidi Brown for this episode, and this is such a privilege to hear from you today. You have done so much. to understand, would you like to explain what exactly you do and what your journey has been?

Heidi K. Brown (00:17)

Sure. So I started off my adult career, my life career, as a lawyer. And I live in the United States. I grew up in the state of Virginia. So I was a minister's daughter. I lived this really kind of sheltered life. And I went to law school. And so I started off my career as a lawyer. But I really struggled with the performance aspects of being an attorney. ⁓ But I did that for 15 years until I transitioned to becoming

becoming a law professor. And when I started teaching law, I realised that my students were struggling with the same issues that I was about well-being and performance. And I was an introvert all through school and through my litigation career. So I was very out of my depth in terms of being a tough litigator.

But I kept doing it. I kept listening to all this well-meaning advice like, fake it till you make it. But when I saw my students struggling with the same issues, I decided I was going to start writing about these issues. So I wrote a book called The Introverted Lawyer. I wrote one about fear. And I wrote one about flourishing. So now I'm a law professor. But I also write books. I just wrote my very first travel memoir because my whole platform is to kind of help people.

stop feeling like they have to fake it, but again, be their authentic selves and feel empowered and emboldened to do all the things that they really want to do in life. So that's me in a nutshell.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:45)

That's amazing. And people from so many professions can learn from that. I'm so glad we are talking about this. Firstly, I want to start with the industries where people feel the need to toughen up. For those who are trying to do something good within those spaces, what can they do if they don't feel like the tough types?

Heidi K. Brown (02:07)

Oh my gosh. Okay. So that was me entirely. I was actually, when I practised law, I was in the construction industry. So here I was, this quiet, introverted person in this construction industry, representing people fighting all the time. And I did not have that tough exterior. So what I would recommend is give yourself permission to not fake it, not try to fake this tough exterior, but instead really tap into your authentic strengths.

I realised as an introvert, my strength was writing, but I always felt like I had to be able to speak at a moment's notice or argue without any preparation. But then I realized, okay, no, I have to go back and look at what my actual strengths are. And my strengths are being quiet, listening to other people, really paying attention to where the conflict exists. And then...

teaching myself how to step into the performance arena with a little bit more strength. I needed to put myself in boxing lessons to do that because as an introvert and a person who struggled with extreme public speaking anxiety, I didn't know how to control my breathing. And also I have a very robust blushing response. I turn really red when I get nervous around the center of attention. So I decided put myself in boxing lessons, understand somatic intelligence, like how

how our physical bodies drive our performance and our cognition and our emotional intelligence, and just become much more self-aware. So now I have a lot of routines and rituals. So when I need to speak or I need to stand up for someone else or I need to advocate on behalf of the people who can't advocate for themselves, I'm more prepared physically, mentally, and emotionally. So I've done that kind of through learning about myself somatically through the boxing lessons, which is kind of wild.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:59)

the boxing. How did boxing teach you to breathe?

Heidi K. Brown (04:03)

So I realised through all my struggles with public speaking and really the first 15, almost 20 years of my career, I was a lawyer for 15 years full-time before I became a law professor. And every time I would have to step up to the podium or to the microphone, I was nervous, and I had this overwhelming anxiety. And so the boxing, I trained one-on-one with a boxing trainer.

And I wrap my hands and I put on the glove. The gear is the best part. And he notices, he says, you're either over-breathing or holding your breath. There's no middle ground. And so what I've had to do is realise when that's happening. It happens naturally. It's not that I can't prevent that from happening. I can't prevent myself from blushing when I'm on stage or I'm teaching. But I can realise it in the moment and then recalibrate and just take, you

five to 10 seconds to recalibrate myself physically, remind myself of all the mental, the good mental soundtrack. You know, we've done the work, we deserve to be there, let's step into the arena, we know what we're doing, it doesn't have to go perfectly, kind of letting go of that perfectionism mindset and doing the best we can because we care about the message that we're trying to portray.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:21)

I agree with all of that, and even knowing that you can step into the arena, the arena and do people need to really remember that as well that it's, it about overcoming imposter syndrome?

Heidi K. Brown (05:38)

Yes, yes. And also giving ourselves permission to sort of reject all the cliche messages about feeling like an imposter. I mean, as I mentioned, the fake it till you make it mantra. I was told that my entire life. Just fake it, just pretend. But I feel like that made me more of an imposter because I was pretending to be a personality. I'm an introvert. I was pretending to be an extrovert. I'm a person that doesn't like to fight in a mean way, but I was pretending to be

a really tough litigation attorney. And it felt very inauthentic to me. So yes, it's about overcoming our imposter syndrome, but using more kind of holistic and healthy mechanisms for doing that instead of just pretending that we're not afraid. That never worked for me. That works for some people, but it definitely did not work for me. I had to untangle the fear and the imposter syndrome to understand what was driving it at its root so that I could rebuild

kind of the persona that I wanted to project. And that's what I try to help my students. Because like I said, I'm a law professor, so I teach future lawyers, ⁓ but also women and anybody really who is grappling with these types of issues.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:51)

Absolutely. I am relating to what you're saying so much because the fake it till you make it, I think we might come from similar public speaking backgrounds, perhaps. And... Oh, okay.

Heidi K. Brown (07:02)

I did some research to get to understand.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:08)

So that's yes. And so you would know there's a sort of robotic style. Everybody wears the same suit. And I think that all worked for a point in history, but we're now in an era of TED talks and people opening up a little bit more, or even just not having to look so masculine when we're doing our work. And I've had to connect with

very bureaucratic industries like education, health, even just personally. And I hope that you might've seen people from those spaces or any others, where if you are doing that fake it till you make it and doing that style that we're taught, then I'm wondering if it's easier to really connect with the audience and have them receive the message more when there's more authenticity.

Heidi K. Brown (08:03)

I totally agree with that. More authenticity creates connection with the audience. grew up kind of, it sounds similar to you. Like I worked in the legal industry and we were taught this very robotic way of approaching the bench or approaching the podium and what to wear. And you had to not use your hands very much. And you certainly couldn't look too feminine or they wouldn't take you seriously, et cetera. I mean, this was 30 years ago. But what I teach my students now is,

make eye contact, smile, be yourself, speak in your own voice. People can tell when you're faking it, when you're faking a different persona. And I totally agree with you that we should be, we can be professional, but be authentic at the same time. And it might take practice. It took me a long time to be able to, it's ironic, because I wrote this book called The Interverted Lawyer, and then suddenly law firms and bar associations and...

law schools were asking me to come talk about my book. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. But then I realised, oh no, that's how I'm going to reach readers. That's how I'm going to meet the people who need to know they're not alone. And I was scared, and I didn't know how to do it. But I've learned, like your modelling, I learned that being myself, wearing what I wanted to wear, even if it's like wearing

a bracelet with a cool message on it that only I can see. I that made me feel much more authentic when I stepped into that arena and was talking about stuff that I love. Way better than when I used to have to dress up in a suit and have my hair a certain length and wear pantyhose and high heels, like, ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:46)

Totally, totally, we don't need to have heels on just to be heard. Why should we?

Heidi K. Brown (09:51)

We do not.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:54)

No, we do not. Was the book, was the book, the point in life that led you to Raphania speaking?

Heidi K. Brown (10:02)

100%. I mean, even when I started teaching law, felt like if I made one mistake, my students would think I was a fraud and they would want their tuition dollars back. But when I started talking about the book and going out there, and really, because my books are very vulnerable. I share a lot of personal struggles with the anxiety, with public speaking, with fear. ⁓ I went through a lot of relationship trauma that I talk about very openly in my law books and also a recent travel memoir.

had just launched like two months ago, which is incredibly vulnerable. But when I started talking about my books, and I would see people nodding, I realised, oh, wait, no, they want to hear from the real me, not the fake me that pretends like she has it all together. And then that changed the way I teach law, too, because I realised if my students ask me a really difficult question about the law or some complicated societal issue,

I stopped trying to fake my way through the answer. Instead, I said, I don't know. I have to think about that. Or let's research that together. And that vulnerability made me closer to my students. And then that experience made me double down on that when I would do public speaking with strangers. So it's all this learning that we really do need to be ourselves in a professional way, of course, but authentic.

vulnerable to the degree that it's relevant to what we're talking about, admit mistakes, admit fear. It's just changed, completely changed the way I approach public speaking entirely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:39)

Interesting. Did you pretty much create entirely your own style and formula, perhaps beyond just completely separate from what you learned before?

Heidi K. Brown (11:48)

Yes, yes. I have a, first of all, I had to completely create a ritual or a set of rituals that I do before every single public speaking, because I still get nervous sometimes. And I also can't control whether I'm going to turn red. So I read this great book by a woman named Erica Hilliard, and it's called Living with Shyness and Social Anxiety. And she said that a blush is life coursing through you. So when I used to get really stressed about the fact that I was turning red on stage, now,

I'm like, ⁓ I'm alive, yay me. And then I just keep going. But before I get on the stage, I do a series of ritual. I try to exercise in the morning. I don't usually take a boxing lesson or my face will be red for like 12 hours, but I'll exercise. And then I do like a power pose from that great Ted talk by Professor Amy Cuddy. I'll do a power pose, usually minus the starfish pose. And then I play two songs that get me in the zone.

And then when I step into the arena, I keep saying, or step up to the podium or grab the microphone, I always try to, again, recalibrate physically and make sure I'm breathing. And then I connect with one or two people in the audience that are already making eye contact with me or nodding. And I'm like, okay, those are my people. I'm going to speak to them. And I've learned how to be funny and tell.

authentic jokes about myself or my own relationship with the content and that calms me down really quickly and I've gotten much better at using creative slides or prompts on the screen where I don't have to use notes as much anymore. I still have notes because again, I'm an introvert so when I get nervous my brain sort of...

goes internal again, and I need to be able to be external. So it's a lot of these tricks, not really tricks, but just habits and positive habits and routines that I've taught myself to be able to deliver content in a fun, uplifting way.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:53)

Do you find that people are going to remember all sorts of information, even the very technical, legal ideas, when you are making it a bit more fun?

Heidi K. Brown (14:03)

my gosh, yes, it has to be fun. I my classes, I think my students think I'm a little wacky at times because I'm constantly talking about like U2 concerts and Oasis, like I just saw Oasis in Dublin and I'm like, somehow I weaved that into the conversation.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:20)

I'm dying

to know, I'm so keen, how did you weave it in?

Heidi K. Brown (14:23)

Well, I said ⁓ we were actually, so I teach legal writing and legal communication, and I am teaching this really fun, I think it's fun, new class about how to be ethical and responsible legal writers, but also understand generative AI, right? So my students need to know how to write, but they also are gonna be expected to deal with these tools in.

in the legal profession when they graduate. So I'm trying to blend the two, but in an ethical, responsible, and fun way. So we wanted to test out this technique of prompting an AI tool to create a debate among three individuals. And I asked my students to give me a topic for the debate. it's only the second day of class. We just started a new academic year. And they're all nervous. They don't know me yet.

And they think that I want them to say something fancy and sophisticated about the law. But I'm like, okay, well, if you're not gonna give me a topic, the topic's gonna be who's the best rock band in the world? And so then I said, you need to give me the three names of the three people that are gonna debate this issue. And again, they were kind of reluctant. But then one of them said, okay, Liam Gallagher. Because I said I had just gone to the Oasis concert in Dublin. And so one of the students said, okay, Liam Gallagher can be one of the.

the debaters. And so then I just used the music as a ⁓ vehicle to get them using this tool in a non-legal way, or ⁓ not an illegal way, but a non-law related way. So then we could do the same task in a more complex, lawyerly way. So I think infusing fun into anything kind of breaks the ice and gets people realising, okay, we're just people, we all have different interests.

Let's use our interests to connect, and then we can level up to the more sophisticated intellectual topics.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:21)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm hoping you might have seen how powerful that is when you're talking to your other audiences for your books and so on, because I find that when people remember that we are all human beings, it takes the pressure off. Have you seen that?

Heidi K. Brown (16:37)

have absolutely, and especially when I mentioned the blushing, it's really funny because, you know, I, when I now when I do a lot of public speaking, people know me from my books or other, other professional roles that I've had. And then I walk in, they expect me to just be kind of buttoned up and, and serious and talk about, you know, well-being in the legal profession or these these big topics or generative AI or whatever I'm being asked to talk about. And then I get up there, and I, and I

make a joke about blushing or I'll put up. Sometimes lately I've been when I'm talking about my travel book, I've shown a picture of myself from 30 from 25 years ago when I look miserable in my law firm office. And it's a really unflattering photo of me. But it's so hilarious because it sums up my life at the age of 31 compare. And then I flash a photo of me on a trip at a rock concert.

because I keep using that in my speeches lately. And the contrast, like it's very vulnerable because one of the photos is very unflattering, but it's also kind of jarring and interesting and funny. And it kind of snaps people off. know, some people are playing around on their phone. Suddenly, they're paying attention to me. So using humor, using visuals, not being afraid to make fun of yourself. I mean, that's been huge for me, honestly.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:05)

feel so comforted by what you are saying. And I normally hope that if something resonates with me, it will resonate with the audiences that picture you had of being miserable in your legal office. I can tell you, even about a year ago, I was putting on the jacket and putting on the whole, you know, the routine and someone took a photo of me with all the best intentions and

Heidi K. Brown (18:08)

you

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:34)

I think I looked like a flight attendant.

I did not look like me. It was like a cross between that and some sort of doll. I looked so plastic. It's not, it doesn't feel as real and it can end up not even looking like you. So do you feel like you are more of yourself now?

Heidi K. Brown (18:55)

Yes, a million times over. I mean, it's so funny because people expect even my headshots to be very lawyerly. And at my law school, where I teach, they brought in a photographer to do head shots. I was like, I am not using any of those because I have the same experience. While I think many flight attendants look incredibly sophisticated and gorgeous and glamorous, the

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:17)

All day off.

Heidi K. Brown (19:17)

The picture of me, like, that the law school photographer, he's a nice guy to his credit, but my gosh, I would never use those for my picture. I have a whole bunch of kind of funny and fun headshots that look professional, but that capture really the essence of me so much more. I mean, I'm either, you know, moving around or I'm laughing or I'm, you know, standing in a power pose that doesn't look corporate.

So I think even exploring the way we project ourselves through images is not in a fake way, not like the Instagram curated way, which of course we all want to look our best. But even the way we present ourselves professionally in our headshots and things can be more fun and interesting, rather than the typical cross our arms and look super serious.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:13)

Absolutely.

It feels like part of what you do is more than teaching public speaking and law, but you're teaching personal branding essentially.

Heidi K. Brown (20:23)

Yes, yes. I've had to learn that for myself on my own. I I've done when I when I wrote my introversion book, I had I have a publisher, but I realized, you I love my publisher, but they don't do a ton of promotion for my book. So I had to learn without any training how to brand myself. And and really every morning I do this ritual. Have you read the book ⁓ The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron? She advocates

that if you want to kind of tap into your creative soul, you do three pages of longhand journaling in the morning. And if three pages sounds like a lot, just buy the tiniest journal you can find. But every morning I think about my brand. Like, am I doing for my brand? I do other things in the journaling too, but I always get to, okay, what am I doing for my brand today? Like, what do want my brand to accomplish? What do I want it to mean? And it's been fun to decide what I want.

my brand to be? What are my personal values? Who do I want to reach? Who do I want to help? How do I want to appear? And it might be different for the different platforms we're all on. LinkedIn is more my law-focused world, but I'm still funny over there. Instagram is more of my travel world, but I still post about my law stuff there too. it's deciding.

who we want to reach and how we want to reach them, but being authentic and not having to worry about someone seeing us being silly and chipping away at our brand. mean, me, silliness is part of my brand, and not in a goofy way, but in a smart way, I think.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:11)

It's in a relaxed way. It means that you're going to be less nervous and less tense if you are just loosening up with bit of silliness.

Heidi K. Brown (22:21)

I agree and it makes it okay to make a mistake. all through lawyering my life as a lawyer, I felt like you made one mistake and everybody was just ready to tear you down. But what I wish I had known then and what I tell my students now is it's okay to stumble over your words in a presentation because that's real life and that's normal. Obviously, we wanna try to speak as eloquently as we can, but don't let the whole thing derail if you make one mistake, it's okay.

Sometimes I'll even joke, I misspoke a minute ago. I meant to say blah, blah. And here's why my brain leapt to that other issue. So being more authentic, giving ourselves grace when we make mistakes, it doesn't have to go perfectly. My gosh, another thing I'm sure you've dealt with is tech problems. I used to stress so much about the tech and I realised it's beyond my control a lot of the times.

So I can prepare as well as I can. I can be all ready and set to go. And now I've had to train myself to roll with tech glitches more. And even showing that you're able to do that, your audience loves that because they've been in that situation. So if you don't freak out about a tech glitch, your audience is going to give you grace when it takes an extra four minutes for the microphone to work or something like that. I've had to learn that the hard way.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:48)

Yes, audiences know that tech will do what it does. They know that. Everybody has been in that situation, whether it's on stage or somewhere else at a desk, wherever something marks up eventually.

Heidi K. Brown (23:53)

Yes.

Definitely. You just made me think of, so I had to do it. I got invited to do a talk for a bar association in the state of Utah, which, so I flew there. I was really excited. I was so prepared. I did all my rituals, and then I got to the stage, and I couldn't breathe. And I was like, wait, I gotta do my boxing, know, breathing. But I felt like I was having a heart attack, and then somebody, but it didn't feel like my normal nerves.

And then somebody before I was about to go on said, how are doing with the altitude here? And I didn't realise for some reason that Salt Lake City was at altitude. So I was having altitude issues. So I'm about to go on stage and I realised, my gosh, what if I have faint? So I just gently pulled a chair up behind me just to make sure that if I felt like I needed to sit, I could. And then somehow I just powered up and it went fine.

But even, again, having backup plans and having backup plans to backup plans, and when you're starting out in public speaking and then realising you're OK. You've gotten through a situation like that before. You're going to get through the next situation because you've built this track record of success ⁓ of it maybe not going perfectly, but still people told you that they were really happy to hear what you had to say or that what you said really meant a lot to them or that they felt heard.

or seeing. To me, that's what feels like a success.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:35)

Yes, there's so much self care in that. And I've seen that you're talking about this self-care of public speaking so much more than what we would have heard about decades ago, probably because that topic comes up in society in general more now. But I think this is crucial because to be real with you, I don't remember when I was really young, hearing that much about how to look after yourself when you're about to talk to a group.

And that's what everybody wants to know about. It doesn't matter if it's a director of an entity. It doesn't matter if it's the, the assistant that's trying to fill everybody in on someone in a little meeting or someone who's doing a keynote, whoever it is. Normally it's starting off with things like the breast, but the other self care I'm learning so much from your tricks, like get a chair and don't be shy about doing that. And it's just so true.

My number one fear is actually just tripping over equipment.

Heidi K. Brown (26:39)

Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's something that we I love that you're tying this to self care because I really haven't framed it that way for myself. But you're so right. Like even what I wear. I do sometimes wear the heels, but the heel has to be something that I'm like, okay, I got to be able to step over those wires or I don't want to wobble when I'm going up three steps onto a platform. For instance, ⁓ you know, I want to wear something

Even talking about clothes makes it sound superficial, but it's not because for me, the self-care is I don't want to get too hot, but I want to look professional. What can I wear that's going to make me... Because I run hot and I sweat and I'm turning red all the time. I'm like, okay, my outfit has to be designed to make me feel comfortable and look professional at the same time. Even that's self-care. To your point about how years ago, nobody would talk about this, still, I feel like

in the law school arena, students in America have to give an oral argument in their first year. And there's all this pressure to do it. You can't really opt out. But there's no real training. There's substantive training on how to organize your argument points. There is no training, except workshops that I've tried to start, about how to hold yourself, how to handle it.

If you have, like if your hands shake, what do you do with your hands? If your knees feel weak, what do you do? If you, like me, have blushing thing or if your mouth goes dry, there's no training around that. And that to me, my students who have all the intellectual stuff nailed down, like they have a great argument, they need help with how do I stand there and not shake? How do I?

What do I do the 10 seconds before? What do I do the 30 minutes before? What do I do the morning of? I used to always over prepare and practice, practice. I now have a ritual where the night before after 5 PM, I don't think about it again. And I might check my notes the next day, but there is no practicing. There's no reciting in front of a mirror. In law, they say, well, want us to moot your performance? Nope. I don't want anybody. Nope. Stay away from me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:02)

I'm so glad I

found you. This is totally speaking my language. And I think although we probably both learned a whole lot of talking on the spot, to pick my words carefully, there is an expectation for a longer talk in any context, in any group, to have it really practiced and precise. But once you get in front of the people, you know what you're talking about. You know...

You're a specialty and your expertise and you don't need to stress yourself out that much.

Heidi K. Brown (29:39)

Now, that's another thing I think I needed to learn and what everybody sort of needs to learn is what can you walk into that experience with that will help you retrieve that information quickly? So I used to write everything out, like have everything out, even when I was teaching every single word. And obviously that doesn't work in the moment because you can't, what if you lose your spot, right? So now I'll have...

I usually do have some sort of visual cues, but then I'll have a notepad that if I get nervous, I'll have like giant bullet points of the things that the kind of the anchors that I want to come back to if I if someone interrupts me or I get a little bit derailed by a noise or something like that. Like I'll just bring myself back. But that takes practice to.

⁓ But yeah, just learning what individually we all need to stay in the moment and keep doing our thing. And it takes practice and kind of adjusting your tools as you go to figure it out.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:47)

can sense that you are a little bit of a free spirit like I am. So I think we are blessed to some extent because sometimes the mind just flows. And when you said that you put just a few dot points on a page, it was just totally aligning with what I understand as well, because I just put maybe three words with a pen on a simple page.

What would you suggest to people who are starting at the other extreme and need to relax a bit? Maybe they write five drafts and highlight things and refine it. What do you say to those people to just chill?

Heidi K. Brown (31:31)

Yes, I I used to do all that too. I used to write five drafts, I would rewrite. Sometimes if I'm talking about a new topic, I will still do that in my prep. So I'll write everything out and then...

One thing that stresses me out is time limits, because I'm just such a rule follower that if someone's like, you have 12.2 minutes, I'm like, I got to make sure. So sometimes in the prep, I'll still do a couple iterations of things. But again, all as part of my leading up to the day of, the more we can get away from relinquish control over the content at that point and just pare it down.

Because by that point, you do know it. If you've done the longer draft and then paired that down to a shorter draft, they say if you're handwriting that stuff to, it implants the ideas in your brain much deeper than if you're typing it. So I've found that I'm able to retrieve that information if I have done the prep work of writing everything out, then rewriting it as a bullet point. Eventually, I'll type it up, obviously, and print it out. So I would say for people who are newer at this is

Experiment, of course, but when you're getting closer to the day of the performance, really give yourself a cutoff time of prep because you will realize your brain needs time to rest and then start percolating about the information again. And if you're constantly cramming the information into your brain, it's not going to be able to access it that readily in the moment on the day up. So start experimenting with giving yourself a cutoff time and then

adopting rituals the day of and the half an hour before and two minutes before so you're really able to access that information when you're ready for your audience to hear it from you. You've done the work, you know what you're talking about. Let it flow.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:26)

Stay mindful. Apparently the big controversial change that I've been exploring, that's what it is, a controversial change, is to be even considering wellness after having a background with speaking. But that's just bizarre to me because if you're not feeling okay, then how can you give your best performance?

Heidi K. Brown (33:28)

Yes.

I mean, it's pure science. I did a whole study of fear. Because when my introversion book came out, like I said, I was doing some talks. And people would come up to me afterwards and say, I'm not an introvert. I'm an extrovert. But I'm scared. I'm scared to go speak in front of the entire partnership of the law firm, or I'm scared to go to court for the first time. And I had all those fears, too. So when I studied the science of fear, it's literal science that

you know, our brains go into fight, flight, freeze or fawn response, and we are not able to access our cognitive functions as well when we're in fear mode. So we have to do these, we have to set ourselves up from a wellbeing perspective to understand when the fear is starting to kick in. Like I know when I'm, I was nervous coming on with you today, cause you know, yeah. So at the beginning I'm like, my gosh, I don't even know how to give my own bio. But.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:42)

Don't worry about that. can tell you that before every episode, I ask AI to write a two page dot point bio about the guest and I see the main points and I knew about you in five minutes.

Heidi K. Brown (34:50)

Perfect.

Perfect, that's awesome. ⁓ But what I realized is, I was realizing in the moment, okay, this person is cool and nice and we love the same thing. So just relax, it's gonna be fine. And I did the recalibration.

Like you can't see it on the screen, but what I had to do is like put my shoulders back, put both feet on the floor. I'm in my home. this is my favorite place. ⁓ I mean, there's a couple other favorite places in the world, but I'm in my happy place in New York. I'm surrounded by all my favorite things. And I just had to briefly for two seconds recalibrate and then I could function again. So it's very normal that we feel that fight, flight or freeze, but unless we're conscious.

and have trained ourselves how to recalibrate in like a public speaking moment, we're not gonna be able to access all that amazing content. So I think a lot of the pre-training that we can do on ourselves is to understand, when are we feeling that fear kick in? What does it feel like physically? What are we telling ourselves mentally? What emotions are we feeling? And then how we can reset all that very quickly when people are looking at you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:13)

This is such a revelation. I never imagined that you would have felt nervous coming into this. And I applaud your honesty about that. I felt a slight pressure in some way because I was going to talk to a legal expert who has written multiple books and we put people on a pedestal and we can appreciate what people have done. But, you know, for some reason I did.

I don't know why, but I felt the nervousness for this one, just a tiny bit or the awe. I think it was awe. even just recently I had a guest on who has had an Emmy. I can tell you, I've been talking to all sorts of people, but then, so you never know when that nervousness or pedestal will kick in. But I think what you're saying there is so crucial for everybody that even knowing that an expert like you can still feel nervous.

People ask how can I overcome nervousness, overcome anxiety and how often do you hear that or I want you to not feel nervous but it's about doing things anyway even when you do feel scared, think so?

Heidi K. Brown (37:25)

It is. So again, with the messages, so my whole life I was told, just face your fears, just do something every day that scares you. And I'm like, well, I am and nothing's changing. So for me, it wasn't about.

flipping a light switch and suddenly I've overcome my fears. So I decided to change the verb and I made it untangling my fears because that to me gave me, again, permission to be like, okay, hold on a second. I'm not just gonna do something every day that scares me. It's like that, ⁓ is it the Einstein quote? If you keep doing the same thing every day, you do things the same way over and over again without changing anything, that's the definition of insanity. So we have to, we can't just keep forcing ourselves

to do things that are scary and expecting to feel unscared, to me it's about untangling what we're really afraid of. And so when I sat down to do that, when it came to my public speaking, it wasn't really that I was afraid of that particular judge when I was practicing law, or I was afraid of that particular law firm partner. I was afraid of being thought of as less intelligent than they are, or being thought of as unprepared, or

weird because of my blushing thing. And when I peeled that back, I was really afraid of being kicked out of the club or rejected or ⁓ fired from my job. And it really takes us back to almost being a teenager when you're afraid of not being included. So once I realized that, that it really wasn't about the person in front of me or the task in front of me. It was just like this old, outdated fear that

had been reinforced by maybe well-meaning but not so helpful coaches or teachers or even family members to be honest with you because I've dealt with a lot of criticism in my family, cetera. So once I understood where my fear was coming from, that gave me something to work with. But just forcing myself to do scary things. I mean, when I travel, I do scary things all the time on purpose. But it's not.

It's not because I'm just expecting an instant change. It's because I know I'm going to learn something from it. So I'm much more conscious about doing the scary thing. So that's what I would advise people. Of course, we all want to overcome our fears and not feel the anxiety. But as I share with you, I still, even with all this work that I've done, I've written three well-being books. I've written a whole travel memoir about this very topic. I still feel the fear. But instead of

the mantra of feel the fear and do it anyway. I feel the fear and pause for a second. Understand what I'm feeling in my body. Understand that it's an old outdated message about my abilities. Understand that it's old emotions and that now right now today in 2025, life is awesome. Like I can do this. I'm doing this.

And then it is really helpful. again, it doesn't have to go perfectly, but it sets that fear aside. And my body and brain and emotions and heart and soul are able to deliver the content way better than I used to when I was faking it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:42)

Absolutely. Everybody needs to hear this message from you because the personal branding is so crucial in this day and age. And we are living in an era where, and this will tie in with AI, wanted to explore that with you because you have looked at it. In this era where a robot could do all sorts of things, our point of difference is our humanity and our uniqueness. Are you seeing that it's even more important for us to relax, take the pressure off and

Show the world our real selves now.

Heidi K. Brown (41:14)

100%. I mean,

the AI is useful for certain things, but as a writing teacher, I really want my students to develop their own writer identity and their writer voice. And maybe AI can help them do that if they're feeling blocked. Same thing with public speaking. I think if we're feeling afraid of doing a particular performance, there's ways to get the AI to practice with you.

Like, so maybe we use it for good and not as a substitute for our skills and not as a substitute for the thinking that makes us learn, but as a way, you know, in healthy doses to upskill us or to level up the things that we want to be really great at. The humanity piece is just huge, though. I mean, as you said at the beginning, we were trained to be, in certain contexts, to be very robotic and not real and just...

deliver content that maybe really wasn't that exciting. But I have a feeling you and I could take Zemo's boring topic and make it exciting because we care about people and we care about who we're talking to and we care about, all of our time is so precious that if we're given the opportunity to speak in front of somebody for five minutes at a board meeting or a workload meeting or like for me sometimes my talks are like 60 minutes.

I better make it worth it for them. And ⁓ we do that by reaching their brains, reaching their hearts, reaching their emotions, making them feel like, making them feel something. Even if it's something very corporate or work related or law related in my context or whatever, there's ways of making it interesting, fascinating, fun, engaging, emotionally stimulating, et cetera.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:07)

Absolutely. I completely agree with the AI. So you're encouraging people to use their own voice beyond AI. So if people are still wanting to use AI for something because it's here, they are curious about it. Do you see it mainly as a tool for efficiency, kind of like what I did with the research or do you see other uses for it? So you mentioned using it for rehearsing.

Heidi K. Brown (43:35)

Yeah, yeah, I I love writing, so I don't want it to do my writing for me, but I find that it helps me be creative, or it helps me work through, it helps me stay in flow in my writing. So I'll be writing something and then I'll get stuck on a word, or like I'm thinking of a word, but I really want it to be a more dramatic verb, or I want a phrase to be much more.

something hilarious or something more dramatic, cetera. And instead of using a typical thesaurus, I can explain in more words to the AI tool what kind of vibe I'm going for and say, give me 10 alternatives to this. And I can't do that with a regular thesaurus. And I'll reject eight of them. But for me, I feel, and I'm a really creative person. Creativity is one of my signature strengths. If you've ever done the

the Via Character Strengths Assessment, the Values in Action Institute on Character. Creativity is one of my top strengths. But I think that AI can make me more creative sometimes because I have fun with it. And I'll use it to just play and come up with the wackiest ideas. And I'm not afraid to do that in the middle of my classroom when I have literally no idea what these tools are going to generate. That, I think, from the public speaking, is just

I'm confident enough now that I'm able to handle things that don't always go according to plan in the classroom. ⁓ I think I forgot what your actual question was, but it was.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:09)

How do you use AI without

losing your unique creativity?

Heidi K. Brown (45:14)

Yes, I mean, the weird thing about AI, at least the tool that I use, is it mirrors my voice a bit, which can be a little freaky. So sometimes I have to tell it to stop acting like me. ⁓ So I feel like it's, because I'm a sort of queen of the exclamation points when I write, it writes back to me in exclamation points. It jokes around. ⁓

And I like it for that. Like I'm a person who I like feeling uplifted by the tool. I don't feel manipulated by it because I shut it down when I need to do my work. But I do think that people can experiment with their creativity, not as a substitute for us doing the actual writing or music creation or video creation, but as a tool to help us create things we maybe couldn't have done.

before it existed, for instance. I find that it's a lot better at helping me create images for my PowerPoints, for my teaching, and for my presentations too. I mean, it doesn't get it perfectly. Some of the hands in my PowerPoints have way more fingers than a human hand would have. So there's glitches in it. But I have found that I've been able to stay the course and using it for good.

I and I do not feel like it's chipped away at my humanity. Obviously, I've been teaching all the risks and pitfalls and ethical problems around it and environmental issues related to it. So we do need to be mindful users of it. But I think when it comes to this discussion, experiment with it, try it out, see if it can help you. Especially for people who are nervous, like I said, you can... ⁓

I forget the actual tool now, but my students are using it to practice their oral arguments because in oral arguments, the judges interrupt you with questions. So that's how they're using the AI to generate the questions that people could ask that might make us nervous if we're doing a public talk for the first time. I, as an introvert, I don't think great on the spot. So I like to kind of anticipate what the questions might fly at me.

and have some answers. Again, I'm not going to read my answers in the moment, but I think the AI tools could be a good resource for gaming out all types of different questions that could come at a person who's doing a speech for the first time.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:45)

It can help with the prompts. Great idea. I want to flick to a very human question after that very robot based one, because you mentioned how criticism can happen and that you needed to overcome that fear and the, and the feelings around a background of being criticized. And when we do put ourselves out there with a personal brand, with any sort of work,

people will have opinions and we can give our best possible result and anyone will say anything. And it can dig even more deeply if it is friends, family, communities, or even people at work we want to impress. What can you say to the people who are facing criticism and doing their best and wanting to step up and maybe perform better moving forward?

Heidi K. Brown (48:41)

Yeah, that's a great question.

I think it depends on the context, but I'll just kind of use myself as an example here. I write a lot, so the criticism that comes toward me is about stuff that I write. And then in the law school context, the criticism that I got at a prior institution where I worked was anytime I would get up and do a presentation about change.

It was a very change resistant place. I got a lot of criticism and I took it all personally. I thought that I had failed by, and I had to completely change that mentality because I knew I was reaching my audience. I had to finally say those people aren't actually my audience. Like the critics, there's a great quote by Paulo Coelho, the author who says critics or haters are just confused admirers.

I love that. I love that quote. There's more to that quote, but I like that part of it. Haters are just confused admirers. So I had to start telling myself, OK, I've had some loud critics in my day, like in the law firm world, in legal academia, and also with some of my writing. When I first started going out there and writing about well-being and lawyering, I was getting typewritten letters by older people in the profession, mostly men who disagreed with

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:03)

Why?

Heidi K. Brown (50:05)

points I was making or telling me what to write about next. I was like, I'm the writer. I get to decide what I'm going to write about. But instead, I mean, I did take it personally at first, but then I finally started telling myself, I don't think those guys are my audience. they're not, I don't get out of bed in the morning and think, I'm going to write to this grouchy, you know, man in a different state who I don't even know. That's not my audience. My audience, I know my audience.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:31)

Yeah.

Heidi K. Brown (50:34)

It's people who went through similar stuff that I did and feel like they've searched for answers and either those books don't exist or those articles don't exist. Like that's who I'm writing for. I'm writing for like a younger me. ⁓ So when I, first of all, I also try really not to read comments. It's been really hard. So my travel book came out in June.

and it's starting to get reviews on Amazon and it's been good so far, but I'm so scared to look at it. But I realized as a self-care measure, I don't need to look at it. know, again, my book that I'm very proud of, it's called The Map I Draw, it's about like finding ourselves through travel and healing trauma through travel. It's gonna reach the people like me who went through relational trauma and are seeking to connect with somebody who,

survived. so I really don't care that much what somebody who it doesn't doesn't resonate with what they think because I didn't write it for that person. ⁓ And nothing, you know, nothing obviously against the people that don't like my reading or the like the way that I talk about well-being in law or the way I talk about travel, but I'm sure they resonate. There's other people's stuff will resonate with them. So I think a way for us to

set aside the anxiety or fear about putting ourselves out there is to realize it's gonna happen. I mean, it's going, we're going to get people that don't like us, but we already have friends. Like we have friends. We don't need everyone to like us. It's okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:17)

This is so freeing,

find your people. There are so many people on the planet. We don't have to reach all of them, just the right people. And the way your story unfolded with these old men from the legal world typing something up, I feel so much freedom hearing that story. And I want you to keep sharing that sort of story because honestly, I felt so nervous.

starting to do things independently. I felt so scared of the opinions of people who might not even care or if they are saying something they are just bored for a moment. I mean they could be doing something else with their time. That says plenty but you know we get so scared of what anyone is going to think but you can't control what anyone thinks but then other people you know you found people like me I am so ready to read your book. Definitely.

Heidi K. Brown (53:14)

Thank you.

Well, you made me think of one more thing that I think will be helpful. When I started out as a public speaker on the book realm, I used to think, especially if someone was paying me to talk, I used to think I have to reach every person in this room or I have failed and they're going to want their money back and I'm a big, giant, colossal mess. But then I realized, no. First of all, half the people are just

thinking of something else, so who cares? Second, I've now decided if I reach one person in the room, if I literally help in the slightest way one person in the room, I've done my job. And sometimes if it's a really tough crowd, that one person can be me. So I'll realize, oh my gosh, okay, that was such a tough crowd. They were not my audience. It didn't vibe, whatever, it's okay. What did I learn?

from that experience. Maybe I never need to do that again, you know? Or I feel like, okay, when I started feeling nervous, I realized I uncrossed my legs and that made my energy flow better, made my breathing better. Okay, I'm gonna remember that next time. So I really think we need to give ourselves permission. Obviously we wanna reach as many people as possible, especially if it's a paid situation. We wanna serve, we wanna deliver. But also, sometimes we just...

There's just one person that really needs to hear our voice that day. One person, a total stranger. And that's why we were there in the room. And that's cool.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (54:46)

Yes.

You can reach one person, anyone. You are teaching the next generation. I'm so glad I found you. Thank you. We can, officially. I'll have to curate my Facebook friends for you to get on that one, but in any other sense, are, yes, absolutely. I just made a new friend. Look, this has been the best conversation. Thank you so much.

Heidi K. Brown (54:58)

We need to be friends.

Thank you, thank you for making me feel so welcome. When I definitely was nervous when I got on and now I don't feel nervous. I feel happy and I feel like fulfilled and I'm so, so glad we did this. So thank you very much for making time and giving me this opportunity. I really appreciate it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (55:36)

Anytime, Heidi, anytime.

Heidi K. Brown (55:38)

you

Keywords

wellness, nutrition, yoga, plant-based, fitness, body image, mindfulness, sustainable living, energy, breathwork

Takeaways

Amanda Whittaker transitioned from a legal career to wellness coaching. Sustainable wellness plans focus on balance, not extremes. Nutrition should be about fueling the body, not just weight loss. Walking after meals can significantly improve digestion and health. Breathwork is a powerful tool for managing stress and anxiety. It's important to find a movement routine that you enjoy. Children should be taught the value of food as fuel. Body image issues often stem from societal pressures and can be reframed. Sleep is crucial for overall health and energy levels. Small, consistent changes lead to long-term success.

Summary

In this conversation, Amanda Whittaker shares her transformative journey from a legal career to wellness coaching, emphasizing the importance of sustainable wellness plans, balance in nutrition, and the role of movement and breathwork in achieving a healthy lifestyle. She discusses the challenges of body image, the significance of teaching children about healthy eating, and the necessity of small, consistent changes for long-term success.

Titles

Amanda's Journey from a Legal Career to Wellness Leadership Sustainable Wellness Plans for Women

Sound bites

"You need to think of food as fuel." "Walking is so amazing." "Mobility goes a long way as we age."

Chapters

00:00 From Law to Wellness: A Transformative Journey 02:56 Sustainable Wellness: Breaking the All-or-Nothing Cycle 05:51 Nutrition and Balance: The Plant-Based Perspective 07:34 Food Hacks and Quick Meals for Busy Lives 10:43 Ethics and Nutrition: A Deeper Connection 13:35 Finding Alignment: Career and Personal Values 16:39 Raising Healthy Kids in a Screen-Filled World 19:19 Body Image and Energy: Redefining Self-Worth 22:16 Navigating Perimenopause: Lifestyle Changes for Energy 23:50 The Importance of Nutrition and Sleep 27:12 Consistency and Small Shifts in Lifestyle 30:04 Finding the Right Movement for You 35:09 The Power of Breath and Mindfulness 38:30 Starting from Extremes: Gentle Changes 41:14 Plant-Based Nutrition Essentials 45:34 Key Takeaways for a Balanced Lifestyle

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:04) We have Amanda Whittaker. Is that how you say it?

Amanda Whittaker (00:08) That's it. Yes. Hello.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:11) Awesome. It's so nice to see you. I saw your work background and your journey. And it sounds like you've really gone from an amazing legal career to wellness. Let's just dive right in. Let's dive right in with what your journey has been.

Amanda Whittaker (00:33) Oh my gosh, where do I start? Melanie, where do I start? No. So yes, I was in a... Okay. Well, I will just start by saying growing up I was always into movement. I was a dancer. I loved movement. And then I went to college and got caught up. It shifted. I gained a lot of weight. I lost that connection. And I ended up going to law school and it was there that I found it again. law school was super stressful and that's when I found yoga.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:37) The beginning.

Amanda Whittaker (01:02) I took a six week Hatha class I had never done yoga before in my life and I was immediately brought back to my passion for dancing and movement that felt good. So that kind of got me back to my roots. I graduated law school, I started teaching yoga at the same time and a couple years in I just felt this pull, like what am I doing? Law is not for me, it is so combative and that is not who I am.

And I went to a yoga retreat one weekend and they asked us what our intention was. And I said, mine is to immerse myself in this world of yoga and wellness and fitness and feel good. And we had to write down our blockages on a piece of paper. And I wrote down my legal career and we burned them in like a pot of flames. And I went into work the next day. No joke. I went into work and I was laid off from my legal job.

⁓ so that's what drove me right to the Oka studio in tears. What am I going to do? and that's how this kind of all began. I just, I, I dove in, I went full time, ⁓ teaching, taking on clients, leading retreats around the world. I was a Lululemon ambassador. I just was all in and it's kind of still where I'm at. I did go back to work.

about 10 years ago, not as an attorney. I'm a project manager in a health care organization. ⁓ But along the way, I've always been in the fitness space. I still teach, I still coach. And what brought me to coaching actually is in some of the groups I was in, would just start asking me, what was I doing? Could I coach them? Could I help them? And that's how this was all born. So I've taken my experience in yoga and fitness and my

passion for movement and plant-based nutrition. And I've started this amazing business where I help other women find balance and strength and confidence through really sustainable, manageable plans that are not extreme.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:18) Sustainable plans. That's probably what people need, right? Because if something is extreme, then it might not feel as achievable. So are your plans aimed to feel more achievable so people can get that win and see the progress?

Amanda Whittaker (03:35) 100 % I help women break free from like the all or nothing cycle. We all know it, right? Like there's times where we're all in and then we crash and it's nothing. So it's our brains have such a hard time getting out of that cycle of like it's all or nothing. And so my mission is to help women really overcome that for good. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Your plan I like to say is 80-20, right? So you're

You're staying on track, you're doing the things that we talk about, you're eating for your goal 80 % of the time. And 20 % of the time, if you want that treat, you want that snack, enjoy it. It's not falling off track. It's not a deviation. You didn't do something bad. It's part of your plan.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:24) so inspired by that. I'm keen to talk more about the career side later but what you said just then is something for me because I am plant-based as well. Are you fully plant-based?

Amanda Whittaker (04:37) I am vegetarian, but I do eat eggs and I will eat like cheese on occasion, but nothing that an animal had to suffer for, you know. No meat. No animal meat, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:48) I see.

Even within that, I find that when we are trying to do our version of healthy and ethical eating, then we can end up a little bit black and white sometimes. And I went full on, basically from scratch, as in I would not eat candy. I literally never eat candy. And so I'm wondering if you've seen people just going completely extreme and then

Amanda Whittaker (05:11) ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:19) Are you ever guiding people to give themselves a bit of freedom to be a bit cheeky with food occasionally?

Amanda Whittaker (05:26) Yes, 100 % I just got chills. Yes, it's so funny because in one of my reels, it's way back on my page now, but I was eating candy and I'm like, look, I eat candy. Like it's okay. This is normal. know, I think any kind of extreme and I've seen it with diets like keto especially is one where, you know, people just, like you said, it's like, I'm just, I'm going all in.

right now today, I'm giving up everything and doing this extreme diet and it works for a little while, but they're just not sustainable long term, in my experience from what I've seen with clients. So yes, definitely be cheeky with your food and if there's something that you love, enjoy it in moderation, right? Don't cut it out completely. It's when we start telling ourselves these super strict rules that we need to cut things out completely is...

is when we can't maintain that and then we feel like a failure. We feel like we messed up. We feel like we failed and then we spiral. So yeah, it's all about balance. It's all about harmony, you know?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:34) and harmony. Absolutely. And I'm guessing this would also be a bit more achievable for people who are living busy, successful lives because sometimes it's about whatever is accessible.

Amanda Whittaker (06:48) A hundred percent, yes. And I spend a lot of times with my clients on things like that. So I don't love meal prepping. And what I mean by meal prepping is the traditional like Sunday, spend your whole day meal prepping. I don't think that that, I don't think that has to be the way. If that's the only thing that works, fine, we can work with that. But I think there are plenty of options out there, plant-based

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:14) there's a hack I saw online where you can blend red lentils with some water and then pour that mix onto a pan and you've made a wrap.

Amanda Whittaker (07:23) Yes, I've seen that too. I've seen that too. Yeah, that looks pretty cool. I just made brownies with black beans. Have you seen that recipe?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:34) I've seen videos of those but I haven't actually tried it myself, which is bad because I've been a vegan for half a decade and I haven't learned it. So you tried that to tell me about it.

Amanda Whittaker (07:39) Yeah.

I that. So it was really good when it was fresh and hot. We all loved it. I tried these things with my daughter to see what she likes too. She's 10. So her and her friend loved it when it was hot. And then once they cooled, they didn't land the same way. So yeah, they were really good hot, but you kind of have to like serve them right away or maybe heat them up. We didn't give them another chance, like heating them up. We were like, okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:04) Okay.

Amanda Whittaker (08:13) No, she had one taste when it was cold and she's like,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:19) Maybe you can reheat that, but I would totally try that for maybe a birthday party.

Amanda Whittaker (08:26) Yes, yes, that would be a great place to have it. Yeah, cook out or family dinner or something where you have family and friends over. yep. You can probably put some kind of fun topping on. We didn't add any chocolate chips or anything like that. Might have made it better too, but I tend to take one of these recipes, try it, see if it lands, and then tweak it and kind of go from there. Yeah, so that one was okay, but we'll try tweaking it in the future.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:56) So you're really into food, even though the background is in lawn yoga. I'm wondering, did you dig deeply with food? Did you end up exploring food professionally or getting nerdy about it in your personal life? How did that evolve?

Amanda Whittaker (09:13) Yeah, so, okay, so I have been a semi vegetarian since I was little. I think I was nine years old and I just stopped eating meat and my parents are like, what's wrong with you? I just didn't like it. And then I was maybe 16 or 17 and I gave up chicken. And then it wasn't until my mid twenties, I gave up seafood and everything else. And that was the sacrifice. And that's when I learned more about what they were doing in the seafood industry and all the industries.

awful and so I said this then I'm not eating this again and that kind of sacrifice that kind of diet like it's it's for such deeper reasons than you know like a diet to change my body that's more of an ethical reason so that isn't hard for me to follow at all it's just who I am right same same with you it's it's who we are right so I've always been yeah yeah it's just that's who I am part of me ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:06) It is.

Amanda Whittaker (10:11) So I've always been really into nutrition in that sense. And then especially over the past five years, just really learning more about plant-based protein options. And I consider myself an expert in protein and plant-based protein options. So I did go on and I did get my ⁓ certification to be a nutrition coach. So I'm a certified nutrition coach. And I just feel like it goes hand in hand with everything else that I do.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:43) Absolutely. It ties in so much because yoga partly involves looking after yourself and everybody else. It does at least mean being kind and preventing harm. And I feel like I'm glad that you have that ethical angle. I've ever seen such a common thread where, you know, this ties in well with what you said at the start about your legal career that you called it combative and

Amanda Whittaker (11:00) I think you think that's a good way to look at it. You see a lot people that are like, you know, you're such a good girl, you're such a good person, I think you're a good person. You saw it, I think I can

say that you're not specifically a senior, you're a senior, you're but I think you're a good person. I think you're a person. person.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:12) I can see that you want to be ethical with your food and gentle in your work. And I think that it's really interesting when sometimes we try to find our professional

journey, when the start of that journey is in a space where people don't have those same values. Was that something you needed to explore to figure out what work you can do?

Amanda Whittaker (11:32) Mmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:38) Was there a moment when you realized I can't keep working with people who don't maybe have the same values or how did that unfold a bit more? curious.

Amanda Whittaker (11:49) Yeah, think so. Yes, there is a part of that. I think where I was laid off, the choice was taken away from me out of my hands. I could have gone back into law, but I think that's when I had that. I know, you know, coming to Jesus moment where I was like, this is not what I want to do. Like this just freed me up to do what I really want to do. And the door, you know, I'm a huge believer in manifestation like you.

Thank you, put your intention out there and you hopefully see it come true for you. And I think everything that I was thinking in the space that I was in in that time was just curving this path for me, right? Just leading me right down this path. So there really wasn't even a moment where I was like, I'm going back to that. I just knew that I wasn't. And I will say, it's, yeah, it's...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:42) Yeah.

Amanda Whittaker (12:45) The people that I used to work with were great. It wasn't really like a personality thing. It was more just an alignment. Like I was just out of alignment with the nature of the profession that I was in. And looking back, if I had to go to law school all over again, which I probably wouldn't do, but if I had to, I would probably go down the mediation route, you know, so I could help bring two sides together, at least to some conclusion. you know, looking back is 2020, but.

the path I went down, I kind of landed in real estate and closings, which weren't super combative, but foreclosures were, zoning and litigation. was just not aligned with me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:28) That wasn't so that's the area you were working in. you still in corporate in some way now?

Amanda Whittaker (13:35) only corporate in the sense that like our leadership is corporate, but I work for Mass General Brigham, which is a healthcare organization. I'm a project manager and I am kind of the mediator, I would say, between like Epic, software and our users who are at the hospitals. So yes, that's my, day, what I'm doing. It's still in healthcare. So the mission is still very, you know, health conscious and

helping patients and doctors and all of that good stuff. So, still aligned.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:09) And mediating, that's pretty much the version that you wanted to lean towards. That's awesome.

Amanda Whittaker (14:16) Yes, yes, that's, you know, that's, feel like that's my niche. That's around like, okay, let's take this and let's take this and let's figure out how to find balance here, how to find harmony.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:30) You sound so happy and I can tell you'd be so good at that. And I think that when you do stay in those mainstream spaces, it's easier to then apply the mindful lifestyles to people who are still living a mainstream, hectic life. Do you think so?

Amanda Whittaker (14:50) 100%. I get it. I get what it's like to be a busy attorney. I get what it's like to, you know, to just be in corporate America. I get it. I get the struggle. I get the juggle. I get how it is to, you know, have to cart the kids around and balance your day job or be an entrepreneur and have to manage the demands of that. I feel like I relate to all of the women that I work with in some way. Our paths have

been similar, you know? So yeah, I get it. I get when people say they're busy and they don't have time and I just try to help them pick out, carve out pockets of time for them because it's so important to take care of ourselves and if we're not doing that, we're not going to have anything to give to those areas of our life that we love and need, you know?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:44) Absolutely. need to fill the cup enough to have it overflowing. And you mentioned kids again. I'm so curious. What do you say to the parents out there who want their kids to live a more healthy lifestyle, especially in this era of screens and, and junk food that they shouldn't be eating all of those things they need to get outdoors. What do you suggest?

for the young ones.

Amanda Whittaker (16:14) my gosh,

⁓ yeah, I mean, I have so many responses to that, but it's funny, because when you started, I thought you were gonna go towards ⁓ what would you say to kids who don't wanna eat meat when they're little? Because one of my friends has that, her daughter doesn't wanna eat meat, and they're like, is this okay? And I'm like, yes, it's fine. So I've helped them figure out how to do it for a child. My daughter's 10, she doesn't eat meat.

to your point, I think, yeah, we don't have soda in the house. Like we just, we don't have those things in our environment. And I try very hard to teach my kids why. Like it's fuel. Like you need to think of food.

as fuel, you need to think of your body as your tool, your vessel that you have for life. So watching TV for too long or watching a screen is going to damage your eyes. And eating all the sugar is going to damage your teeth and your belly won't feel good after. So I really try to focus on the impacts of what they're doing in terms of how it affects their health and their body and how things are actually functioning, not so much looking.

which I think can cause issues down the road. ⁓ But yeah, I think in this day and age, it's tough. Some kids just want to sit and look at screens all day. And you really have to create boundaries around that, get them outside, get them out for the walk. We do a lot of walking, and then my kids will ride their bikes around. Or we'll find a trail, or we'll go up and walk in Newburyport on the water. I just try so hard to keep it.

so they want to do things like that and it doesn't feel forced. But it's tough. Kids are kids. They want their ⁓ screens.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:07) They do. You mentioned eating for the body to function instead of looking a particular way. That will speak to the grownups for sure. Have you seen people struggling with that and needing to see their own value and beauty as they're trying to get on track?

Amanda Whittaker (18:29) ⁓ So much of what I talk about with my clients is body image and confidence and where that comes from and where we should look to find that, not necessarily in the mirror. ⁓ But I think when you are feeling right, when you are taking care of yourself, you do feel better, know, regardless of the weight. I hate the term weight loss. I don't use it a lot.

I think we need to think of it as like fueling our body so that it functions at its best. I am very open about my own struggle. Like I went through a period of time where I over restricted. I lost too much weight. I lost my period for two years. I lost my hair. Like I was in that point of what does the scale say? What does the scale say? You know, it's not going down or it went up two pounds and I have to punish my body.

I was in that place too and so I get it and that's a really tough place to be and it's a tough place to pull yourself out of. And I think you have to retrain yourself to look at different indicators of value for yourself. how do I really feel? What really makes me feel good? It's not being at that weight because I was cranky and tired and miserable.

It's more than that. It's more than what the scale says. It's more than how your clothes fit. It's like, how can I walk through this world? You know, how can I fuel myself in a way where I feel energized and I feel happy and I feel strong and I can lift these weights and I can do this yoga flow. ⁓ So we try to reframe it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:16) Energy. That got my attention so much energy. It's crucial, especially when there's so much happening or even I had moments where I was trying to do something active and I just feel totally flat and can't do anything. And if you have any words of wisdom for people out there, I mean, okay, I'll share my struggle that I had because maybe you can have advice and other people might have done the same thing.

Amanda Whittaker (20:17) Yeah, it's a big one.

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:45) getting so busy that we just don't eat, forget or procrastinate, just not really eating for a while because things are getting busy and that's not going to help. Do you see people doing that?

Amanda Whittaker (20:51) you

Uh-huh, all the time. It's one of the biggest things that we have to change immediately. The first thing that we usually have to change is breakfast. Did you eat breakfast today? Because it's the first thing to go. And then it's 11, 12 o'clock, you're starving, and then that's when you reach for the chips. So you reach for whatever is the easiest, right? Because you've reached that point where you're past the point of hunger, you just need something. And yes.

We, you know, a lot of times we blame perimenopause or getting older and that's why we're tired. But usually it has so much more to do with what we're eating. And usually we're not eating enough or we're not eating enough of the right food that's actually going to satiate us and give us that energy that we need to take the long walk or like I said, to lift the weights or to do the yoga flow. Yeah, it's one of the first things that we work on is how and when.

are you fueling your body? Because if you want more energy, it's usually the first place we have to look. There's other places too, but this is usually the first one.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:04) Perimenopause, did you see some women assuming that they were just exhausted because they're getting older, but it was actually about what they were eating?

Amanda Whittaker (22:15) I think there's so much out there right now about perimenopause and it's a buzzword and ⁓ a lot. We're using it as a reason when it's usually not the source of the problem. It comes with symptoms for sure, but there's so many ways that we can make ourselves feel better just with natural methods. It's just accepting that and trying that and putting the energy towards that, eating better.

getting sunlight in the morning, taking the walk in the morning, using your cortisol in the morning because it does spike. It's supposed to spike when you wake up. That's what wakes us up. So using it in a way that sets us up so that we feel good and we feel better going into the rest of the day.

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:03) So I don't know if maybe some of these lifestyle hiccups, lifestyle problems might be amplifying the problems that we get at a particular age, but it sounds like we can be doing something to at least improve the situation.

Amanda Whittaker (23:19) ⁓

100%. 100%. Yes. And I'm not saying it'll make all of, you know, there are symptoms and I'm not saying that this will make them all go away, but it will go a long way towards helping, ⁓ especially your energy levels and that, you know, the lightness that you want to feel, you know, you don't want to feel the heaviness, the sinking, the lows. You want to, you want to...

feel excited for your day, excited to hang out with your kids. You want to feel like you have the energy to go do things with them. And you can definitely improve things with nutrition and fitness for sure.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:02) You can, it will not make things worse. It will definitely improve things. I totally agree. And even getting rest, right? That has to be part of the equation. Think so?

Amanda Whittaker (24:06) I'm

Yah.

Yeah, do. Sleep is one of those things, though it's tricky. I don't get much sleep right now either. I wake up a lot during the night and I still have energy. I feel like I still do enough during the day to have energy. But sleep is a tricky thing. You want to try to get that seven to eight hours of sleep. But if we are in this stage, we are waking up a lot in the middle of the night and that's normal.

What I think hurts us is when we can't fall back to sleep. If we wake up and we go to the bathroom and we go back into bed and we fall asleep pretty quickly, it's fine. It's not really an interruption. It's when we can't fall back to sleep. And I listened to a really great podcast. It's called The Huberman Lab, and it's a researcher out of Stanford. He's amazing. He has all these incredible guests come on, very, very, very like, you know, they nerd out into all these super scientific things. ⁓

But they talked about sleep one time and they had a sleep specialist on and she said, the worst thing that you can do when you don't get sleep one night is to try and compensate the next day. She said, just go to bed at your normal time the next day and try to keep your sleep cycle as consistent as you can. Don't panic about it. Just go to sleep at the normal time.

And I loved that because I do think I hear a lot, know, well, I have to catch up. I didn't get sleep last night and I have to go to bed super early or like take extra naps today. I'm like, no, you don't just do your normal, do your normal thing as best as you can. You might need to lower the intensity of your workouts if you, if you miss some sleep, but just do your normal thing. Do your normal plan as best you can.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:48) Thank

Keep your routine.

Amanda Whittaker (26:00) Keep your routine. Yes, keep your routine.

Consistency is so important. Whatever you're doing, just do it consistently, 80 % of the time.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:05) Awesome.

People are saying that about work as well as lifestyle at the moment. Consistency.

Amanda Whittaker (26:22) Like,

yes, yes, yeah, it's huge. It's huge. It's probably the key because things take a while. Like, you're not going to see things happen overnight. Like, you don't make a change on Monday and you see the effect of it by the weekend. It really, takes a while for your body to adjust, for everything to regulate. And I think sometimes we get frustrated because we're not seeing the changes as quickly as we want to see them. And so we change something and we're just

we're stopping that consistency, right? Like there's, our body never has a chance to see if it's actually working because we don't stay consistent for long enough. So that's a big thing. Another.

Amanda Whittaker (27:12) is small shifts. Like I think, you we talked about this a little bit at the beginning, but one of the biggest issues I see is these programs that want you to change everything overnight, you know, do the hard workouts, do this diet, like change everything. And I think that that is a huge hurdle for a lot of women too. We think we can do it, but when we overhaul everything at one time, it's really hard to stay consistent with everything.

So I focus on small shifts, small shifts. We start with one or two things. We see how it goes and we add on, but it's slow, it's gentle, it feels natural, it doesn't feel like work. And I always say it's simple. It doesn't mean it's easy. Every shift is going to come with challenges. Some are harder than others, and it doesn't mean they're wrong. It's just, you know.

If that meets our goals and that's something that we want for ourselves, we have to work through that hard phase and acclimate and it becomes routine and habit and then we add on something else.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:18) Absolutely. Hope the audience can learn that from you as a starting point to sort out one thing, and then learn the next, and then the next, because we all know deep down we had years of school, and we didn't have to learn everything all in one day, and it's the same for the rest of life. Think so?

Amanda Whittaker (28:23) Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Yes, a hundred percent. Our brains weren't the same. I was thinking the same thing. It's like in school, you have one lesson, you work on some multiplication tables and you do them over and over and you get them and then you move on and you layer. I think as adults, just want like, we want this immediate, immediate, everything is changing, immediate response, results, right? And it's just not the case with.

with your wellness, with your health and your fitness. It takes time. It takes time to undo old habits that are no longer serving you. It takes time to create new routines. But then you look back and you're like, this is just part of my life now. This is just who I am and what I do. And I don't have to think about it because it's just part of me.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:27) For sure. That's a great feeling when you adopt a lifestyle for long enough and then it is your new normal.

Amanda Whittaker (29:35) Yes, yes, and every, you know, that can be true for everybody if they want it, you know, you have to want it, you have to want to make these changes. It has to come from inside. And when it does, you know, it's a beautiful thing watching people embrace this lifestyle and make it their own. And their healthy lifestyle might not look exactly like mine or yours, but you find what works for you and it just becomes part of you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:04) Definitely. We all have different lives. That's for sure. I wanted to go over to the movement side for a moment and the mindfulness because there are so many things to cover because you do so much and it's awesome. I mean, with yoga, it has the spiritual side and there's also movement. You said you had a few forms of movement and I'm wondering what can you tell people who are getting started and know nothing?

Amanda Whittaker (30:12) Yeah.

you

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:32) about creating a routine in that space.

Amanda Whittaker (30:36) Ah, you know, I think first and foremost, you have to trust your body and what you're drawn to. There are so many different forms of movement. Even within yoga, there are so many different forms of yoga, and some work for some people and different forms work for others. Some forms are much more gentle. We have chair yoga. We have standing postures where there is no flow.

And some people love that and that's what they need. Some people like more movement, more flow. Some people are drawn to just more functional, weight lifting type of toning, light weight. Some people like it. So it's all great. It's all great. You can build muscle with light weights. You can build muscle through yoga. You can build muscle through, you know, heavy weights. It's what do you enjoy doing? ⁓

And I think that's really important for us all to just step back from all the trends that are out there and all the advice and all the influencers and just what do you enjoy doing? What do you like? What kind of movement do you like? And use that as the basis for your routine, right? So if you tried yoga 10 years ago, give it another try because things might have changed. But if you tried it, you know, last week and you're like, I don't like this, then

We're not going to do a yoga flow for you. We're going to do something else. We're going to just do strength training or maybe some Pilates or a blend of Pilates and bar. But there's something for everybody. There's a way for everybody to move their body in a way that feels good for them, whether it's preference or physical restriction. have clients that have issues and injuries. So there's some things they can't do and we work around that too. But yeah, what can you do when you enjoy doing? ⁓

If they're new to yoga, there's a lot of programming, a lot of beginner programs out there. They can come to me and I'd be happy to help. But yes, don't worry too much, especially with yoga. Sometimes people fear going to a class because they say, I'm not flexible or I don't know what I'm doing. And that's okay. You're going to take that first class. You're not going to know what you're doing. And that's okay. You will.

You will, like you said, you will learn over time. think the difference with yoga in school is if you do go into a class with yoga, they're gonna give you the end lesson and you're just gonna do what you can. And over time, you'll pick up the moves and you'll better understand how your body is supposed to move. It'll come over time.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:22) And the other difference is there's no pass or fail. You need to look after yourself and not do things so incorrectly that you could get injured. But to some extent, you know, do you see people aiming for perfectionism when really it's just about moving around and, you know, looking after yourself?

Amanda Whittaker (33:43) Yes, 100%, yes, yes, yes, I've seen it. Yes. And yeah, yeah, especially a while ago. You right now I teach on a much more like personal level, so I will customize yoga flows for someone. And I feel like that's less about perfection. But in some of the bigger studios that I used to teach at, you absolutely saw that. It's like, settle down. It's okay. You know, this is...

This is just movement, it doesn't have to be perfect. If your foot is turned slightly the wrong way, it's okay. You're not gonna hurt yourself unless you're doing something really unaligned, in which case I will let you know. But it's okay, just move and breathe. To me, yoga at its core is so much more about moving your body in a way that's connected with your breath, right? So.

expanding all of the movements in yoga where we do, where we open or expand. It's an inhale, right? Because you're sucking that air in, you're inhaling, you're expanding. And then when you're contracting, you're exhaling. it's moving with your breath and it takes your brain to a different place. It's just you go right into this really cool internal connection place when you're focusing on moving your body in tune with your breath. It's really cool.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:09) the question I'm totally keen to ask at this point because you mentioned the breath and I come from a public speaking background where it just like things like singing, the breath is important because that's how you get sound out and I would be so grateful to be so grateful if you could explain to people how they can breathe properly. We think we all know how to breathe but

Amanda Whittaker (35:12) I don't know.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:35) Seriously, people breathe from their chest instead of their tummy, but I want a Yogi's perspective. Tell us how we should breathe better.

Amanda Whittaker (35:42) Yeah.

Well, there's so many different ways to breathe. I mean, there's one way to breathe, but there's so many different styles of breath. But you are right. If I had to say one thing, it's you need to make your breath bigger. You need to suck it all the way down. You need to let your belly expand when you take that breath in. There's no sense hugging that belly in. ⁓ A ⁓ really great breath that everybody can work with is a three-part breath.

You breathe in, you breathe to here. You pull it a little deeper. You pull all the way down into your belly and then you press it out. And you kind of see that visual in your mind so that when you're pulling that breath in, it's like expanding this big balloon, right? In your chest, your sides, your back, the whole thing. And hold that breath for a second and then push it back out. But breath work is...

I mean, breath work is healing. Breath work is everything. Breath work can solve so many of our problems, especially anxiety. Like if we're feeling super stressed out, anxious, if we can't sleep at night, one of the number one tools that I use is breath work. So it's not just in yoga, it's every day, all day. Your breath is the place that you can tap into. Nobody even has to know, but you have this hidden tool inside of you that you can tap into and use to calm down in really tough moments.

And it's like a reset. like in a moment, you can totally reset yourself just by using your breath.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:13) Absolutely. That's a tool everybody can use because there will be a high pressure moment. There'll be a time when someone is feeling a bit nervous or overwhelmed, whatever it might be. Taking that one little moment is a first step, right?

Amanda Whittaker (37:30) 100%. Yes, 100%. Yep. One of my favorite breaths I'll share. This is a really good one too. This immediately calms your parasympathetic nervous system. You probably know it, but you inhale and you count to four and then you exhale and you count to eight. So it's that two to one breathing and you'll feel it. You do that three times and you're like, oh, okay, I'm good. I feel good. I feel calm and regulated.

That's a really good one that everyone should have in their back pocket.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:02) It'll slow you down.

Amanda Whittaker (38:04) Mm-hmm. Immediately. Just immediately calming. Calms you right down. Regulates your nervous system in 60 seconds or less.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:16) You're teaching us so much.

Okay, what would you tell people who are completely new to fixing up their lifestyle? Let's go to the extreme. Do you ever deal with someone? Do you ever work with someone who has been at the total extreme working 100 hours in the week and eating only things they shouldn't eat? I'm just going for it. Sitting.

Amanda Whittaker (38:30) Okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:43) at the TV whenever they are not in the office. I've seen it very occasionally and it terrifies me, but have you seen someone like that and where do you begin?

Amanda Whittaker (38:53) 100%. One of my clients, it was a he, actually not a woman, but he was a CEO. He built his own company from the ground up. for a decade plus, he just sat at his computer and worked. Like he did nothing but that, just worked. So we started, you have to start gentle. You have to meet your body where it's at. If you haven't moved, if you're working all the time, if you're super stressed, your body is gonna be like this.

It's gentle movement. starts with walking. I would say get out, take a five minute walk after every meal. Every time you eat, schedule five minutes in, go out and walk. Just start moving. ⁓ Gentle stretches, know, back stretches, chest stretches, hip stretches. You can even do it from a chair, like I mentioned earlier, chair yoga. ⁓ Just start very gently moving your body, incorporating it in slowly in a way that feels good. Change.

one meal a day or like, you know, you have to set these smart goals. So one meal a day, you're going to get 30 grams of protein. One meal. Start there. You know, start somewhere. Commit to making one change for yourself. Whatever that looks, you know, whatever their struggle is, keep some stuff in that they like, but make one change and have them do that for a week or two and then reassess, you know, make those walk 10 minute walks.

make the stretching, add some resistance work. But again, we see all these messages on social media that are like, do all of it, do all of it at 100 % all the time. And it just wouldn't work that way. For someone who is just coming back from being very extreme in not doing anything, you have to start slow, have to be mindful about it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:45) Absolutely. Protein has been a common theme. I take for granted everybody else's understanding of protein and iron, things like that, because I've been vegan for so long, but you could help me in explaining to everybody else how they can get those essentials, including the protein and other things from plants and how

It can give them fibre and the beans are so accessible. How easy is it to get a of beans? What can you tell people who are new to that?

Amanda Whittaker (41:20) gosh,

Yeah, I mean, it's so easy. think it's hard to give it all in such a short period of time. So you want to be mindful about how you're doing it. But you want to make sure that you have your complete proteins. So if you're having a lot of beans or legumes, any kind of legumes, you want to pair it with rice, right? Because then you have all of your amino acids, your essential amino acids together. ⁓

products like soy, anything soy based. if you're having your tofu or your tempeh, those are complete proteins, is great. Those are great proteins. Another protein that I love is seitan, which is one that a lot of people haven't heard about. But it's not gluten free, which most plant-based proteins are. This one isn't. But as long as you don't have celiacs, if you just have more of a sensitivity, it might be OK. So I would even say, like, try it.

if you don't have a true allergy. I love seitan. It has almost like a bread consistency, super low calorie, low carb. All of these proteins that I'm talking about, you can put in an air fryer, which is how I make most of my meals for like eight minutes or less and toss them with your salad, your, know, whatever your base is, whether it's a rice or a bean or whatever, ⁓ toss it in and then play with.

Vinegars, play with different vinegars, play with some olive oils, play with different flavors in different ways. I use a lot of tahini, I love tahini. ⁓ Miso, miso is a great one. Take a little scoop of miso, mix it with apple cider vinegar, whip it up, and it's like a beautiful dressing. ⁓ Another thing I will say is with veggie burgers, I love veggie burgers, but you have to be careful because a lot of them are really overly processed. But then you can go down this route of, you know,

you could look at almost every food and find some issue with it, right? So if it's a veggie burger or something deep fried and full of fat and, you know, fake stuff, then go for the veggie burger. But just be mindful, you know, like Beyond Burger isn't one I would eat every single day because it's very processed. But there are some really good ones out there. Like, I don't know if you have it over there, but Abbott's brand.

is incredible, it's very minimally processed. It's a great option for a veggie burger and they're really high protein. So there are some good ones out there, you just have to read the ingredients.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:50) Absolutely. We have Beyond Burger over here and Impossible. I must admit, I don't go for those very often, but there are plenty of YouTube videos guiding people to make their own veg burgers. And it can feel quite real with some of those ingredients and it will probably have a lot less oil or less saturated fats than a real burger. Do you think so?

Amanda Whittaker (43:59) Please.

⁓

100%. Yes, yes. Anyone that's had any heart issues, any cardiac issues should really look at some of the plant-based options because they're so much leaner, they're so much better ⁓ for your overall health, especially if you've had any heart stuff going on. So yeah, yes, for sure. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:37) Absolutely and burgers are so fun because especially if the main burger part is done when life is busy you just put it in some bread it's not difficult.

Amanda Whittaker (44:48) Totally, totally. Something really fun that I actually learned from someone else recently, he got big sweet potatoes and sliced them. So he made these big circles with sweet potatoes and roasted them and then made the bun with the sweet potatoes. So you take your sweet potatoes, put your veggie burger on top of those, dress it with whatever you like, and they were delicious. There's so many ways to have fun.

with food, with vegetables and all, and they're so pretty, right? Like orange sweet potatoes, throw on a tomato, you've got your red in there, some spinach, it's like the whole rainbow, yeah. It's so fun, I love it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:26) Yes,

eating the rainbow.

Amanda Whittaker (45:29) Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:34) I think that we really have five or 10 minutes left and I just want to go to the old words of wisdom at this point in a conversation and ask which main things, maybe three things do you wish that everybody should know? And if you want people to learn from you, what are a few things they're going to learn from you the most?

Amanda Whittaker (46:00) Some balanced meals, get your protein in, get your 30 grams of protein spread out throughout the day. So balanced meals, stop cutting out entire food groups unless you have an allergy. That's number one. Number two, walk. I think it doesn't get enough. It doesn't get the credit it deserves. Walking is so amazing. And anyone who is trying to lose weight, you know, the first thing I...

When I have conversations with people around like, are you doing? And it's the first thing they say is workouts. Well, I'm not working out or I did, I'm working out, blah, I'm like, but what about all the other time of the day? Because that's what really makes a difference. The time that you're moving outside of that one half hour workout is going to make more of a difference than the workout itself, honestly. So walk. And if I had a rule of thumb, it would be after every meal, if you can, five to 10 minute walk after every meal.

helps your digestion, it helps you step away from the table, it helps stop you from overeating. You get out, you walk, you get your steps in, great, that's two. Three is with your movement, it's all important. Strength training, zone two cardio is what I love, it doesn't have to be a HIIT class, know, exercising your heart is important.

and mobility because all of us are aging. you know, I look at some of the older people in my life and I'm like, I want to be able to move when I'm 75, when I'm 80 and mobility goes a long way in that. you know, whether it's yoga or stretching, just make sure that you're opening your body, you're moving your joints, you're staying flexible, you're staying mobile, along with building and maintaining your muscle mass.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:56) Absolutely. Great wisdom, great advice. Amanda, thank you so much for teaching everybody.

Amanda Whittaker (48:05) You're so welcome. Thank you for giving me this opportunity, this stage to do it. Thank you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:12) It's awesome. It has been great talking to you.

Amanda Whittaker (48:16) It's been great talking with you too. I really appreciate you having me here.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:21) Awesome. Thanks for your time. Bye.

Amanda Whittaker (48:24) Bye.

Podcast conversation with American memoirist Elizabeth Wilson

https://www.motivatecollective.com

Show Notes

Keywords

memoir writing, personal growth, trauma, authenticity, self-care, writing community, creative process, vulnerability, life changes, storytelling

Summary

In this conversation, Melanie Suzanne Wilson and the American memoirist Elizabeth Wilson explore the transformative journey of writing memoirs, discussing the challenges and healing that come with sharing personal stories. Elizabeth shares her experiences with trauma, divorce, and the importance of authenticity in storytelling. They emphasize the need for self-care, the value of community, and the significance of consistency in creative endeavors. The discussion highlights the messiness of life and the importance of embracing vulnerability in writing, encouraging listeners to start their own journeys without waiting for perfection.

Takeaways

The process of writing a memoir can lead to profound personal healing.

Authenticity in storytelling is crucial; it should be messy and real.

Consistency is key in building a writing career and community.

Self-care is essential when writing about trauma or difficult experiences.

Finding a supportive community can enhance the writing process.

It's important to embrace vulnerability and share imperfections in stories.

Writing can be a powerful tool for processing and understanding trauma.

The journey of writing is often nonlinear and requires patience.

Balancing creative work with personal responsibilities is a common challenge.

Starting your writing journey doesn't require perfection; just begin.

Titles

The Transformative Power of Memoir Writing

Navigating Life Changes Through Storytelling

Sound bites

"We want real, not perfect."

"The writing process opened my eyes."

"Writing memoir will change your life."

Chapters

00:00 The Journey of Memoir Writing

03:04 Navigating Life Changes and Writing

05:53 Finding Community and Connection

08:18 The Impact of Trauma on Writing

11:13 Creating Authentic Narratives

14:10 Building a Writing Career

17:20 The Importance of Consistency

20:17 Embracing Vulnerability in Storytelling

23:14 The Role of Self-Care in Writing

26:10 Journaling as a Tool for Reflection

28:54 Writing About Trauma

32:03 Balancing Life and Creative Work

34:54 The Seasons of Creativity

37:35 Empathy in the Writing Process

40:52 The Messiness of Life and Writing

43:37 Final Thoughts on Starting Your Journey

Transcript

Elizabeth Wilson (00:00)

I love that and good on you for just moving forward and showing up and doing it and putting it out there. Like you said, even if it's not perfect, we don't want perfect, we want real. And if that's not the premise of writing memoir, like I don't know what is. So beautiful way to like bring that in.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:17)

Really?

Look, I'm getting so many conversations that are fate and you are one of them. This is incredible because I thought about writing a book a few years ago and I wrote maybe two thirds of it and then I thought, the journey isn't finished. There's another chapter that hasn't happened yet that needs to go in and you've probably heard people say that by the sounds.

Elizabeth Wilson (00:35)

Mm-hmm.

I that. I lived that. ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:43)

What was, okay, we'll start with that. What was your experience with thinking, I have a bit more to live before I can write about it.

Elizabeth Wilson (00:51)

So nothing has altered my life and brought me more healing and richness and just massive change than the process of actually sitting down to write my memoir. And it was during the memoir writing process that I actually got divorced, which changed a lot of the tone of the memoir. One of my main themes running through the memoir is loneliness. And I was really focused in the book on writing about

the friendships that would come and go, the communities I lost when I moved or left a job, and even the ways that connection to others shifted in motherhood and how lonely I felt then. But I wasn't even touching the loneliness that I felt in my then marriage because I frankly didn't know how it was gonna end and I didn't wanna put too much into the book and cause drama where I didn't need to stir up stuff.

But once I got divorced, then that honestly gave me the freedom to write about it and write about what that was like as well, coming home and feeling not seen, not understood. And so it was at that point that I had that realization that you had as you were writing that, I'm still living chapters of this book. Like, it's not done yet. So I actually continued writing throughout that process and more life happened. And so,

To date, I'm basically only one year past the timeline where the book ends. And I've been writing for almost three years. So there's a lot, probably only four years of it. I had lived by the time I actually started writing, but I didn't know that at the time. And it was actually through the writing process that opened my eyes to so many things that pushed me to ask for things in my life that I...

now realized that I deserved but didn't believe I was worthy of back then. And I just did so much internal work from having seen those repeated cycles and patterns when I was trying to put my story into like a linear narrative. It was really eye-opening to the ways that I would continue to tweak and mold myself to what I thought someone else wanted me to be, whether that was at work.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:01)

you ⁓

Elizabeth Wilson (03:07)

whether that was in a relationship, whether that was how I showed up as a mom, any area of my life and seeing that pattern over and over again, I really had to face it and decide if I was going to keep doing that or if I was going to take a different approach. So writing memoir will change your life.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:24)

There is so much there. Let's tell the story a little bit for those of you, sorry, for those who don't know your story. I think it will be good to set the scene first before then delving deeper into some of that advice. I'm really curious. How old was your child when you got divorced? How did that divorce start? Was that your main live event?

Or was something happening before that, that went into the memoir and that shaped you even leading up to the divorce.

Elizabeth Wilson (04:01)

Great question. So the book opens with a cross country move from the Asheville area of North Carolina to central northern Minnesota, about four hours from the Canadian border. So very far north in a small town called Bemidji. And I was moving there because I had just taken on a new role at a ⁓ different crime lab for the state of Minnesota.

but it was the same position that I had held for six years in North Carolina. So I had grown disenchanted with the things going on in North Carolina and I had sought ⁓ new employment. And so me and my then wife were traveling, were moving to what we hoped would be a fresh start.

this move symbolized a fresh start for us. And that's what I really dug into, was wanting to bring this community in, to find community. And I really found it through my coworkers at the lab. ⁓ A number of things happen with the lab work. Ultimately, sort of the turning point is I was sexually assaulted by one of my bosses.

⁓ at an after hours social thing that we were just doing as friends because I was very close with a lot of my coworkers and they got promoted to be my boss. And I didn't realize it at the time. It took me another... Another nine months before I really understood the impact that that assault had had on me.

We had sort of addressed it in the moment and there was some apologies and it was like, let's not, you know, report to internal affairs that that would get messy. We can work through this. I'll give you space. ⁓ But after I got a promotion where this person was now my direct supervisor, I experienced just this extreme anxiety.

depression, this drastic weight loss. And to be honest, at the time I didn't recognize it for what it was. I thought that this was, you know, ⁓ almost a year into the pandemic. This was a year and a half into motherhood. And I thought I was just losing it because of those things and the loss of community that happened around the pandemic, the loss of support. We weren't living near family.

It was just, life was just hard. Maybe I couldn't handle this new promotion and all the responsibilities and the stress. So there was so much that I just kind of brushed aside. But I had this revelation, like I said, nine months later, where it all clicked for me. And once I knew that, I couldn't unknow it. And so I was no longer able to really function at work. ⁓ It was definitely a

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:00)

you

Elizabeth Wilson (07:05)

ender for me. It was I have to get out of here. I don't feel safe. I don't know what's going to what I'm going to do next or what we as a family are going to do next, but I can't stay here and it was a small town. It's not like I could just get a different job in this small town. So we ended up moving to Colorado, which is where we all currently reside. And we moved when my daughter was.

about two years old. And then, so we lived here. We again tried to find community here, get involved here. I ended up getting sober and stopped drinking. I did attribute drinking to some of the issues with the sex assault and how all that unfolded. But also I was just living somewhere that was healthier. I had left my stressful career behind. I didn't want to hold on to

this one more unhealthy thing when I was really trying to rebuild my life in a way that was wholesome and healthy. But things continued to deteriorate within the marriage. My then wife became the person who was pursuing a career. I was staying at home with the two-year-old. And by home, I mean we lived in an RV at the time. So I was staying in a small metal box with the two-year-old all day.

and so that brought its own challenges, but it was around when.

a year later that we got divorced. Maybe two years later, maybe I'm messing up the timeline. But we had some challenges and things. then so about two years after moving to Colorado, we got divorced. And that's only halfway through the book.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:35)

So.

It's okay.

That's halfway through your journey. So much happened and moving. So many of those experiences are relatable. And as you share your truth, people can be inspired by that moving from place to place, especially in the pandemic. I could relate to that part. I moved.

quite a bit during the pandemic and it was a very isolating time as well. Did you feel even more isolated because of that era?

Elizabeth Wilson (09:20)

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. It's very isolating. And you're right, there's just so much. It sounds like it's a lot. And it is. was a lot that happened. So there's a lot of different pieces that hopefully people can relate to. It was after I got divorced because I was coming out of being a stay at home mom. I had left my career behind and had done the whole stay at home mom life that I then had to figure out what I was going to do next.

So I ended up starting the Inspired Writer Collective, which is a writing business, with a fellow writer friend of mine that I had met here in Colorado. And we've got a podcast and we've got memoir writing programs. And as you can tell, I've continued to write my memoir. started it a little bit after moving to Colorado, I started writing. And so I continue to work on all these projects. And that's where I funnel so much of

my creativity and my attention and everything into now. So it is less now about turning the spotlight on myself and it's about helping other women find their story to find the message that's on their hearts that they want to share and recognizing that it doesn't have to be perfect or polished and it frankly shouldn't. It should be messy and relatable and vulnerable and real because

That's just human. And especially in the days of AI and all sorts of filters and tweaking and plastic surgery and stuff, I think we're just craving that flavor of real and authentic.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:02)

It sounds like that's one of your top pieces of advice for anyone who is sharing their story in any capacity to make it real and remove the filters a bit more.

Elizabeth Wilson (11:13)

Absolutely, and show the moments where you break down show the moments where you made a wrong choice like it's really important in memoir that you don't just Paint yourself as the good guy because you're not always the good guy Even if you had went in with the best of intentions and tell the reader you had the best of intentions But also show us where like you had to learn a lesson the hard way. Maybe you

You know, yell at your kid and totally let loose because you were stressed out about your day or something else that happened. Whatever it is, like show us that you're not perfect because we know that we're not perfect as the readers and that helps us, you know, relate to you to know that even if we don't have the same flaws or shortcomings or weaknesses, just to know that you have them helps.

us as the reader feel more related to you as the writer and the share of your story.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:10)

And as a human, for sure. It's, amazing that you created a community and a resource as your next career. I have a few questions around that because there are so many people who need to start a new career after being a stay at home parent, or perhaps because the last career had issues or it was the time for the next thing, even.

Even after you left that village and that job in that small town, it was time for something else. What words of wisdom do you have for people who are looking for their next, their next work move and even looking at creating an independent work for the first time.

Elizabeth Wilson (12:58)

My biggest, I guess, piece of wisdom that I gleaned from going through this process was that it's going to happen slower than you really ever would want it to. But the way to break through is consistency. And it is the most boring advice, and I cringed every time I heard it.

as I was trying to figure out, how do we get more followers? How do we get our podcast? How do we spread the word? It is so lame, but it is just consistency. And the same is true with trying to write your memoir. It is just showing up and just putting words to the page, doing what you need to do. Now for me, for a little while, I was pursuing that.

100 % of the time I didn't have any additional source of income even though that as a young business was not bringing in substantial income, right? So there was a period of time where I was living off of what else I had. Now, the way that I have found that works for me is that I have a low stress job, you know, the classic like go to work. I actually work for the school system. So I have summers off, which is nice.

and I'm done by 3.30 in the afternoon and then I get to come home and write or podcast and work on that business. So for me, especially in a creative business that helps relieve the stress of putting that financial burden on this creative effort has to result in dollar signs, right? And it's so important when we're talking about ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:30)

I'm a student.

Elizabeth Wilson (14:40)

creative offering that you give yourself the space to put out your best work and not just crank out what's gonna sell. Could I have made things that potentially would sell better than what I'm doing right now? Sure, I bet people would buy ⁓ a DIY download of how to, you the first 10 steps of writing your memoir and great. But what I love

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:42)

Thank

you

Elizabeth Wilson (15:07)

What I love is sitting in the small groups that I offer with the program and where we go deep into the core message of the story and we look at your life and we put it onto an outline so that you can have the clarity and the cohesive plan for writing your story. That's how I want to show up. So yes, does something else maybe earn a base dollar amount faster? Sure.

But does it light me up? You can hear it in my voice. Does it light me up the way that the work I'm doing now? Does? No way. So I'd much rather just, I'd much rather take this route. ⁓ And I just want to remind people that it doesn't mean anything less if your business, especially a creative endeavor, is not paying all the bills right away. Like that's okay. There's no shame in that. It doesn't mean that you're

your creative work is valued less.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:07)

is very encouraging, especially for the early days. And you started with simple steps and started with your own writing and then gradually build your community. We've all seen how some of the largest companies started with small steps and maybe just a few customers. And so do you think that some people want that greatness

instantly and maybe are you basically explaining to people that there is a journey and it's an upward slope? It's a piece at a time.

Elizabeth Wilson (16:46)

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted that too because I wanted that external validation that what I was saying, what I was doing was reaching people and that they liked what I said and I had to work through that and kind of move past that to get to a place where I know that I'm putting out things of value, messages that are uplifting, that are encouraging other writers through that weekly podcast, through

the blog post I write or anything else and just trusting that the right people are gonna find me and it's actually great that I'm not for everyone and it's taken a lot of time to really hone down what my, what I believe my purpose and my message is and how I wanna show up for other people. I started like I think most entrepreneurs do.

much more broadly thinking like, the more people I can help, the more clients will have and the more opportunities there will be for, you know, diversity of income. And that's great. But then you're not known for anything. And I would much rather be that person that when you're talking Melanie to a friend, you know, six months from now and they're like, you know what? I've been thinking about writing a memoir instantly.

What comes to your mind is, ⁓ I know someone that helps people do specifically that. And until you can grow that confidence, and you're right in hinting that it really, you grow through the process to become the person who then is able to run a bigger business. There are plenty of times that I think about how grateful I am that we are growing.

in a slow, sustainable way that has allowed me to continue to show up the way I want to as a mom, that has allowed me to continue to write my own memoir and not have to put it on the back burner in order to deal with incoming business. I am so grateful for the way that it's all unfolded and the pace that it's gone at, even though in those early days, I...

constantly would look for the number of new followers or the number of podcast downloads or whether people commented on a video or a reel. Now I don't worry about that and I trust that my messages are finding the right people and I show up consistently and I come on other podcasts and show up and just try to share as broadly and heartfelt as I can.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:53)

So, yeah.

That is such an important lesson for everybody right now, because you focused on finding a space where you can have a conversation like this podcast and other spaces and having that detailed conversation to me, that feels more meaningful and more connected than just how many people clicked like, even though some of your followers might be feeling so much gratitude for what you're doing and

really absorbing what you're saying and that's great. But are you seeing a lot of people getting very swept up and dependent on those, what we call vanity metrics on social media?

Elizabeth Wilson (19:55)

Yeah, you know, it seems I see it the most probably in my world on threads where I'm connected to a bunch of other writers and on there I can see people post about how discouraged they are when they don't get the pre-order sales that they're expecting or they haven't built up that, you know, internet following that they're hoping for before they launch their book or they just don't sell the number of copies of their first book that they're hoping for but

The stats show and people will tell you who have been in the business for a while that it may take your third or fourth or fifth book before people learn your name. And when they do and they enjoy your work, they will go back and buy a copy of everything you've ever written. So it's this philosophy that your second book is the best marketing tool for your first book. And your third book is your best marketing tool for your second and first book.

So I feel like that likely translates into other mediums outside of book sales that when you continue to do something else, when you put something out into the world, say podcast episodes, you put a podcast episode out into the world, what's gonna get the most traction to that podcast episode? That next one you put out, you know? And then someone finds your backlog of your recorded episodes, your whole catalog and...

There's so much for them to enjoy and to get to know about you. So it's less focused on the individual pieces and more of the big picture. And again, that goes to that consistency that I said before, which is so boring, but works.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:35)

Exactly. The consistency makes a difference and you are still finding new people who can discover your work now because I just found you recently while you responded and you came on the podcast now and you've been doing your work for a while. So the next people, the next audience will find you when they are ready and when the stars align, if you believe in that sort of thing, I completely agree with you.

I look back at my mid twenties and I realized that some of my best work that I did then was after five years of doing that work. And so it looks like popping up out of nowhere. And you might've had the same thing. You worked on your book for a while and with your community. I mean, how, how long have you been running your online business?

Elizabeth Wilson (22:25)

⁓ It'll be two years in December, so we're only about a year and a half in.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:31)

Seriously, a year and a half? Did that start with a few people and then grow?

Elizabeth Wilson (22:36)

Yes, yes, absolutely. It started with something like 12 people. And now we have something like 100 YouTube subscribers and we just continue and keep going. we put less focus on the numbers and more focus on the actual connections we've made. Because ever since expanding our podcast to include guests, which we did about six months into the podcasting journey.

We've just got these beautiful connections that we've made with our fellow writers or experts within the industry, editors and cover designers and all of that. And it's been so cool, like you said, to build that community around us. And now when I have people enroll in my memoir program, I have like a connection with them. Like we have at least a...

Basic understanding of each other and who they are. That's not some strangers on the internet and I love that I love how How real it is and and how authentic those connections are

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:38)

It really is. It's so fun having those conversations and I'm thrilled that you're having that experience as well. I'm fascinated because you took a while doing your podcast individually before then bringing on guests. This one, this podcast emerged a week ago, entirely just starting off with guests on it. And I hope you have this experience as well where you get all these.

enriching conversations and you learn something from everybody and it just feels like everybody is your new best friend.

Elizabeth Wilson (24:10)

Yes. Yes. And some literally are like there are some that I still keep in contact with that I will message or whatever will send emails to some that like I've enrolled in their offerings and they've enrolled in my offerings. It's just really cool the way that you build those connections. Podcasting is a very ⁓ I just lost the word. ⁓ like the it's powerful the way it connects you with people.

and the depth of understanding that you get to gain by having one of these conversations versus just replying to someone's post or leaving a comment on someone's reel. It goes so much deeper and I love the niche topics that we get to dig into in podcasts where we could sit here and just talk about the impact of journaling and how that affects your mental health and your physical health and all the studies that have shown.

how impactful journaling and handwriting your journal is. And like, I love that. ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:11)

Okay, let's look at that.

Is that something you do?

Elizabeth Wilson (25:15)

Yes, yeah, I'm an avid journaler. I haven't always been. were certainly periods of my life where I wasn't as dedicated to it, but now I'm really consistent. And I've used them extensively in helping jog my memory and correct my memory when it comes to trying to write about my past.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:36)

The journaling helps you to remember things that can then go into other writing.

Elizabeth Wilson (25:41)

Yes, and even just looking back on old journals where I think I remember something happened this way and I look back at the journal and learn that, it didn't happen that way at all, or I didn't have that information yet. I actually thought it was going this way. It wasn't until a month later that I learned about this. And then that's why I made that choice.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:00)

Right. I'm wondering, let's delve into the memoir writing a bit more because I think more people need to share this story and there are so many ways to do it. But I think that in a book, can dig deeper than even an hour long podcast. You can get even more data. So have you worked with people who overcame something traumatic or severe and then wondered, ⁓ okay,

Elizabeth Wilson (26:17)

Mm-hmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:25)

How am I going to write about this in a way that isn't too triggering or how do I know which parts to include and which ones are maybe too much for me or too much for the readers?

Elizabeth Wilson (26:38)

yeah, I mean, I've struggled with that journey myself of like, how much detail am I going to go into about this sex assault? And, you know, what's appropriate? What's triggering for me? Certainly the writing process for writers who are writing about past trauma can be very ⁓ triggering. And so we talk about that in the program, we talk about how to

Provide yourself with some self-care before you sit down to write that story and also planning that after care. I do recommend sitting down to do it in one block. So when you have a scene that you know you need to write that's going to be difficult for you to write, to do that in one sitting, which a typical scene's 1500 to 2000 words. So you're looking at right around an hour.

So it's like planning that time to sit down and knowing that you are going to be useless after that writing. Like you don't make plans for the evening, make sure you have some stuff set aside, whether that's like a bubble bath or a nice meal or a walk outside with a close friend, whatever it is that you need to do to take care of yourself afterwards, that's really important. But it is used in trauma therapy for a reason, to write it down.

Because as you use expressive writing and you revisit these stories, as you get them out of your head and onto paper and externalize them, they lose some of their power in the shame that you feel, in the guilt you feel, in the ways that it triggers you. And so you get to a point with time where they don't have that same scary impact that they do when you initially start.

One of the things I remind people who are writing these difficult scenes is that when you are drafting, you are simply putting it to paper. Do not worry about what the reader will think or what details to include because of the reader or ⁓ even the grammar or the sentence structure or you can jump around if you, if a thought comes later of like, ⁓ actually it was a blue dress or actually we were meeting up for this and

yeah, and this, like as the memory comes back to you in waves, just go ahead and keep writing it. Don't stop, don't try to go back and edit. You will have plenty of rounds of editing to do that in later. It's just important to get it down. The other thing that I found really helpful when I was writing some of my more difficult moments, especially those that I hadn't processed to the point where I knew what my like takeaway was from it or.

I had fully unpacked it and understood its meaning. When I was still really wrestling with it, I found it very helpful to write it either in a separate word document than the rest of my book or handwriting it in my journal. It felt safer and more removed from what is the reader gonna think about this to have it in a separate place for that initial writing.

And like with the sex assault and you brought up the question of like, how do I know what to include? I wasn't sure initially how much detail I wanted to include, but I knew I needed to just write it all down first. Once I wrote it all down, it was a lot less scary than how I had built it up in my head. So I actually decided to include all of it. But if that may not be everyone's choice. And so.

You can write it in a separate document or handwrite it in a journal and then decide once you see it out on paper how much you want to include. For much bigger things, ⁓ you can hire a sensitivity reader. You can put trigger warnings on your book or content warnings ⁓ in order to give the reader a heads up if the basic premise of your book doesn't already

kind of clue the reader into the sort of journey they're gonna be taking with you. There are ways to communicate that to the reader so that they can take care of themselves as well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:31)

And that's it.

Fair point. It sounds like writing isn't just squeezed into a busy day.

Elizabeth Wilson (30:42)

Not for those hard scenes. You really have to carve out the time because you're having to revisit a very emotional time. The brain doesn't know the difference. When you're reliving the moment in order to put it down on paper, for you, like neurologically and like the cortisol that you release, the adrenaline, all of that, it's like you're back there. And so I just...

like to give writers the heads up, especially with those difficult scenes, to make sure you're in a really positive place when you sit down to write that scene. Don't write that scene when you're fighting with your partner or when you're stressed out about getting your kid to an event later or, you know, and you feel cramped for time. Like, really give yourself some space. This is the kind of stuff you might want to even do, like.

on a self-imposed writer's retreat or something of that nature. Really look and set aside that time for writing the more difficult parts. That doesn't have to be every story and every scene, but the parts in your book that you've identified as being the more difficult ones for you to write or the more emotional ones.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:51)

understand that so much. Even yesterday, I was seeing just a document about something that happened and just seeing the words, not even writing them, but just seeing the words that say this happened, that happened. And it's like what you're describing, just, it's like that moment was happening all over again. And I realized I can't do this. Do you think that happens for people a lot where they realize

Elizabeth Wilson (32:13)

and

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:18)

Okay, I need to pick my moment for this. And it might be even a bit of a shock of, oh, this is coming back and they need to, they need to be ready to relive some.

Elizabeth Wilson (32:31)

Mm hmm. Absolutely. It definitely happens. And it's one of the reasons why in the memoir program, we actually create a detailed outline. Because I don't want writers to feel forced to write the just the next scene that comes chronologically, just because that's the next one. I want you to be able to pick and choose the scene that matches where you're at that day, right? Because we ebb and flow life happens, our hormones happen. And

by being able to look at your whole outline and have those details for each scene. You can pick out a particular scene card and know exactly what to include in order to have the continuity from the scene before and the scene after. So you don't have to feel like you have to write it in order. That's given me a lot of freedom to be able to choose like a lighthearted, you know, scene about how we took this vacation on a day where I'm just not.

feeling like I can tap into really deep emotions. Or if I know that I'm ready to go there, or if I know that like those emotions are maybe already on the surface because of something recently that's happened, then I can pull out that particular scene and know that I can give it my all and show up for it. And that's one of the beauties of having an outline that is that detailed. So it's such that you can pull out a single scene and know exactly what you need to.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:55)

This is becoming a form of self care. And I'm fascinated by how with conversations with so many different people, it keeps coming back to self care. And what I'm learning from you, and we can all learn this is when we're selecting the work, the type of work we're going to do in a particular moment, especially when it's creative, you can, you can within the urgency and priorities of your work, there's some freedom to

decide, okay, this type of work matches my energy or my schedule or just what I'm ready for. And then that other piece of work will fit this other time in the day or the week. Can you translate that to other types of work? Did you sometimes do that in your forensic work where maybe something a bit more intense needed to be done at a particular time?

Elizabeth Wilson (34:44)

I wish I could have. I think that would have minimized the feelings of burnout in myself and the other people I witnessed if we had that flexibility. But frankly, it's first in, first out, or like highest priority, most extreme gets done first. And there's really not any room to say, ⁓ I just worked three homicides. Let me just take a, you know, breaking and entering case. No, because everything going to court is a homicide.

And all the important ones that you need to get done are homicides. And so you just move from one homicide to the next. ⁓ So no, I wish it could have been like that. And it makes me wonder as you bring this up that if we had that flexibility, if the system allowed for us to choose based off of what we were feeling that day, based off of what we were dealing with at home, would we have been able to show up better for ourselves and for the work?

would the work have benefited as well if we were able to choose based off of what would have been most caring for ourselves? And I would hypothesize that the work would have been better.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:50)

It would have benefited the work if you were able to still contribute what's needed, but shape some flexibility based on your external circumstances that are beyond your control.

Elizabeth Wilson (36:03)

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:03)

I think a lot of professions need to learn from that for sure. And I am just seeing so many specialties where people are getting burned out. And it's great that in the writing process, people can have that flexibility. mean, at least you can pick up the pen and put it down at a particular moment. And it's a bit more.

Of a long process. It's not like when you're just putting out one article really quickly. It's not like news where it has to go out to that day. So I'm wondering. I was going to ask about this earlier. Actually, I'm wondering if you do see some forms of burnout or a juggle because so I'm guessing you're now living like, sorry, you're living life as a single parent now.

Elizabeth Wilson (36:55)

Yeah, there's definitely there's there's juggling and I think you you have to recognize depending on what phase of life you're in. Certainly for me as a mom of a now six year old, there have been times in the past six years where I've had to put my focus into parenting and not on my book. ⁓ Summers are a big time where I know that like the

mental energy, the creative energy to put into my book is not going to be there because I have found for me, and I think there are others that exist this way too, is that my caretaking energy and my creative energy come from the same cup. So if I have to pour more of myself out for caretaking, taking care of my daughter, taking care of anyone else around me, ⁓ like I said, I work at a school, so taking care of the kids at school.

If I have to do that to an extent that there's not anything left in that cup, then I cannot put that pressure or expectation on myself to do something that requires creative energy. I just have to make sure that I reserve some of that energy for my creative projects or pick different times to do my creative projects. And that's why I just know that summer is not one of those times where I'm going to be able to like

dig in and do a sprint writing or anything like that. But since I know that about myself, I can use that information. And I worked really hard in the spring to get my rewrites written and my book edited so that I could pass it off to my editor this July. So on July 1st, she got my full manuscript. She had it for all of July. And then I went on a trip in early August. So I've taken

probably six weeks away from my manuscript. And I will just let her, know, edits and suggestions sit there in my inbox for a while. And I know that I'll get to them. I'll probably get to them within the next week or two, but I had to let the school year start. I had to let our schedule and our rhythms of the season return before I know where I can plug in that creative energy. And so there is this sort of interesting,

Balance is not the right word because when you think of balance you think even but ebb and flow I guess of showing up consistently to do your work and recognizing that there are seasons for different types of work. So if I'm not actively working on the book I've been working on promoting the memoir program and I've been recording podcast episodes both for my own podcast and for other podcasts.

I'm still finding ways to show up and to get the message out, even if it's not using that for my own book.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:46)

seasons.

Elizabeth Wilson (39:47)

seasons.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:47)

seasons. That is the message for everybody or the ebb and flow as well. A lot of people are saying you can have it all or do it all but not all at once.

Elizabeth Wilson (39:57)

Not all at once.

At least not well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:59)

I

know, but I completely agree with your view that we only have so much energy physically. And I think that when you do have a child, your attention is naturally split in more directions or that's like a job and your creative projects are like a job. then you have your actual job.

And so naturally you have to have some compassion for yourself because you have more responsibilities than people who maybe don't have a creative project and a family, whatever it might be. You're wearing a few hats. And so it probably, did you need to have a bit of self-compassion in all that?

Elizabeth Wilson (40:45)

And I think that's why people are drawn to work with me because they know that I'm balancing all of these things. And so they know that I'll have deep empathy for the fact that they are balancing all of these things. It's not gonna be the kind of writing program where I say, okay, well, you have to sit down and work for two hours every day for the stretch of this program. They know that it's going to be streamlined and only the most important work and something that they can fit into their schedule, however they need to and adapt.

to their life and what their needs are. And I think, again, it's beautiful the way it circles back to what we talked about in the beginning about just showing up as the humans that we are, the messy parts, the real parts, the vulnerable parts. And if, as we show up that way, it is an invitation for others to be able to show up that way.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:37)

Your key message is to be messy and show up.

Elizabeth Wilson (41:41)

Mm-hmm. Just do it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:42)

just to do it. Is that your key bit of advice as we wind up that people should just dive in, give things a try? Don't wait for yourself to be perfect or for your work to be perfect.

Elizabeth Wilson (41:55)

Yeah, yeah, it's just a start. Allow it to be messy and start anyways.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (42:00)

Awesome. Elizabeth, thank you so much. ⁓

Elizabeth Wilson (42:03)

Thank you for having me. Thank you for being willing to show up and start your podcast

and provide a space for these kinds of conversations. Your viewers are so lucky to have you. And I know that you've got so much fun content planned for them coming up.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (42:21)

This is amazing. Thanks for those words. Thanks for your time. And it's been great.

Elizabeth Wilson (42:29)

Thank you.

Show Notes

Keywords

courage, leadership, self-care, technology, community, vulnerability, personal growth, mental health, empowerment, work-life balance

Summary

In this conversation, Megan Imbert shares her journey from a career in sports media to a leadership role in the tech industry, emphasizing the importance of courage, vulnerability, and self-care. She discusses the challenges of navigating societal expectations, the significance of community and connection, and the need for a balanced approach to work and life. Megan advocates for embracing curiosity and creativity as essential tools for personal growth and healing, while also addressing the impact of technology on human relationships. The conversation concludes with a call to recognize our worthiness and the power of joy amidst life's struggles.

Takeaways

Courage is essential for personal and professional growth.

Non-linear career paths can lead to fulfilling experiences.

Self-care and boundaries are crucial in the workplace.

Vulnerability in leadership fosters trust and connection.

Curiosity can bridge gaps between different perspectives.

Community engagement enhances our understanding of humanity.

Finding balance in life is key to well-being.

Embracing joy is important, even in difficult times.

Technology should enhance, not replace, human connection.

We are all worthy of our dreams and happiness.

Titles

Courageous Leadership: Embracing Vulnerability

Navigating Non-Linear Career Paths

Sound bites

"Everything is figureoutable."

"I want to know who you are."

"It's okay to have money."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background of Megan Imbert

01:33 The Journey of Courage and Leadership

04:14 Navigating Career Changes and Embracing Diversity

07:07 The Impact of Fear and Love on Life Choices

10:07 The Role of Personal Values in Professional Life

12:10 Social Dynamics and the Importance of Authenticity

15:00 The Intersection of Personal and Professional Life

17:50 Navigating Social Tensions and Community Engagement

20:29 The Importance of Boundaries and Self-Care

23:17 The Role of Women in Society and Healing

26:08 Staying Grounded in a Chaotic World

35:52 Mindfulness in Everyday Life

37:39 The Impact of Technology on Human Connection

39:14 Radical Responsibility and Self-Care

41:26 Lessons from Injury and Body Awareness

44:32 Finding Joy in Simple Pleasures

47:18 The Importance of Connection and Community

50:27 Navigating Vulnerability in Leadership

55:41 Curiosity and Compassion in Leadership

01:03:43 Finding Humanity in a Chaotic World

Transcript

'Megan Imbert (00:00)

having me on your show. I'm Megan Inbert. I'm talking to you from Austin, Texas. So out there in America and my background is one where I don't ever feel like I can just be boxed in. For my corporate day-to-day job, I'm a senior director for a high-tech company doing marketing.

In fact, one of my team members on my team is there in Sydney, Australia. So yeah, I just have a very, very global lens to the world and I'm incredibly passionate around leadership and then also what's going on in the United States and other parts of the world in terms of how we're showing up as human beings. And I started my own podcast, I guess it was May of 2024.

and it's called the frequency of courage. And it's become just more or less a passion project, sort of a movement of helping hopefully inspire people to live courageously, not in spite of fear, but I think we get to the places of our edges by, know, where are we afraid? Where can we be more courageous? so yeah, it's been quite a journey where I am embarking a lot on

you know, my leadership, healing, all sorts of things, but day-to-day job is in marketing for a high-tech company.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:23)

Right, what sort of tech?

Right, that's good for everybody these days, isn't it?

Megan Imbert (01:29)

Absolutely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:30)

And I saw something online about an Emmy.

Megan Imbert (01:34)

So when I was in college, I actually studied media technologies and marketing. And I started out with an internship within the National Football League, so the NFL. And I worked for the Washington, they're known as the now Washington Commanders. And I started out in public relations. And then my first full-time job out of college was as a TV producer.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:33)

So, going to it

Megan Imbert (01:58)

editor reporter within the team's ⁓ in-house broadcast department. So I actually did win an Emmy and it was awesome for my television production related, excuse me, related to the sports team. And so, yeah, my journey, ⁓ if anyone was to ever look me up, it has been a wild ride because...

I was really good at that job despite the environment. It was not a very healthy environment. It made national news. And I was since removed for a long time, as mentioned, working in high tech. And then in 2020, I was one of the whistleblowers actually against the owner of the team, Dan Snyder. And it turned into four years, 2020 to 2024 of investigations, including United States Congress,

attorney generals, et cetera. He is no longer the owner of the team. And the team has since had great owners and they've gone to some division championships and things like that. But the last five years has been a wild ride, but I did start my career out in television production and editing. Yeah, certainly my life is nonlinear, not boxed in. It's all a journey. So there's a lot of different routes we could go in today's conversation.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:17)

Absolutely. That's encouraging for people who do take a path that's not linear. And we do grow up, let me know if you had this experience, you grew up thinking you're going to maybe have one job for a long time or pick a specialty. Everybody gets that question. What do you want to be or who do you want to be when you grow up? And it's normally pick one thing. Did you find that you've had more freedom to change and do a few things at once like tech and a podcast?

Megan Imbert (03:48)

Yeah, it's interesting. think we do a disservice by asking children and young people what they want to do for the rest of their life and make it so that they have to go down a path. And what if they fail or what if they find out, I'm actually not interested in that and how many human beings on this planet are actually doing work because of what one of their parents had pushed them and they're not actually in flow, in joy and all of that.

My passion, even in college, I changed my major three or four times. I love psychology. I love environmental studies. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to study the oceans. then, yeah, business came around. Then there was politics and law. And then finally, I was like, okay, you're going to do media technologies and marketing. And with that,

When I jumped from the NFL job into high tech, it was a contracting role for Symantec, another global cybersecurity company. And when that happened, it was such a great opportunity and a really great culture. And I thought about, wow, I guess I'm trading the jocks and for the nerds now. And I was learning so much more and I was always so intimidated of tech and math. count with my fingers. My dad and my brother went off to be computer science.

majors and I just never thought that that realm would be for me at all. And then when I embarked on it and I've been successful in it and on the marketing front, know, everything from events to content and working with customers and prospects and sales teams, it's truly these I don't want anyone listening to be intimidated of different fields because there could be a particular niche just for you. so, yeah, it's been an interesting ride in terms of

being able to try new things. And then I feel very thankful that I'm in this industry because I've been able to kind of flex my wings a bit in terms of having my podcast, having some passion projects. And it feels like at least I'm at, it's a company called Ninja One. I'm at a place right now where I feel like I truly can show up my full authentic self. And I don't think a lot of places in corporate America, people really feel that way. And I feel very lucky.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:05)

Is there more empowerment in doing a bit of everything in the right way, in a way that makes sense for you?

Megan Imbert (06:14)

So I have an interesting perspective of life being that it's kind of a journey and if, know, again, my baseline is kind of this frequency of courage, ironically, and it's sort of like if you try something, you're going to know in a faster way whether or not you're good at it or you have an interest in it. So instead of being, you know, fearful of trying something new or taking a risk, go for it.

And I do think, you know, we don't have a long time in this lifetime to try different things. And if you're miserable every day, you know, maybe there's something else out there to try. um, yeah, I think it's just a matter of like, the sooner you can start to try different things and have a diverse, you know, a portfolio that's diverse. I feel like everything is figure outable. And in the technology era that we're in right now,

What a beautiful time to be alive. Now granted, we need discernment. We need to be able to validate sources in our information. We're dealing with different problems, but what an amazing time to be alive where we can actually be sort of supercharged by technology, by AI, ⁓ to really have that be like our helper and help us discover. So I would say young people, if they have opportunities to do internships or

study overseas or do things that are experiential, I would say do it because it's an opportunity to learn something that you probably wouldn't have before and learn really quickly whether or not you might have an interest. So I've had critics and professors, friends, family members that have never understood me because I've had so many different interests, but I've never let that get me down.

It was more or less they were like, you're never really going to be successful if you don't go. you know, Kobe Bryant was a fantastic basketball player because that's all he did was basketball. And I think if you want to be extraordinary at what you do, sure, there's a, might be some imbalances, but I'm kind of over that way of living in terms of there's more to my life besides the job or the profession. There's an analogy of like, like Melanie, you're the tree and you're

your fruit is like what you're producing with work and then there's family and hobbies. And so my perspective of my relationship to work and doing this stuff has changed. And I feel like people have different interests and go for it, get curious. I think that's where the richness in life is.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:43)

Absolutely. And I do want to credit, you mentioned how everything is figure out a ball. That one is totally from Marie Folio. Good reference. And it's, I'm so fascinated by how some of your teachers or the people around you wanted you to specialize. We have been in a culture of specializing. So it sounds like that's something you had to really overcome.

And I'm wondering if one of the lessons you can give to younger people is that you can do some things that might not be your day job, but it's still fulfilling. Like the podcast that you're hosting.

Megan Imbert (09:19)

Absolutely. I think it's really important to get to know yourself and what lights you up. What do you enjoy? I don't think we're having enough fun in life and I have a really good friend of mine who came out with a book of let's retire retirement and the whole concept of like how people might be in jobs that they're miserable just waiting to retire or whatnot. The people that might have been critiquing me in the past and this has been kind of a lesson every day in my life. I start to look at

their assessment is really actually a projection of their own limitation and they're putting their limitation on me. And so when you start to get to that place of like, okay, that's great. Like, thank you. I realize you're saying this because you're concerned for my wellbeing or my safety and just changing the frame of it really helps. ⁓

Yeah, I'm trying to think. Sorry, I am.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:10)

They're concerned for you.

Megan Imbert (10:10)

I my

thought on that. Say that again.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:14)

They are concerned for you.

Megan Imbert (10:16)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's the piece in life is making sure that if we know who we

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:23)

sweet. Yes. We're talking about how other people will, with good intentions, tell you which path you should be going on. And I think that's, that's so significant. I wanted to explore other areas like you're whistleblowing. And I think that'll be something to look into more, but the way that people do boxes in, they were taught that. you said that it shows their own limitations.

I could relate to that so much because I remember a moment in, I suppose, my mid twenties when someone who really cared about me said, don't start a business. You'll be spending too much money. Whereas there are all these low cost ways now. And I think there was even an assumption decades ago that you needed a whole office and so many things to do that. It's a different time. There is more freedom now.

Megan Imbert (11:15)

Yeah, and I think a lot, this might be a simplistic view of looking at life, but it applies to all categories. There's fear and there's love. And I feel like when we think about energy, the energy of fear is like scarcity or doom and gloom, failure, hatred, and then love is like abundance of good things and getting to a place of authenticity. so it...

I kind of apply this whenever I hear conversations where someone ⁓ is pushing someone down a different path. it's more or less if we start to question a few of the layers and the why, chances are we finally understand like, ⁓ they were afraid of doing that because of their safety or their need for security or them thinking and having a perception that owning a business is going to cost a ton of money versus you're going to have a completely different strategy.

I also think if there's young people listening, when people give you advice, and this is me, like I've never been married, so it's quite interesting too when it comes to like dating and everything, I don't take advice from people that I wouldn't want to trade their life with. And similarly, when it comes to like marriages and couples and people that I want to like potentially emulate a future relationship and like, I'm looking to see how you're living your life.

because there's a lot of performing and I'm about embodiment and it's coming from the inside out versus putting on like a show. So I just think it's kind of interesting when you start to, I kind of look at life as a little bit of a game now where it's like, ⁓ okay, most people want to be seen, heard, witnessed, loved. We all want the same thing. So it's just a matter of what's their baseline of how they're approaching day to day, right? It's like, are they...

afraid of something or are they here for truly like from a loving place?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:08)

Absolutely. We do all want those same things. I can appreciate that so much because you've probably met people from all walks of life and the work that you've done. might have, well, you did work with high profile people and executives and probably coworkers or just communities of any sorts and the people in your podcast. And we all want to be okay. And we all want to make the most of the limited time we have on this planet.

for those of us who are at least thinking about that. However, everybody has a different approach. Life is short, let's be a workaholic or let's, life is short, let's take it steady and have time with the people we care about or something else entirely. Absolutely. There are so many different ways to live and you don't have to absorb and replicate everybody else's lives. You can't, right?

Megan Imbert (14:02)

Yeah. And when I was

younger, I would say I had that hustle mentality that must make yourself invaluable at an organization. I think that's how I got my job in Washington for the NFL because I was willing to work all those extra hours. I was willing to also not be treated as well. And then as I've gone down my journey of growth, maturity and healing, I kind of recalibrated the standard of what I even accept around me. And also

something I'm really passionate about is like the integrity of leadership, the radical responsibility, the standard of who I surround myself intentionally with every day. And I do think ⁓ when you work in corporate or you work in systems that have a lot of different people, obviously even just day to day in the countries and the communities that we're in, we encounter all sorts of types of people. And I think it's just really important

to recognize the boundary setting, the expectations, the standard of which you're willing to be treated. And in the United States right now, I am not a fan of this administration whatsoever, and I do not hide my feelings about that. And I was very nervous. like, if I, at the very least, if I'm coming from a loving place, all I see right now around this world are wounded men that ends up

hurting and it's just, it's so sad to me because it's like, that's how I see it. And so I feel like the more I can show up in a heart centered courageous way, I didn't even know that the word courage meant from the heart until shortly after I launched my podcast. And I was like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like if we lead from heart and consciousness and love, then I think that can help combat what's going on. ⁓

if as like a new paradigm of leaders comes about, how can we do that in a compassionate way versus, know, there's a lot of layers here that I'm kind of unfolding and I keep talking about on my podcast, a call for like, like humanity renaissance. We're sitting here with technology and phones and how very few people, well, at least in America, there's so much of the on the phone all the time.

and not actually getting curious and engaging with the person next to you or your neighbor or whatnot. So I feel like we're in this place right now of like, what are we doing? We're supposed to be connected to nature and connected to each other. And this capitalistic, now don't get me wrong, I love money, but this capitalistic, individualistic way of being I think has created like a cancer. And so that's something too that's been on my heart a lot in terms of how I decide to lead.

And there's this blurred line between personal and professional for me now. It's like, no, this is who I am, like the leader that's embodied from this place. And it doesn't matter what space I'm in. So that's what I'm hoping people can look at because they have this, that's my professional life. That's my personal life. It's like, that's all the same. Or the standard I have for the people around me is I don't.

I want to know who you are when you're at home versus when you're in the office too. Like I want to know who you are and your values and how you show up and you know, do you actually care about the people around you, et cetera. So sorry, I'm going on a little bit of a tangent, but I feel like it's all kind of interrelated.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:22)

No, it's awesome.

That part right there is something. And I remember learning about the history of how the public and private life concept evolved. And it's, ⁓ you could almost call it ancient. So long ago, there was the public space developing and then people had their separate private life. But

There was a point in history where people decided that is how it's going to be. However, I completely agree with you that, that if people are behaving a particular way in the rest of the world, it's, it's the same human being breathing in and out. It's the same, it's the same person. You're not, you can have different parts of yourself, but it's still them.

So I completely agree. And you referenced so much. So start somewhere. I want to know what was your experience with the part of your career that has less boundaries and what are you seeing with? I mean, I'm not looking to be ultra political. However, I'm wondering what's your experience socially now as well with how people are treating each other.

Megan Imbert (18:41)

Yeah, and before we go on with that, one thing I wanted to touch on too, something that I find interesting, and this might be generationally, older generations may have a different view of privacy. So when we think about social and we have experts, like actual science researchers, experts, even government officials at the time, they were kind of told like, don't be on social or have your life private. Whereas I think that has now caused

problems with the misinformation that's out there because some of these people that I think scholars that were kind of trained like, who cares about that digital brand that you have in your thought process, but it's allowed for media and others in power to kind of put out whatever messages they want. That's been feeding the masses. So I wanted to touch on that because I think we're in an interesting time when we think about the workforce, like six, seven generations in there.

And there's a different view of privacy. There's a different way of how we work. ⁓ In terms of my experiences where there were less boundaries, it was rooted in my fear. It was my worthiness. was my, I think it comes down to a lack of safety. I'm adopted and I've learned about my core wound being around abandonment and it's the root chakra, all this stuff, nervous system regulation, but

With that, that period of my life, it was, I needed to be the people pleaser. I needed to get the things done. I needed to go over and outside of the realm of the time allotted for work and be available 24 seven and all of those things out of fear of, ultimately, I think it's like a spiral. It's like fear of losing the job, fear of being broke, fear of being homeless, fear of dying. Like it all kind of trickles together. So when I had,

less boundaries or didn't know how to communicate my boundaries. You'll also see, I think, a lot of the really toxic environments, especially when you think about entertainment and sports and these roles that people will do for less money. There's a lot more younger people. And I feel like with the younger people, there's that ability to exploit them more so than some of the other, like an adult that's already had their, you know,

They kind of don't give a shit anymore and they're gonna say how it is not have as much, you know fear of consequence so I think that's something to where it's so important to shape younger people with that sense of safety and not not construing their identity into their profession and knowing that it's okay to have a full life in interests and Taking your vacation There's a lot of companies in the United States that have unlimited time off

They say it, unlimited time off. But so many people don't take their time off. And I'm a leader where I will reach out to each one of my people and be like, hey, I've noticed I haven't seen you take any time off lunch, even if you take Friday, whatever, to push that because we're not meant to go 24 seven and then be, you know, we need to be rest. Rest to me is required now. ⁓ In terms of my experience socially. Now I live in Texas.

and I'm in Austin, Texas, which is a little bit, one of the most liberal places of Texas, but I'm from Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and I would say tensions, it's interesting. I think there's an avoidance of talking about certain subjects. There's definitely family, especially in white America. ⁓

where there's relations, that it's all superficial conversations. ⁓ this has been both my own journey along with people I know. And I have really taken and adopted the concept of my chosen family. So that's my friends, that's other people. And it's okay if people have different beliefs, but it's also, well, what...

What does that mean for me? Like if you're trying to infringe upon my rights and the rights of other people, then like we have an issue. Like straight up we have an issue. I'm not living from a place of fear. However, I'm also not going to sit back and watch like I'm a single 39 year old dog mom with a podcast in Austin, Texas. I'm probably useless.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:41)

Thank

you

Megan Imbert (23:05)

to the administration that thinks women are only supposed to have kids. And it's not lost on me. And I've also been on record against a billionaire around the treatment of women and all of that, who was also a huge Dan Snyder, who was the owner of the Washington NFL team. So that whole billionaire group, right? So it's not lost on me, but I, again, I'm not gonna live in fear. What I'm saying with the whole humanity renaissance thing is,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:17)

with it.

Megan Imbert (23:33)

How can I show up every day in my community and be friendly and try to have a conversation with someone that's different than me? ⁓ I think the scary part is that we all know that the United States has a lot of guns, regardless of criminals or normal everyday people, and some are responsible gun owners. The challenge I have is where it's a group of

people claiming to care about human life. But it doesn't add up to me when how quickly lives can be taken by mass shooters that we have in this country or whatever. To me, that doesn't line up. And also that whole conversation of being a pro-life person when we don't have health care and infrastructure, education that's set up for the full human. So

Tensions of course are rising. There's protests, there's all of that. I have not been back to DC since they've like launched the National Guard. From what I understand, it's just ridiculous. And I think we're in a place where the mass population, this administration, it's hopefully a time for people to wake up. I think there's a moment like apathy and being like, I'm just gonna...

focus on work or focus on something else. Meanwhile, there's all of this other stuff happening. I have a hard time ⁓ compartmentalizing. right now, ⁓

It's just different pockets of things that are happening, but yeah, it's not, it's this way of our nervous systems in my opinion, and I'm sure there's studies on this, the amount that we can be exposed to in 30 seconds of time is probably equivalent to what people years ago would have been their entire lifetime of tragedy and fear mongering and all of that.

I want to make sure that I'm not perpetuating any fear and I'm living my life in a loving way, but I'm also not going to be stupid and I'm not going to be naive either. So ⁓ it's a weird, it's a hard answer. I can't give a really good answer to that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:42)

It actually is quite an answer. And I'll share that I hop along various parts of the political spectrum. And that helps me to befriend people who are in very different political spaces, because I hope that you've seen this as well in all of the pockets of politics. There will normally be a minority view who are trying to make the world a better place within

the space that they happened to land in. And what you're seeing, what you've been saying is that people are numbing away from talking about things because they feel scared. And you've been honest about your experience of the world. I feel really inspired by that because I'm trying to find my own balance and I think I need to learn from you. And this is

Starting this podcast, realized it's almost every single one is a bit like therapy. Oprah said that she never went to therapy, but she got the equivalent all the time talking to people. And it's, it's so true, isn't it? It is. So my experience was serious things happened last year and I couldn't not say anything because it was my reality for so long. It's the day in

Megan Imbert (26:31)

Hmm.

It's so true.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:57)

day out reality and you're probably seeing people in America where maybe someone is not getting what they need from a hospital or whatever it might be. And there's no other reality in front of them. And so how can they not express that? But at the same time, you're talking about the fear and I can relate to that so much because I completely agree. We're not built to be on edge all the time, wound up all the time.

And to be real, I saw news occasionally about what's happening in America, but even with what's happening in Australia, if I was going to see all of the political news, I'd be stressing myself out when there's so much even happening in front of me and we can stay aware. But I really want to delve deeper with you on how do you stay grounded and keep perspective and stay connected with people?

Megan Imbert (27:47)

Yeah, I

have to give Dr. Amanda Hansen a shout out here. So she is a psychologist, but also runs programs, particularly for women. And I was in a six month program with her, I guess it was November to June or something. And there's a couple of things here. There's triggering words to people. Patriarchy is one of them.

But if we really start to look at the systems in place for thousands of years that by design women to be exhausted, women have the majority of autoimmune diseases, women are majority of the time caretakers for their children or their parents, and also now of course working in all these other things. So there's a lot around keeping, I believe,

keeping women exhausted and not having the conversations and not tapping into our intuitive abilities. If we want to talk about the witch wound, there's that too, the connection. So with women, whether it was, you know, think about midwifery or helping, you know, being tapped into nature and our intuition and the really powers that we have.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:48)

that for those who don't know.

Megan Imbert (29:04)

I mean, we have a life portal between our legs. Let's be clear, a lot of men are jealous that we can actually give life and there's a thing there. There's stuff to that. And from my vantage point, the witch wound is really around whether it's this life, past lives, ⁓ being the fear of death for speaking out, the fear of whatever the repercussion is and the abuses that happen to women in this

world. Like I am, I always have a flame of anger inside of me and I've had people be like, you're, you're, are you ever not going to be angry? I'm like, I can have joy and pleasure, but I'm always going to be fucking angry. Sorry for my language, but it's worth it. I'm always going to be angry about the treatment of women. And also of course there's poor treatment of men and young people. And so from my vantage point, it's getting to the place of

Our vocal cords, the formation of those, the same with our private parts within women. So when you can start to heal the trauma, you can also reconnect with your voice. There's so many women, and I would venture to say men, that have a hard time with speaking, and you were mentioning about having the podcast. The podcast was for me when I started mine. It was cathartic for me, and then as I was bringing people on, it was cathartic for them.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:06)

Thank you.

Megan Imbert (30:26)

and then listeners are hearing it, it's cathartic for them. It's truly a frequency and it's healing and I chills as I say this. ⁓ Those are my witchy gifts, you know? This is meant to be this type of conversation. But if I can help in any way, shape or form, helping a woman or a man reconnect with themselves and their own power, that's what we need to have happen. So in terms of how do we, Amanda Hansen will say, she'll use the concept

be resourced. So being resourced is being able to show up day to day in any setting and be able to hold the balance where in part of the training I'm in currently, it's around 80 % right here, 20 % to the other person. And really I'm an empath. I feel energy, I feel people. But if we remain steadfast in being resourced is when you're processing your emotions,

whether it's allowing yourself to cry, allowing yourself to scream, allowing yourself to dance, our bodies have energy that needs to move. So when you go through grief or anything, you need to be able to release that. Otherwise, when I believe, when it holds in the body, it manifests into illness, it manifests into other things if we're not properly treating it. So when we're resourced, that means we can respond to life, not react to life. It means we can...

approach versus avoid. So for me, I have tactics every single day where if possible in the mornings, like early morning, I have my time with my dog, Sky, who's made her appearance on the show. ⁓ We go for a walk and we literally sit in the grass. I'll go barefoot. It's nice and warm usually in Austin. So I sit barefoot with her. No music, no nothing. Listen to nature. I connect with nature.

Anytime throughout the day if something gets stressed, I take myself usually outside. I allow myself a timeout. As a leader, I tell my team, there's gonna be days where like, you know, you're gonna get frustrated or overwhelmed, but like, become self-aware that you know it's like, I need a moment. I need to walk outside. I need to give myself, I call it give myself a timeout. Making sure you're sleeping. Making sure you're eating the proper food and drinking water.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:15)

you

Thank you.

Megan Imbert (32:41)

Sounds pretty basic, but if you're not sleeping properly, if you're not eating properly, that shows up like what we ate today will impact us three days later. So from a resource perspective is being able to really modulate through the different kind of archetypes that exist within all of us. that's fine to be angry, but you know what? I can be angry and scream in one second and then giggle in another one.

where a lot of the patriarchy would be like, she's crazy. No, I just know how to process through things and not hold on to it. ⁓ becoming a resource person, I think is also on the pathway of becoming a safe human.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:22)

absolutely it's really something when you say the raw reality and then suddenly that must be just a bit too much for everybody I found that I what really

Megan Imbert (33:35)

You just gave me chills talking about being too much. I have poetry,

yeah, because I believe, and this is how I'm designed, I really, think one of the most beautiful things about me is that I can relate to the human experience. I can relate to the animal experience. The fact that I can feel so much, so much of my life, was, she's too much. And now I'm like, nope, I am, I am.

perfectly enough and I think that's the most beautiful part because I have the capacity to see and feel it all and Now have the ability to have the boundaries that I'm not gonna carry it all You know

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:13)

You would

love the podcast episode that I recorded before this one, because it was definitely touching on that feeling of just, okay, you're feeling things intensely, but you can't take on everybody else's thing. And you're bringing that to everybody as well. That even we are connected with so many people and some will say that there was a time in history when you'd be in a small village. And I even during.

Megan Imbert (34:40)

Mm-hmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:41)

pandemic for a little while I happened to be temporarily living in a small little village and there are only so many people around you but then now we are connected with so many people and the demands are so intense but you can't take on everybody else's you can't

Megan Imbert (34:58)

Yeah.

A place that I like to kind of practice and play a little bit, places like the airport, where most people, if you really pay attention, like put your, you will stick out like a sore thumb if you are walking through the airport without your phone in your hand and you're just like trying to make eye contact with people. You see people stressed out, ⁓ security line at an airport. Like the second,

you just like help somebody or you you allow them in front of you if they're stressed, just there's a pause. I've just noticed this like freeze happen. I'm like, it's okay. It's all good. Like we're good. And yeah. And I think the airport's an interesting spot because you have so many different, I mean, you every background at an airport or grocery store, usually an airport, cause it's crowded and people are in a hurry and they're frazzled.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:39)

You're being kind, you're being human.

Megan Imbert (35:52)

I also noticed this in traffic. I took a mindfulness, it was actually a positive psychology class in college. I think everyone should take this. This should be something that grade school kids learn about. when you're stuck in traffic, but there's a sunset or I have one of my favorite songs on it and just focusing on that rather than like the person that just cut you off. And I felt like,

If I can think about the person cutting me off that maybe they're having the worst day of their life or something terrible has happened, it gets me out of that like, my gosh, you cut me off versus like, all right, get there safely. Don't cause a problem. But yeah, I think there's these tools like that, know, schools that should have like yoga instead of detention and...

helping kids, like, there's probably something else going on rather than punishing them, like, let's sit with them and understand what's happening. So, but here I am, I have no kids.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:48)

I can see so much in what you just said. Okay. First of all, the phone thing, you went back to that a few times and I have to really acknowledge that with you because we were trained in just, let's call it a couple of decades. It was really just a couple of decades out of all of history where

Megan Imbert (36:53)

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:11)

I mean, you're a similar age. You're just a little bit older than me. So we would have grown up just walking outside and having simple experiences, just living life essentially. And fast forward to now and you're spot on. Everybody knows that faces are in phones and it's, it's such a fine line. I get the workaholic moments, things like that, or I wonder what someone says up to whatever.

But we're not seeing the world around us anymore. We're not even looking at the space around us. And you're looking at kindness as well with helping people at the airport. People are skeptical of kindness now.

Megan Imbert (37:52)

So that's sad.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:53)

It really is. I don't know if you've seen that, but one of the most controversial things that I have done is be real with people who are often not feeling like they are allowed to even be real and connect with kindness.

Megan Imbert (37:55)

com.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:14)

But I hope you would agree that we also need to receive a little bit of that in return. We need to fill our cup.

Megan Imbert (38:21)

Yeah, and I still think primarily this is an inside job. This is where if I am filling myself up, if I am taking care of myself, if I without a spouse or a neighbor or a friend doing this myself, yes, capable of receiving, appreciate receiving. But if I have myself covered as best I can,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:22)

Thank

Megan Imbert (38:48)

then there's not a lack, there's not a expectation of anyone else. I think this comes to kind of the radical responsibility of, you know, also limiting expectations for other people and realizing how we all have something that's going on in our lives. And ⁓ when it comes to like radical responsibility, I think it comes back to that resourcing part.

knowing what you need. No one's going to know what you need more than what you do. And so if you know that you must have lunch at a certain time or you're really angry at the people around you, imagine if you don't have lunch and then something you say something and it creates this ripple effect. That's the same thing with a ripple effect of positivity or being kind or helping someone out. I'm a big

gratitude person too. And even at my job, we have a Slack thanks channel and I try every week to pop something into that channel. And it's just, it's free. It's easy. It's not hard to acknowledge a teammate. And, you know, especially when you feel like maybe people don't see or recognize, ⁓ you know, what your needs are. I will say too,

You know, I had an injury in 2019 where I basically shredded my ligaments and tendons of my right ankle. I didn't break the bone, but I was like 19 weeks non-weight bearing, thankfully on a bottom floor apartment. But that was horrendous and that was the most severe injury I've ever had. But that perspective of having that injury was such a lesson for me that now whenever I see someone in a boot or I really slow down and ask how I could help them.

And it's just, I think it's a game changer because, know, at the end of the day, like I want to be on time to things, but if I'm going to be five minutes late because I was able to help somebody, you know, chances are than the person I'm meeting, if they have a problem with that, then I probably have a problem with them.

Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:46)

The experience, the difficult experience that you had helped you to understand the human experiences that other people are having. I absolutely, and it teaches you a bit of balance. I'm wondering if you saw that in any of your life challenges because I had a slightly similar thing years ago. I got a tibial plateau fracture, so I did break a bone, but it's, I got less weeks of hopping.

Megan Imbert (40:55)

Absolutely.

Ow.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:13)

than you did, but I was definitely hopping around for weeks on end. And it forces you to be balanced and it forces you to say, okay, look, you only get this one body, how you're going to look after it.

Megan Imbert (41:26)

Yeah, and I also think depending on what happened during significant injuries, I think if you start to map your life to different moments in time, you're going to notice for me, I was go, go, go, go, go. And guess what the universe universe is like, you're gonna sit your ass down and stop for a second. And what and other friends when they start to do that, it's very interesting just to see like, what was happening? Was there something going on in a relationship? Was there something?

There's different correlations to different body parts too. Now, whether or not it's all true, it is really interesting when you start going down one of those rabbit holes of, okay, what was that? Why did I need to slow down? And yeah, your point on the balance part, if you can slow down and have stillness and meditation or just have a quiet morning, you can get more in tune with actually how your body feels. What I found in the last 10 years,

was that parts of my body were almost numb. It's only now that they're like, I'm feeling my body because so much was happening up here. I'm distracting. And I think a lot of times we'll use alcohol or use something else, bad food. It's fascinating to me as to we have all these organs inside of us and I'm not feeling anything. But now I do. And it was like,

is that pain? No, it's just you're digesting. It's like we're so stuck in our heads.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (42:53)

Two things there. Firstly, I am stunned by the parallel experiences. Seriously. So you were rushing around, maybe doing a lot, maybe over committing when you got injured. I can relate. That's what happened.

Megan Imbert (43:06)

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and I think

a lot of people with foot or leg injuries, I guarantee you, there's stuff like that, just not slowing down. And I do think that the universe has a way of putting things in your path until you learn it and those lessons. ⁓ Yeah, I will never forget the day that I could finally stand, and that was such a painful experience, like learning to walk again.

but to be able to stand in the shower and I have a lot of hair and to like just wash my hair. I just cried in the shower, but it was like that immense appreciation for like water on, like it was just, it was a beautiful experience. Cause I, it wasn't the same like hands and knees like bathing and then it was just awful.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:51)

It's humbling as well because until those moments, we might only appreciate the career moments or things that the culture tells us to value. And then you don't appreciate the very simple things until they're taken away.

Megan Imbert (44:09)

It's so interesting you say that, my perspective now, like on the weekend, right? I'm like, okay, I got my workouts in the last couple of days. I had my grounding time with my dog. Last weekend, I picked up some watercolors and started painting, like doing things that were restful and relaxing versus all of this stuff.

I celebrate that now where I'm like, yeah, my weekend. I gave myself a few hours just to watercolor. like, when was the last time I did that? know, it's like, I think that's part of where I want to start inserting play more in my day to day, not take everything so seriously. ⁓ Because I do think so many of our emergencies in life are not emergencies at all. And that's why we're all

not we're all, but a lot of people are on high alert, like fight or flight all the time, our adrenaline system crazy versus, know, a strategy I use in my day-to-day life is also I do padding between meetings and try to look at my calendar the week before to see what I can push, what needs to happen. So I have time to think or time to go for a walk outside, eat a proper lunch.

And I know that's probably more of a American problem where they're just, they're not taking their time off. They're not doing their stuff. Is it also in Australia?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:33)

I that happens here as well. was

doing some work. I worked at a place for a very short amount of time. It was nearly three years ago and I saw people in a, they were lovely, lovely people, but they were in a room with no windows and just eating at the desk for lunch. And it's basically you're indulgent.

You're indulging if you're giving yourself even a moment to literally see the sun.

Megan Imbert (46:03)

Yeah, yeah, I'm not subscribing to any of that anymore. No. And it's silly when it's like the behaviors of being sedentary in front of a computer screen and not interacting with people or nature and eating properly and stuff. But it's no wonder for the last like decade or more, I'm bringing down my body's inflammation and like, I'm not going to have perfect results in a year or two. I even met with a

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (46:07)

No.

Megan Imbert (46:30)

holistic doctor, ⁓ where even my digestion, like the processes were not fully turning on because of all the challenges of stress and things. So I'm really thankful that, you know, I'll be 40 next year. And it's like, I'm ahead of the curve in terms of starting to say like, no, this doesn't work for me. I can still and probably show up even better by caring and loving myself.

And I'm being an example for my teammates too. ⁓ So yeah, think there's a lot that we have backwards in terms of, know, ultimately like my goal isn't just to like work my tail off and then on the years when I'm getting older, like that's when I live freely, you know? I wanna change that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:18)

When we're a lot older, that's when other health issues will come along. And we're seeing now generations of people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, and so on, where they're having severe illnesses and they didn't have all these preventions because they might've spent the last few decades not looking after themselves. And it's so great that for this one, like I said, you're so close to my age. And I think that we're getting something from that because

This is an interesting point. I still identify with an earlier age of my thirties. feel younger than I am. However, when you're at this point, you're young enough to still do a lot, but you are lived enough. don't want to say old enough, but you're lived enough that you're aware of how much time is left, but also you're aware that if you don't look after this body, will break and probably more aware than when you were younger.

Megan Imbert (48:00)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And I think in terms of even my body awareness, but what we were talking about earlier, it's like, I am so intentional with my time, with the energy expenditure that I have. Like even knowing I'm going to do this podcast today, I didn't take, didn't, sometimes I might take some phone calls, like, but I was very much like, no, I want to be able to have energy to be able to deliver what is in our highest good for the show. So it's just getting to that place of like,

Energy management, people, relationship management. ⁓ I think that's been such a game changer so I can actually show up present. I remember when I think about people that I've enjoyed being around in my life, it's always the ones that are giving the undivided attention that made me feel seen, that made me feel heard. And I do think if I'm constantly on my phone or always thinking about what's next,

I lose sight of that possibility of having one of those interactions. And ⁓ even with the pandemic, I think part of the challenge where we're probably still gonna see the mental health issues coming out of it. But what I really missed because I moved to Austin in January of 2020 and then everything shut down in March, it was like new city, mid thirties. And people were not, they weren't talking to people they didn't know.

⁓ But I really miss that impromptu random, you know, talk up somebody at a coffee shop or you're passing by someone on street and you say something. So I'm hoping that we get back to that a little bit more. I will say for myself, before the pandemic, I was very much extroverted. And then being by myself down here for years, you know, which was wild.

barely knowing people other than some of my colleagues. ⁓ It was tough. And I think I'm finally, I mean, it's 2025, right? Finally coming out of that and feeling like, okay, like, ⁓ but with maturity comes, know, I like to go to bed by 10 o'clock. I'm not gonna be going out to, I don't like going out to the bars. Like my view of fun is totally different as well. But I just wanted to touch on that because I think that's something too, where like every day, like just,

How are you engaging with the people that you wander past? like an old person walking by, like you saying hi to them. Just like anyone's situation, you don't know what their life situation is at home and it can make a big difference.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (50:40)

You're very focused on connection and I understand what sort of experience you might've had in 2020 because although we're on the other side of the world, I needed to move eventually in 2020. And you're right where I was initially people were very connected to them. Eventually there were enough restrictions that we couldn't see everybody as much and

You're right. I moved to this current spot in 22. And even then the locals were all saying it was something else before COVID and everybody went out more before this. And seriously, it turned into a ghost town. Possibly. I think it's a bit more social now, but at least people are apparently socially different before that. So it's mind blowing knowing that you had that experience as well on the other side of the world. And I wonder how many communities

Megan Imbert (51:21)

Hmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:33)

are trying to relearn how to connect after all this time.

Megan Imbert (51:36)

Absolutely.

Absolutely. there was so much loss and the grief that people, know, grief never goes away. So I think that's a big one too, especially in rural parts of the U.S. that a lot of people might have died. ⁓ so I think there's a lot there that ⁓ when we talk about the access of health care and

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:38)

And so.

Megan Imbert (52:02)

Yeah, I found it to be really challenging and I couldn't help but think of cities like New York where people, have so many people, but then they were all kind of locked in there. ⁓ I do think now as we've come out, like I rarely drink alcohol now, I used to drink before. ⁓ I think that just, I think there is, at least in the circles I'm around, there's much more of a focus on health and wellbeing.

And I think the pandemic actually helped put a pause on some of that behavior where people did get kind of a wake up call around their work, the way they're living their life, their relationships. I'm sure divorce attorneys made a fortune. just...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:46)

Everybody had breakups. Everybody. Not

literally, but so many. The percentage would be... a lot.

Megan Imbert (52:51)

I bet.

Yeah. And I think these are all things that we're still going to see the residual impacts of. And then when you think about the kids, the high schoolers and whatever that miss parts of their years and everything, I think there's just right now with the generation, the youngest one that's in here, not to sound like an old lady on here, how they don't all have that same like...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (53:14)

Okay.

Megan Imbert (53:18)

business acumen training and knowing how to conduct and how to show up and what's work appropriate to wear and how to just be. So I think, you know, if there's any like people leaders on the line, I think this is where like the leaning in and mentoring some of the younger folks is gonna be really helpful because, you know, they only know what they know. And some of them really lost out on some of the experiences that we would have had. ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (53:46)

Absolutely. And I got the impression from what you said about your team that you are okay to really check with them. Are you okay?

Megan Imbert (53:55)

Yeah, I am. actually, if I get a sense of something and I've had past people that have reported into my organization at different companies or later found out about like domestic violence or friends that have, you know, lost someone to suicide or whatever, like some serious stuff, I will always.

And I'll word it this way, which might sound a little funny, but I'll be like, so I'm calling to check in on your heart today. And I don't think a lot of people in corporate America do that. It's like, obviously I care about the work, but the person, like, how are we doing? know this, you know, whatever's going on. ⁓ And if what we were talking about earlier, things that might happen in the U.S., if there's a tragedy or something that has me shook up,

I will actually be the leader that's vulnerable and say something first of like, hey, I'm not gonna have this call today or I'm not in a good space. So I think courageous conscious leadership is about being vulnerable first. And that way people have the permission and hopefully will feel comfortable letting you in on what's going on in their life and try to figure out how to either work with me or there's resources available. And I think when you're a highly intuitive person,

I tend to pick up on things of other people that might be on other teams and then I'll kind of let their manager know. And usually I'm pretty right. And I'll hear about it later of like, wow, thank you. it's just like, just like if you're tuned in with people and you notice somebody's off, like just checking in goes a long way. So, and in fact, this current organization, I actually sought out a job where I could be hybrid. So I could go in the office and work from home.

Because I was craving, I wanted that human connection and I love the culture of the company I'm at. And it has been awesome just because there's certain days I'm in the office and we're cranking everything out and everybody's hanging out and then I can work from home. I just, I knew that I needed that connection, especially coming out of the pandemic.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (56:02)

You do, you need the connection. And I'm wondering about the vulnerability that you talked about because you are in leadership. People have so many forms of leadership and I had questions for myself that I could learn from you because I at least focus on maybe when I'm organizing an event, I'm with a bunch of people and I'm still the center of the wheel and

So people are in all sorts of types of leadership. And so I'm wondering when, if you could give advice to people who are in that sort of situation of being responsible for a group in whatever sense, they might wonder how much can they reveal without being judged for it? What can they reveal when still looking traditionally professional? And how can they balance that with opening up to say, look, everybody

I'm here for you but I have quite a headache today or whatever it might be. Where can people find that balance?

Megan Imbert (57:01)

Yeah, I think it's

a great question and there's discernment that's needed. So certainly goes back to like even that self-awareness of like if you're going through a really hard time and maybe there's a group happy hour with drinks involved. If you know that having some drinks is going to make you feel terrible and probably blurt things out that you normally wouldn't, it's having those guardrails for yourself in place as well where it's like.

how will I be under certain situations? If it's something where, I think some blanket statements of like, hey, I just wanted to let you know that I'm dealing with a personal matter at the moment and just wanna make sure you know that ⁓ this is how and when you can reach me if there needs to be some kind of boundary or, ⁓ I think depending on what it is,

Sharing is fine. I tend to be a bit more of an open book, but not really divulging details. ⁓ Like for instance, if I have someone in my family that's going through a sickness or something, I'll be open with my team about that because some of that might be unpredictable and I just want people to know like, this is weighing on me or this just happened. Also on the transverse, good news, I like to share with my team too. ⁓

I never want to pry with anyone else, but if you're a leader and like you're going through something, I think that's what often gets missed is that the middle management in companies, they're usually weighing and balancing the expectations from above while also helping out with the individual contributors. And honestly, you could have a great day and then you're hearing something terrible from someone. And it's like, again, back to the boundary of like, this is not mine, but I'm here for you. Okay. And we work through it.

So think it depends on what the topic is that you feel comfortable with. from there, I think if you feel like you're going to be judged, think that shows where there's more work to be done in terms of getting to that place of this is my truth and it's okay. Everyone's judging you anyway. That's what I've come to realize. It's like, they already are. They're already judging you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (59:19)

Nice.

Megan Imbert (59:19)

So depending on what it is, sometimes it's showing the human and showing the real. ⁓ And then from an appropriate standpoint, I think that's just using discernment of like, say you're going through a divorce and you don't need to tell your team the details of whatever happened. like, it's just, think keeping it high level will be enough. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (59:44)

Dot points for sure. I absolutely adored that line that they are judging you anyway. It goes both ways because the internet will tell you people are thinking about themselves. They're not even thinking about you and it can feel reassuring, but on the flip side, if you are in the center of a group, if you are responsible for people, people are going to criticize something. So.

Megan Imbert (1:00:12)

Well, and again, think that back to if people are judging you and you find out like if they're bullying behind your back or saying anything, in my opinion, it shows so much more about them than it does about you anyway. So it's kind of like, yeah, like it's more about them. Like you have strong opinions about it. How do you really feel about it? Yeah. Or what would you do in my situation?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:00:12)

You're finding freedom in that.

Megan Imbert (1:00:36)

You know, I think it's interesting to like flip it back at somebody a little bit of like, Hey, if you were me, how would you approach this? I think that's a good tactic for anyone, especially if it's coming from like a leader or someone that has authority quote unquote over you is, you know, it's very easy to criticize. Brene Brown's really good in her books that she writes about, like about being in the arena versus not being in the arena.

and how there's tons of critics. But if we push it back to someone else, like, hey, I'm curious your perspective, if you were me, how would you approach this? Or, you know, it just sends ⁓ kind of a message of like, seeing it from forcing someone to see it from your perspective, or possibly, possibly putting themselves in your shoes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:01:21)

You have all of the points. This is flying perfectly. Renee Brown being in the arena. I remember hearing that, that story, so to speak. And it reminds me so much earlier this year, I got so much criticism from someone who was not willing to do the same work I was doing. So it's easy for people to complain, but they wouldn't want to be in your shoes.

Megan Imbert (1:01:44)

Yeah. And even as I lead teams and say my individual contributors know all of the tactics and the process, if I have a different expectation, I will usually say like, do I have blind spots here? What am I missing? That way I'm not changing something that really derails them or takes longer. And like I've become, you know, a challenge for them. So I tend to think the more questions we ask, the more curious we are. ⁓ it's going to lead to a better result at the end of the day.

in terms of all of it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:02:15)

That's a lesson for everybody right there. Ask questions and be curious.

Megan Imbert (1:02:20)

curiosity.

Yeah, I have a whole episode on the courage to be curious. And it goes back to all the things we talked about today. Like if you're curious about your neighbor, you're curious about that person that's different from you, and you're coming at it from really a place to try to understand versus, you know, make a stereotype or a judgment. And that's usually where you're to get to some kind of understanding or

you know, wow, you might've opened up a door of some new world for you to explore.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:02:49)

It's great going back to that courage as we perhaps wind up the episode at this point, because we are living in a world where we're going to need courage and you are seeing so much politically and socially over there and over here all sorts of things are happening. But I think that even everyday realities are becoming so different from what people can cope with, cost of living.

and the different expectation for work. think we're beyond, we're beyond the era to some extent where people can only do nine to five. A lot of people are feeling pressured to do a lot. We're just, we're scared of everything these days. And so I want to really steer this back to reassuring everybody and asking you, okay, how can everybody take a breath and find the humanity in this

current form of the world that we're in.

Megan Imbert (1:03:46)

Yeah, it's a lot and it feels like the world could be on your shoulders. And I think there's exactly that. It starts with looking at ourselves in the mirror. It starts with what would be the perfect life? What would be the perfect day? How do I enjoy the world around me? How do people show up for each other? At the end of the day, I think no matter what someone comes from,

we have the same goals as human beings, ultimately same needs, same desires. It's just matter of how much trauma and other things have gotten in the way and blocked that hope and possibility. And I feel like getting still, having like a daily practice of being still and I like to journal.

And sometimes I journal just whatever is in my head just to get it out on paper. And so it's not blocking my brain. But I think if we can like really look at what's possible, and I do think there's a lot of nervous system healing work that that can be done. And that could be nervous system yoga to I am a fan of plant based medicine in a responsible way where it can actually literally

help rewire your nervous system and being committed to looking at what is the one thing that we can do differently every single day that could be maybe it is going to bed earlier, maybe it is eating a better meal or calling up a friend or saying I'm sorry, taking some responsibility for something. It's gonna start to chip away in these positive ways of like helping get your world feeling like it's on the right path and I think

when it comes to finances and those sorts of things, you know, for me, it became an exercise in my self-worthiness. It was a part of, I am worthy of making money. And there's a lot around energy of money and the fact that if you have a relationship with money that there's never enough.

or money is bad because billionaires exist. I also don't think billionaires should exist. I would never be a billionaire because we would have all the problems solved for hunger and like all of those things. But if we have a relationship with money where it was scarce or it was bad, changing that took, now I look at money and I grew up that way where it was like I had two jobs when I was 15. I was always hustling and I couldn't wait to grow up though too.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:06:06)

you

Megan Imbert (1:06:14)

I needed to play more. But if we look at money the way I do now as a tool, a tool that can be used for good, it's powerful, it's okay. And as a woman to say, it's okay to have money. It's great to have money. We're worthy of having money. It's changing that relationship. then thinking about no one is forced to do right now. I mean, other than

illegal slavery and things like that. But like, we're not forced to do what we're doing on a day to day basis. think having an open mind to the possibilities and also to our point earlier around technology and these different ways of making money or something that might light you up and maybe a hobby turns into a passion, turns into money. So I think it's really looking at your day to day life and getting doing that like place of what lights me up and

What could I do to start getting on a path or who am I surrounding myself with? Again, being very intentional. If you're surrounding yourself with people that there's never enough money and they are negative all the time and it's always someone else's fault, that vibration, that frequency, like I want nothing to do with that. Get yourself in rooms with people that are dreamers, are creative, are artists. The state of the world right now, we need...

dreamers and creative people and artists to also show us what's possible. So I would say getting that time for yourself and then think about like, well, what are they doing? Or again, that courage to take a risk, the courage to reach out to someone to have a conversation. It's some basic things that could like start chipping away at building a better path. But I think for me, it came down to I'm worthy of having an incredible life. I am worthy of having

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:07:45)

Thank

Megan Imbert (1:07:59)

All of my dreams come true. I don't even know what all those dreams are, but I know it's possible because I'm worth it. And so I think that is the exercise for everyone that your self love and your worthiness becomes like the baseline for all the interactions in your world. And if you want to see beauty in the world, then you're going to see it just like the duality. If you want to see the pain and the ugly, but I'm choosing love and to see things in as much of a beautiful way.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:08:22)

Thanks.

Megan Imbert (1:08:26)

I used to feel very guilty of how am going to have joy and there's all this pain and suffering in the world. Then I realized, no, I'm allowed to have that joy and not feel guilty about it either and do whatever I can to try to help anybody that's suffering.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:08:37)

you

Megan, I want to express gratitude for you for your courage and how you're prioritizing creativity and self care. The way you've talked about reducing stress, can tell you I was all about what to eat and I realized that we can be too stressed out that it's that that can get in the way of whatever else we are achieving and

Megan Imbert (1:08:42)

Thank

Mmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:09:07)

I'll be real and say that I went into this conversation at the beginning, knowing that you have an Emmy and you were brave enough to be a whistleblower and you work in tech. And I appreciate so much that the lesson you have learned amid all of these achievements is actually that you needed to find balance and self care within your

intense compassion for the world. Everybody can learn from that. This conversation has been empowering. And it's such a line to say that this has healed me a little bit because it really has. I to thank you so much for being on the show.

Megan Imbert (1:09:53)

Thank you for having me. I think this is so cool and it's fun because I've been thinking like, I want to get on more shows. I want to have more conversations. so thank you for allowing me the space. And I'm really, really excited just to see what kind of ripple effect. Hopefully people get a little nugget from what we're talking about today. And you know, it just is a positive ripple in the world.

I love the fact that you're in Australia too. It's like, is this going around the world? Let's do it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:10:23)

It is. Have you talked with people from Australia much?

Megan Imbert (1:10:27)

⁓ Yeah, I have members of my team. So being in tech and working for ⁓ global companies, I know quite a few people that are usually in Sydney or Melbourne. So I'm saying Melbourne wrong, Melbourne. And I did go to Australia a couple years ago and I popped by Melbourne, Sydney and Cairns. I did a little snorkeling. It was amazing.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (1:10:39)

Right.

I've never done that. That sounds fun. I think you have more fun than I do. Okay. I'm... Yes, thanks. It was great to talk to you and we'll keep in touch and have a great rest of your day. Bye.

Megan Imbert (1:10:53)

Yeah, you need to go do that. You need to go do that. Well, thank you so much.

Thank you, you too.

Keywords

public speaking, communication, grief, technology, education, mental health, personal growth, storytelling, resilience, life lessons

Summary

In this conversation, Nino Vincenzo and Melanie Suzanne Wilson explore various themes including the changing nature of weather and communication, the psychology behind public speaking, the impact of technology on interpersonal skills, and the importance of storytelling in overcoming grief. Nino shares his personal experiences with loss and how they shaped his perspective on life and communication. The discussion also touches on the challenges faced by younger generations in navigating their identities and the significance of reading and mentorship in personal growth.

Takeaways

The weather is changing, reflecting broader environmental issues.

Public speaking is a significant source of anxiety for many.

Communication skills are essential in the digital age.

Overcoming grief can lead to personal growth and purpose.

Young people need to seek help and mentorship.

Reading enhances communication skills and imagination.

Life is full of transitions and uncertainties.

It's important to embrace discomfort for growth.

Finding your own path is crucial in a world of expectations.

Adaptation to new forms of communication is necessary.

Titles

Navigating Change: Weather and Communication

The Art of Public Speaking: Overcoming Fear

Sound bites

"Reading stimulates the imagination."

"Be your own guru."

"You made a possibility just now."

Chapters

00:00 Weather Changes and Global Warming Discussion

00:52 The Art of Public Speaking and Overcoming Fear

05:47 Generational Differences in Communication

10:56 The Impact of Technology on Communication

11:40 Personal Journey and Memoir Writing

19:42 Advice for Young People Facing Challenges

28:39 The Power of Dreams and Communication

29:54 Navigating Technology and Human Connection

32:35 The Importance of Reading and Communication Skills

35:53 The Art of Conciseness in Communication

38:53 Listening: The Other Side of Communication

42:49 Overcoming Anxiety and Finding Your Voice

44:20 Life Transitions and Finding Purpose

48:45 Embracing Life's Uncertainties

53:30 The Journey of Self-Discovery and Adaptation

Keywords

mindfulness, holistic education, energy healing, breathwork, emotional awareness, personal growth, creativity, empathy, wellness journey, decision making

Summary

In this conversation, Melanie Suzanne Wilson and Catherine Vincent explore the themes of mindfulness, holistic education, and personal growth. Catherine shares her journey from teaching to energy healing and counseling, emphasizing the importance of breathwork, emotional awareness, and creative expression in healing. They discuss the challenges of navigating thoughts and emotions, especially in a world filled with distractions, and the significance of finding balance and stability during times of change. Catherine offers actionable insights on how to connect with one's true self and the importance of noticing what lights you up.

Takeaways

Catherine is a holistic educator and energy healer. Breathwork is essential for grounding and awareness. Emotions play a crucial role in decision-making. Creative expression can aid in emotional healing. Mindfulness helps in navigating thoughts and feelings. Empathy requires managing one's own emotional state. Teaching emotional awareness is vital for personal growth. Finding balance is key during times of change. Noticing what lights you up can lead to fulfillment. Slowing down your breath can regulate your nervous system.

Titles

Mindful Spaces and Personal Growth Integrating Holistic Practices

Sound bites

"Let's help people to heal themselves." "You have to look at them." "Noticing what lights you up is the key."

Chapters

00:00 Mindfulness in Nature 01:09 Holistic Education and Energy Healing 03:30 Breathwork and Presence 06:23 Navigating Thoughts and Emotions 10:01 Balancing Logic and Creativity 12:34 Understanding Fight or Flight Responses 15:12 Breathing Techniques for Inner Peace 19:56 Emotional Expression in Teaching 25:28 Navigating Distractions and Emotional Expression 27:55 The Impact of Overload on Empathy 29:56 Teaching Emotional Awareness to Diverse Age Groups 38:36 Personal Journeys and Overcoming Trauma 42:40 Using Movement and Breath for Emotional Healing 49:21 Finding Balance Amidst Change 56:13 Key Lessons for Personal Fulfillment

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:01) So Catherine will just sort of banter before the more structured side, but so you're in Vietnam and you are surrounded by the coastal sides and you mentioned mountains and there are Buddhas around. So it sounds like you're in a really mindful space.

Catherine Vincent (00:05) Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, if you're conscious, if you're interested in the mindful aspects, if you love nature and the elements, like the breeze and the sand and the sun, yes, it can be a wonderful space. Otherwise, ⁓ there's something for everyone in the city, in any city.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:44) True, there really is.

I had a look to learn a bit about you online and you've done a bit of everything.

Catherine Vincent (00:53) Yum.

Yeah, I'm still a holistic educator. I'm still teaching students throughout the year and it's really rewarding. And that's my main income maker and I do the energy healing and intuitive readings on the side and I'd love for that to become full time.

I started getting into being at markets to provide my services while in Denang and I was grateful to get the opportunity to provide energy healing at this retreat for mostly Australian women at the Ultimate Girls Week Away. And from those connections, I've been invited to provide energy healing at more retreats moving forward. So it's just, it's interesting the new chapter I'm stepping into.

trying to study counseling. I'm starting that in over a week and super excited about that as well. Just integrating everything. I hope you can see that, that they're all kind of integrated and moving towards one theme of just let's help people to move forward. Let's help people to heal themselves.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:02) Definitely. And I saw that you started off with teaching and then you became an academic. And so you've been teaching people in various ways and then you found conscious wellness for yourself and for other people. And you became a yoga teacher and then you're now aligning that with counseling, which is at times quite a traditional allied health specialty.

Catherine Vincent (02:28) That's right, yes, it's traditional, but there's so much evidence, ⁓ evidence-based methodologies and practices I'm excited to learn about. And ⁓ I think if we're conscious about... ⁓

the sessions, I think there can be an energy healing aspect without really mentioning it. I was talking to my friend about, because she's an energy healer and she's also a therapist. And we were just talking about how her session was still energy healing. If you invite this wisest, most compassionate self, that's your higher self without saying it. And then you have them do parts where, know, to notice the parts of themselves that might feel icky or whatever it is and to just

give space to it and and maybe let the wisest compassionate self have a conversation with these parts. ⁓ The client reported that ⁓ the parts didn't feel really wounded anymore they felt healed and to me that's energy healing but it's also counseling.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:34) both. Energy can mean

so many different things, right?

Catherine Vincent (03:38) For sure, objects are made of energy. So it's just being really and breathing and bringing awareness, just being present.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:49) Exactly. You mentioned breathing. I have been following yoga, but you're more of an expert than I am. And I know that breathing in very specific ways can be a, important part of yoga. So when you're counseling and when you're supporting people's growth, it sounds like you're able to then draw upon your understanding of breathing to then help people to literally be more present and.

be more comfortable with themselves.

Catherine Vincent (04:21) Yeah, that's right. think opening with a bit of breath work, a bit of somatic grounding, ⁓ embodiment or connecting to the earth, to the chair. That would be really helpful for people who might not be used to being in their bodies as persistent trauma can have you in your head or in your emotions all the time.

the body might be unfamiliar terrain. So even then just softly, gently, you know, taking baby steps would be wise. So you might not have them do a full body scan if they're not used to being in their body. If it's a scary place, I might just have them focus on their index finger or somewhere small and easy to start with. And with the breathing as well, I might not have them breathe long breaths to start because it might be anxiety inducing. So maybe the first

is just noticing the movement of the body as as they're breathing without really changing anything at all just observing.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:23) Being aware of it, absolutely. I met some Buddhists who just sit and notice the air coming out of the nose. So do you ever do that? Just ask someone to bring the attention to the breath.

Catherine Vincent (05:32) Yes.

Definitely to different parts of the breath entering your body. So it could be at the nostril. It could be at the throat. It could be at the belly. yeah, just doing that. then noticing the rise and fall of certain body parts, noticing the length of the breath, what your breath could be saying to you in this moment, if you want to tune in that way, or even just counting the breath, just to help you to focus and have that.

repetition, that structure to help you to be in your body and be in the moment. Because our thoughts can just take us in different ways, but it's just allowing for it and not judging it and just coming back to your center is pretty much a big part of it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:30) Absolutely. You mentioned that when people have ongoing trauma, they can end up stuck in their thoughts. What can that look like? And do you ever see people drowning in their own thoughts without even realizing it?

Catherine Vincent (06:46) For sure. You know, in acting class, we actually role-played people who were kind of in certain parts of their body, and that can correspond to energy centers. So someone who's really in their head a lot might leave with their head, and when they move, they might walk like this a bit.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:01) I'll bring you later.

Catherine Vincent (07:03) Yeah, because they're used to their consciousness being like, my mind is my consciousness, my thinking, my brain, my cerebral, intellectual, my brilliance is in my mind. I am my thoughts. That's what people might identify with and that's how they might move. Whereas people in their heart might have their shoulders back, like just a really open chest and then walk.

with their heart leading as opposed to head. And then someone in their root chakra might walk with their kind of loins leading.

because they identify with that being their consciousness, that physicality. So anyway, that was a really interesting acting exercise. And I highly recommend acting for exploring expression, exploring emotions in the body and exploring archetypes roles. yeah, so someone in their head can be identified that way. ⁓ They might also have that stream of consciousness where it's just an on.

stream of thoughts without much pause. ⁓ They might show that they're in a bit of a silo because they might be better at talking than listening. They're not exactly responding. It's more just verbal or yeah, mind diarrhea that manifests verbally as one thought after another and they might kind of continue with a thought.

when you started sharing your response, they're not kind of, yeah, they're not in the moment. They're still stuck and they'll steamroll over you and continue with their thought even though you're in the midst of sharing your.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:37) this doc.

Catherine Vincent (08:45) considerate response. So yeah, that might show, man, I'm really just like, I'm still going from A to B and I haven't finished my thought and I have to get it out even though you've already started speaking. So it's interesting, but I think a lot of us can be in our heads even at certain points in the day, maybe in the workspace. Do you identify with that?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:10) goodness, the constant train of thought. Yes. And I think sometimes it's really tempting to just hold onto anything. It could be a preference even. I really wanted this particular outcome. I really wanted to just focus on this type of work and we can get so set on I, I, I, ⁓ and I think that

In my personal experience, sometimes, sometimes letting my thoughts just explore and get detailed for a little while can help with the creativity, the brainstorming, coming up with maybe a story to tell or a solution to a problem. But I think there's such a difference between, actually, you can probably let me know if there's a difference between

Catherine Vincent (09:55) Sure.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:08) maybe the creative train of thought where for a little while I'm going to just have this creative moment and then get on with the day compared to a stressed out obsessing. What if I'm worried about this?

Catherine Vincent (10:08) Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, so, you know, they both sound like ⁓ it depends. So, you know, the left brain is about logic and analysis. So with the what ifs, that might be that analytical side jumping in. And then the ⁓

side of the brain is more about creativity and holistic, integrative, symbolic thinking and imagination and

feelings and creativity. So, you the right side of the brain might engage if your emotions are jumping in and taking over. So to me, that sounds like the use of both unless, you know, your what ifs are very kind of logic and analytical and black and white. Then yeah, that's probably you're probably left brain over analysis mode. But then if it's more like, my God, I feel this, I feel that I'm feeling feeling ⁓ and you're using your imagination and overdrive with the what

that it's more like, you're kind of imbalanced in your right brain and you're overusing that. So does this sound like you're using a bit of both or hanging out more in one than the other?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:32) Gosh, look, I'm revealing too much about myself, initially, so when I'm, for sure, we all are. When I'm in a crisis or someone is confronting me or that's how it seems, then what I find is in that moment, it's like my head goes into problem solving mode of I'm just going to sort this out, just piece the puzzle together. And that's where

Catherine Vincent (11:35) We're all like this.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:00) I can't relate to other people's mentalities of during a crisis, emergency, whatever, they will just be maybe freezing up, panicking, just getting all into the emotions because I'll just say, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to do that. We'll do that. And then everything should be fine. And so and so needs to do this. Awesome. Okay. Let's get on with it. Whereas some folks will be, you know, just scared and start.

Catherine Vincent (12:23) Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, they're in free

state. Yeah, definitely. Or they're in flight. They're in flight or free state, which yeah, which I have been and you might be in fight, like you might have like your adrenaline going in your

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:34) Bye!

Catherine Vincent (12:41) autonomic nervous system has been activated, your left brain and the problem solving. I mean, it's really important. It's needed. And at least you're moving and you're getting things done. It sounds like you're a director too, which is really cool. But if you ever wanted to balance that, if the person in ⁓ flight or free state wanted to come out of that, they could slow down their breathing. They could breathe through their left nostril to activate the right side of the brain. So just close the right nostril and just find peace and calm. ⁓

And focus. ⁓

but it would give you an aliveness too for someone in free state. then ⁓ for someone, it also helps with someone who's ⁓ in the fight state, like the kind of activated autonomic nervous system state. But ⁓ generally, if you want to find peace, you're going to breathe through the left side of the nostril. If you want to activate more, if you want to like get ready for a soccer match or get ready for like passing your bar exam or whatever, then you might get the energy going.

that you naturally have and you breathe through your right nostril to activate the left side of the brain.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:53) that work doing the opposite sides?

Catherine Vincent (13:56) Well, the left side of the brain corresponds to the right side of the body. The right side of the brain corresponds to the left side of the body. So it's just human anatomy. It's interesting. And the parasympathetic nervous system is activated. That rest, digest, focus, and heal part of you that's activated when you breathe slowly, when you massage the sides of your neck because you activate your vagus nerve, the longest nerve in your body.

but also when you chant and hum and sing and dance.

When you gargle water, you're activating your parasympathetic nervous system. So all this activates that rest, digest, focus and heal part of you. But I think the simplest way is definitely breathing slowly. Everyone has access to that. Just add a second or two to your breathing, right? And you can extend the lengths of your exhales. And so I think that would help you to find balance. ⁓ And then for the person in free state, it would help them to come out of free state.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:00) Awesome, I love the.

Catherine Vincent (15:01) So it's great

for everyone. You could breathe through both too. Like alternate nostril breathing and yoga. That balances. Yeah. Yeah, it's something. It's just, practical. gets things going. Like slowing down the breath is key to finding that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:06) Yeah, absolutely.

You came for very specific solutions.

Catherine Vincent (15:21) inner peace, inner calm, and that allows everything else to fall into place, like the physical, it jump starts the physical, mental, and emotional health journey. If you just slow down your breath and you're regulating your nervous system and the alternate nostril breathing, you know, where you inhale through left, you might hold and then exhale through right nostril and then maybe hold a bit and then you inhale through right

hold and then you exhale through left and you could look up alternate nostril breathing online but ⁓ yeah

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:56) I love alternate to nostril, unless

I have a sniffle.

Catherine Vincent (16:00) Yeah, yeah, I got a little sniffle too. I didn't get much sleep last night. yeah, it just balances both. It activates both sides of the brain. So it's perfect for everyone. We all need it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:12) We do all need it. And what was I going to say? So within the fight mode, and it's such an interesting word because sometimes we can just be heightened and approaching instead of withdrawing, even though we're not thinking that we want to have conflict and that sort of fight. But within that, I saw a conflict earlier this year where I just wanted to simplify and get freedom and just, okay.

sort things out in a one or two step thing and other people went very detailed, very bureaucratic, let's go through everything with fine tooth comb. And it's almost like they felt more control when they were reading everything about something. And it's almost like those moments when we want to understand something and then we get obsessed with

Knowing every single detail about something. So have you seen a fight mode or something else where someone just wants to get into that much detail in their thoughts and their approach to something?

Catherine Vincent (17:12) Yes.

Yes, yes. I mean, I've experienced it myself where it's I think it's just a bit of maybe a lack of confidence when you're supposed to be the subject matter expert, or you're expected to be and then you're, you know, you don't feel like you have enough information. So I've very much been there. And I think that that's a left brain issue. It's just a little bit of, I think unnecessary logic, like an if then logic about, you know, if I don't read all of this,

I'm not going to be the subject matter expert or I won't know how to solve the problem when sometimes um, you know, I've heard the saying like Knowing 70 % is enough. That's what my partner likes to tell me that someone else said some some tech, bro Said yeah, I don't need to know 100 % of the information to make a decision 70 % is enough because 100 % is it's it's a lot of time spent so Bringing in the right brain. I would say the symbolic integrative thinking would be great to help you to

zoom

out, whereas the left brain analysis, the analysis paralysis might be like too much zooming in, like who has the time for all that? Maybe Chachi Biti does, but maybe like only AI at this point. There's not enough time to cover every stone, to turn over every single pebble. Maybe just some major rocks? Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:37) That's not.

Absolutely.

And sometimes there is no a hundred percent. It doesn't exist, especially with creative things or with the legal things where perhaps there are two right answers to everything. There is no end destination. Do you think so?

Catherine Vincent (18:52) Yes.

For sure.

Yeah, yeah, think so. think so. like part of this is like you have to kind of lean into what lights you up as well as what makes sense logically and analytically. It's like you really do have to consider both aspects like what your intuition is telling you, ⁓ taking your emotions into account if that has served you before. I understand some people have really

wild and wooly emotions and so they're not yet you know great for helping you to make decisions but for others who feel like the the emotions are more integrated I think they can be super helpful because the emotions can help you to figure out what

your truth is, what your boundaries and values are, because when you get angry or scared or sad about something, that's just an indication of this is my value. And hey, like that's my boundary, because I feel upset that it has been crossed. And that's clearly not their boundary. That's their truth that those are their values. So emotions are really special. Yeah. Once you're ready to connect with them and express them.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:08) Do you find that since because you are a yoga teacher, do you find that teaching people to sit with their emotions can help with the other forms of teaching that you do? I'm not sure if you're still doing the tutoring or teaching in some way, or even when you're studying, you're still doing that. Do the two cross over in that way?

Catherine Vincent (20:27) yeah, yeah I'm still doing.

I'm so...

Yeah, sometimes I do. depends. Like sometimes the students I teach are ready for that kind of thing, or at least like conversations about it. ⁓ It helps to have a family that is spiritually aligned. You know, they're already into that kind of stuff. They provide energy healing for their children or they do yoga and mindfulness ⁓ as a practice every night, gratitude, things like that. But ⁓ yeah, I do.

I do integrate both. What was your specific question?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:06) Oh, I was wondering, well, we looked at how people can drown in the details of something or people going to need 100%. So especially when people are studying or working maybe in the organizations you're working with anything like that, maybe people are always aiming for 100 % in their work and putting pressure on themselves for that instead of letting go.

Catherine Vincent (21:11) Yes.

Yes.

Right, right. And you mentioned the role of the emotions. Like, do you kind of teach that?

And I do, I have in holistic education, I have used social emotional learning through drama, ⁓ drama club, through improv club, through creative movement, ⁓ exploring ⁓ different emotions and characters, I've done a cool improv activity where it's called character dial up and we just lean into a statement and we dial up the emotion as we go around the circle and they express ⁓ the emotion through the statement.

That's it. I'm going to clown college and you start with like the neutral like deadpan no emotion and then you dial it up to like

That's it, I'm going to cloud college, know, like something like just really insane and they have fun with it. Yeah, they just have fun with it. And it's like, it's comical too, but they just get to play with safe expression of emotions and degrees of it, degrees of intensity. And you know, the humor, the lightness helped because it, you know, once we express our emotions, it helps to come back down and also be able to see the lightness and the humor, the playfulness and how you can come down, you know, when you don't have to stay in

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:15) increasing.

Catherine Vincent (22:41) space of you know the dark depths the intensity forever and you can even ⁓ laugh at yourself too or just have some fun with it and and dance with it dance with the emotion if you need to ⁓ have some fluidity around emotional expression and around that particular emotion so yes I've taught it in that sense with the students with multiple exceptionalities that I worked with in Toronto and

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:07) What does that

mean?

Catherine Vincent (23:09) just students with ⁓ multiple learning needs, with learning differences, neurodivergence, students with autism, ADHD, ⁓ learning disabilities, and mental health diagnoses, giftedness, and things like that. So they just have different learning needs and multiple needs. They have multiple learning needs. So that's how we say they have multiple exceptionalities, multiple needs. ⁓

Yeah, like the exception from the group, right? So they do stand out. They are outliers, right? But they are outliers in ⁓ many different ways, each student. So they're high needs. So yeah, think definitely bringing the emotions that is important. And then in the sense of teaching a yoga lesson, yes, ⁓ the emotions come in through maybe some mindfulness activities where we explore the physical self and we check in to see what's going on there. And then the mental self.

just to see, how are my thoughts doing? What's the state of my mind like? Is there fogginess? Am I sharp? Is it monkey mind or peaceful? And then we jump to what is one emotion I'm feeling right now? Where does it show up in the body? Is there another emotion?

and how am I doing socially in this environment? So having people explore the different aspects of self helps them to find balance if they're hanging out too much in one aspect of self. And it's usually mind or emotions, right?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:40) It's one or the other we're thinking or we're feeling. One of the two.

Catherine Vincent (24:43) Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:46) Yeah, and sometimes we don't even know the difference. So part of what you're doing is to help people to observe. We're in our thoughts, in our feelings, and we need to step back and see what is going on in my head. Is that a big part of it, to step back and look at ourselves?

Catherine Vincent (24:56) Yeah!

It is!

Yeah, yeah, it is. And I'm fluidly jumping between the selves and I'm so with you and that's why I love teaching this just because a lot of people don't know what...

emotion is. You know, just focusing on the four emotions, what they're feeling. Like, okay, they might know what an emotion is, but when they're asked to check in with what am I feeling right now, they might not be able to articulate that. Yeah, it's probably some kind of misery or anger, like some kind of sadness, but they just can't articulate it because they don't know how that feels in their body. They don't know how to identify it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:27) I don't know.

Catherine Vincent (25:41) and to allow expression of it because a lot of us are used to just tamping down like it's repressing, know, keeping the lid on in the pressure cooker. It's just better to deny to eat or to spend, spend, spend, spend or a distract, you know, watch that Netflix, ⁓ socialize, drink, do drugs. It's there's so many distractions, right? Doom scroll, selfies.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:08) Are you seeing, are you seeing people

distracting themselves even more now because we have so much happening on our screens and perhaps people are living busy lives where we can just do more as well to distract ourselves.

Catherine Vincent (26:22) I'm not ⁓ like checking in with the social media communities in that way. Like I'm not really scrolling too much. When I do scroll, it's through a curated feed. So I'm always following people in wellness and experts, ⁓ psychologists, things like that, like physical therapists. So people who have something to share about uplifting people in the areas of wellness and beyond, right? So when I am scrolling, yeah, there's performativity. There's

⁓ even from the coaches and all that but and and there's also yes anxiety shared yes I see that and that's but this is from the experts so I imagine it must be

even worse with people who haven't studied, you know, how to rise up in that way, like in yourself and in the communities, right? Lift up the community. So yeah, I think it must be really stressful. Like I hear things from people I talk to, from students I work with. I do work with a lot of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Like I teach from like grade three to university. ⁓

So yeah, I hear a lot. There's a lot of, yeah, I have anxiety. I have this, I have that. My therapist says this. So yeah, I have this brain coach. So, and this is what's going on in America. You know, I have a lot of American students, but I also have a lot of students from around the world.

and clients as well, energy healing clients. and energy healer friends from around the world. So yeah, I think people are really dysregulated. It's tough. It's tough to be in this environment with these corrupt systems or just the systems that don't work, you know, that need to be dismantled to navigate that. How are you finding it?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:07) Absolutely. ⁓

well, I was going to say that you mentioned the, is what's going on. And we're so aware of what's happening in the whole world. And even today I was getting a direct notification about a crisis in a local space that I'm not even involved with. our attention is spread so thin. There was a time, at least where I live, there was a time decades ago when there were three or four TV channels and that was it.

And you might watch TV for an hour a day. And if someone chose to buy a newspaper, then sure. And I think that we're getting so overloaded with, especially if we're extra empathetic, I have always, I have always felt everything very extremely or very sensitively as well. I've been sensitive, but also just everything feels intense. That's the word. Whether it's emotions or physical feelings.

Catherine Vincent (28:51) Yes.

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:07) And so when I'm realizing that a friend has this going on, a community has this going on, or that country has that happening, and then suddenly there's an intense worry for everybody when you can't control that. I also wanted to ask about some of those different groups that you teach. It's not very often that I get to talk to someone who teaches such a broad range.

So in terms of feeling the feelings, it because something is happening directly to us or because we're maybe absorbing everybody else's concerns too much, either way, internal or external, are you seeing different ⁓ strategies and different concerns or anything like that with the emotional journeys for the students who have the extra needs and also the very young children? How are they all handling?

their emotions in this odd world.

Catherine Vincent (30:09) Sure, yeah, so with the young children, ⁓ I think there's a sense of isolation and loneliness. ⁓ But you know, that's because I teach students online, like I teach homeschooled students, and then, you know, they don't have that access to that school community. ⁓ Some don't, some do. Like I do teach some students who go to a school as well, but still, there's, yeah, there's a sense of disconnection, and they really do need opportunities to make friendships and also to

Demonstrate leadership and I not every student gets that opportunity just depends on the kind of school you go to and Regarding what you said about being empathic. ⁓ I'm also an empath and until you recognize that in yourself and ⁓ manage it it might be really difficult to navigate large spaces crowds bars churches hospitals and things like that the mall because ⁓ Your aura is so porous. You're open

to receiving, taking on other people's energies, other people's gunk, their distortions, their debris in their aura. And that's unfortunate. But you can always ask your higher self, for example, or if you believe in ⁓ Source, just a higher power, the higher power, to just help you to remove it. You can just ask them, even just, hey, can you take this from me? You know, can you take other people's stuff from me right now?

And you can also do a bit of a visualization. Imagine roots going down from your feet, going straight down into the center of the earth. And just trust that all that stuff that isn't yours is going down through the roots. Just imagine it happening and have the intention. Say it out loud if you like. It all helps. Use your eyes to look down your body and trust that it's happening. I think use your hands if you like. Eyes, hands, intention, thoughts, verbalizing all helps. Calling on source or your

your

highest power or another divine guide like an ascended master or an archangel that you're personally connected to that would help you as an empath but also ⁓ actively turning it off when you're in these environments because you know you're here to navigate your journey your lessons you're not here to be this like uncontrolled empath

for your whole life and be useless because like you are useless when you're like that right because you're just like I'm just like I feel awful yeah and just like you can't navigate your world effectively and you want to be able to and so to do that you have to turn it off so to turn it off you focus on you like you bring your consciousness not to everyone and that skateboarder passing by who doesn't care about you but who just gave you all his stuff like you need to turn the dial down on

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:41) It's overload.

Catherine Vincent (33:03) the other and turn the dial up on you. So you need to bring it in again, bring it to your different selves, bring it to my physical self, right? Just check in. All you have to do is bring your consciousness to your feet, legs, bring it up. Or just like ⁓ tense up your whole body a few times, like hold for a few breaths, release, and already you're more into you, right? You're in your body.

And so it's going to be hard to pick up other people's stuff when you're focused on you. So you focus on yourself physically, then switch to how am I doing mentally? And then how am I doing emotionally? What's one feeling that I have right now? How am I doing socially? You know, I feel like socializing or I'm feeling pretty introspective right now. I'd rather be at home. So like already that was about a minute or two of just focusing on the different selves.

And that's really hard to pick up stuff from other people when you're doing that. Because you have to look at them. You have to make eye contact with them, right? That's part of it. ⁓ I mean, you also have to be in their presence. But ⁓ as long as you're doing that and maybe you're super grounded, you're not untethered, you're...

you're focused and you're in your body. All of these elements help in not picking up stuff from other people. It helps to kind of look at their eyebrows instead of their eyes. You can download stuff by looking at their eyes, right? So if you look at their eyebrows, ⁓

People who are not empaths don't really take other people in in this way. You they don't stand there and like gawk with eyes open at the random, right? They're just doing their own thing. It's all about them and they're shopping and like they're getting their Starbucks or whatever it is they're doing. And they're not even looking at you.

It's all about them, right? And their needs. And if you kind of move more towards that, because you're important too, like you're number one, like you're the main character. So it's having main character energy, right? And until you make yourself the main character, you're going to be someone's doormat, right? And in the case of an empath, like they don't even know you're the doormat. They're just dropping your stuff into you and then like...

you're rendered ineffective, right? So it really is being self-absorbed, but like to fill your cup so that you can continue helping people. Because empaths are here. They chose to be an empath for a reason, right? ⁓ That's something they signed up for.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:36) Interesting. I love all of this so much because you're teaching us that we can be more useful when we don't absorb too much from other people. And it's partly about our ability to be present and not overload ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, not piling on so much. so lifting some of that off, you mentioned the higher power. I liked a

Catherine Vincent (35:56) Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:06) a phrase for that that I heard years ago, that you need to have faith in something greater than yourself. Because I've definitely believed in whatever my mind can imagine a god might be. I know it's not a bloke with a beard in the sky, but whatever we think it might be, but also the something greater than yourself is handy if

If there are moments when I don't know what I believe, I look at the water at the beach and it goes out so far and I know that expanse of water is bigger than me. And seeing that, reminds me there is something beyond myself because we end up in our own little bubble. Sometimes years ago, looking out of the window in an aeroplane, I'd say, there's a bigger picture beyond my little bubble that I'm in. So that really helps to know, okay,

hand it over to something because what you're telling us is if we hand other people's problems over to the universe that has been unfolding without our complete help, the universe will cope in some way or it will unfold however it's going to unfold. If you hand that over then it means that we're not taking it all on personally.

Catherine Vincent (37:31) Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's not ours to carry. We have our own things to deal with from our childhood and so on and then all our goals that we have and looking ahead, There's a lot for us to deal with and taking on other people's stuff gucks up your aura, right?

It keeps you from having balanced energy centers, your chakras. And so that's ultimately harming yourself to allow other people's to gunk it up. Like there's no point in moving around in this way.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:06) Absolutely. You need to free yourself to then become more useful and to then create the right value for what you can do in a healthy and sustainable way.

Catherine Vincent (38:16) Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. It's all about sustainability, longevity.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:23) Longevity for sure. Which version of this can actually go on for a while? I'm really keen to ask about your personal experiences that led you to this wellness journey, because I read about a couple of things that happened years ago for you. I'm wondering if you want to share any of your personal stories that, that might've influenced where you ended up.

Catherine Vincent (38:52) Sure, so definitely ⁓ trauma, persistent trauma over the years ⁓ was difficult. I my parents were trying their best and... ⁓

you know, it was, it's fine in the end because I learned to overcome it. know, systemically too, growing up in Canadian society ⁓ in the 80s and 90s was not the best place to be, especially in the suburbs. So there were a lot of reasons why I had a lot of trauma. ⁓ But, you know, it was just overcoming it. Like, recognizing that I was in free state, like Eeyore or Daria, just my system was kind

of offline, was kind of like a walking zombie, knowing that there was so much more because I could see it. I could see people as if I was... ⁓

behind castle walls, ⁓ looking out through thick glass windows if I was in a home, ⁓ people just smiling and joyful and setting goals and planning for the future. And then I was just thinking like, why don't I have access to that? Like, I just, why can't I experience that? And I knew there was so much more to life. And ⁓ that's what helped me to start on that journey, just to try to get out of Free State.

And the first step was slowing down my breath and getting into my body.

And then beyond that, there was more, of course, there's just, you know, more somatic things, expressive arts to help me to explore ⁓ emotions and coming out of rigid ways of thinking and feeling and moving. ⁓ So the expressive arts was really important. That's why I ended up studying expressive arts for a little bit. ⁓ And then...

the healing, the energy healing to remove stuff because you can do all that. You can do all the yoga and it might, it does remove energy, but I think energy healing is very specific, it's surgical. Whereas yoga, it's great, it's really great, but someone can do yoga for years and not really move forward because they might not be doing it in a spiritual way. They might be doing it like a gym workout.

and not focusing on chakras at all or just focusing on doing a flowy graceful ⁓ vinyasa flow that looks good. It looks pretty and it's Instagram attractive but ⁓ they didn't exactly do anything except get more agile, more fit, which is amazing. That's great. Again, gym workout, right? ⁓ So yeah, if yoga is done in a way where you're focusing on your chakras, ⁓

there can be more of an energy healing aspect to it. mean, yoga is energy healing. The way the poses are ⁓ formed focuses on their chakras and on the flow of energy. ⁓ It's just, I don't think there are many yoga teachers in the West at least, maybe in the East, but like in the West, I'm not seeing that focus. It's more just, let's do this intermediate vinyasa flow.

Let's do this power flow.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (42:17) wondering, I'm

wondering if someone is following a practice, maybe they are new to the practices or they are just following along to someone else's guidance, but they want to really sort out their emotions a bit, maybe defrost so they're not in their freeze state or process something.

Do you suggest they could try to identify their emotions as they are moving through things? Do you suggest people could be praying to whatever they believe in or handing things over as they are moving through this practice? What do you suggest?

Catherine Vincent (43:02) do think yoga is a great way because it's gentle movement and there's breath work and there's guided meditation. It is a moving meditation. It just depends on how it's guided, but ⁓ usually in the yoga studios or in the yoga videos online, you will have many of these elements. So I would recommend yoga or really anything that lights them up. So doing an activity that lights them up, improv.

whatever it is, horseback riding, that brings back that sense of aliveness. So part of that is ⁓ noticing what lights your eyes up. But the problem with free state is like you've gotten into a state where the lights are out. So part of it is also you gotta slow down your breath to tone your vagus nerve and bring your parasympathetic nervous system online again. Like just slow down the breathing. I think that's the first step. Slow down the breathing and start

Start

scanning your body. Notice what's happening in your body. Check in with your ⁓ right thumb tip, your left elbow. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm asking you to check in so you can check in right now. You can check in with specific body parts. How is the top of your right ear doing? How is the bottom of your left nostril? How is the bottom of your chin?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:10) Can we demo that for a second? How would someone do that?

Catherine Vincent (44:30) How are your collarbones doing? How's your rib cage doing? And now your lower back, the bottom of your spine, your glutes, your big toe on the left side, and your outer right pinky. So just being able to check in and bring your consciousness to these areas and notice, what's happening here? Do I feel anything? And it helps to wiggle it. You could wiggle the part.

And if this exercise feels really uncomfortable and unsafe, it's because, you know, there's been a lot of stuff that's happened and so the body is not safe right now. So maybe you focus on one part that feels safe. Maybe it's part of your hand, because you're used to looking at your hands and using your hands. So maybe you just focus on your, ⁓ point your finger on the tip.

you move it around and you bring your awareness there. So you just start where you're comfortable. You start with small steps and then if you're comfortable you start moving into the body scan. So maybe you scan your body from toe to head. ⁓ If you like you can tense up and release. You know might tense up that part of your body as you scan it so you might be tensing up your feet holding for a few breaths and then releasing then you move to your calves.

You might integrate the other ⁓ parts of your body as well. And then as you move up your body, you do your thighs and pretty much all of your legs. Or maybe you just isolate your thighs, bring in your glutes and you're just tensing up, holding for a few breaths, releasing on the exhale and noticing the difference, noticing that release of tension. And you keep moving up your body. Let's do pelvis and low back now. And you can integrate those glutes. You can integrate the rest of your legs if you like.

just holding as long as you like, then releasing, then we move to the torso, maybe bringing in your abs, your chest, your upper back, your mid-back, or just one card at a time.

then you bring in your shoulders, your traps, your arms. You might be making fists.

And you might be tensing up as hard as you can. Maybe it's just a light tensing and you're releasing. might do it a couple of times in a place that's particularly tense. maybe with your upper back, you're just really focusing on that area. And maybe you're adding some light movements as well for that area. You might be rooting down through your feet, maybe shuffling back and forth from sit bone to sit bone. You might tip your pelvis forwards and backwards. So these light movements, these expressive intuitive movements also

to you to be in your body. And you just start with small, small movements. That's it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:15) Awesome.

small movements. have a question about the creativity and you have been exploring that so much with the improv, the acting, things like that. I'm wondering

I'm wondering in creative expression to loosen up and feel a bit less frozen or release the tension. I'm wondering if you have been encouraging people to create without the pressure of perfection or achievement. And I ask that because a lot of people think that they have to be an expert at some of these creative areas or

You know, I grew up with the assumption that I was bad at art because I felt uncoordinated. I thought that I didn't coordinate my drawing enough, so bad at creating full stop and it becomes a limiting belief. So whether people are making music or speaking, things like that, do you ever see that it can help to encourage people to do those things without any expectations attached?

Catherine Vincent (48:03) Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It's definitely something that I do myself. When I studied expressive arts therapy, it wasn't about being the best, making a Mona Lisa. It was just about expressing for a variety of purposes, Like expressing to explore what you actually feel and think about something, exploring what might emerge from the subconscious or from divine forces. And it's just a way to learn more about yourself as well. ⁓

including the shadow aspects that you might explore. yeah, definitely expressing over performativity and ⁓ it's healthier, right? People don't want perfection unless you're a perfectionist and like you're really hard on yourself, right? Like, and so like it's people who are there who are looking for that. But I think everyone else is appreciative of expression just for the sake of it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (49:28) Absolutely. Expression in any form can really help. I'm wondering in the last five or 10 minutes, what lessons would you suggest to anyone who is making a great change in life professionally or personally and trying to make sure that they can observe their thoughts and feelings? What would you suggest to someone who's dealing with a lot of change?

Catherine Vincent (49:59) To bring in balance, so I would suggest someone who is dealing with a lot of change should bring in structure and stability and security in some way. Maybe it's the same morning routine with your favorite cup of coffee or tea. Maybe it's your morning gratitude, your morning affirmations in front of the mirror. ⁓

Bring in elements of safety and stability. Bring in elements where you can root down. So maybe it's like a little bit of journaling about that.

And could have just a section for mind and then emotions and like another section for what makes me feel safe. Maybe it's a little bit of expressive exploration around that through art, like just all the changing things happening and what that's like. And then making another piece of art where it's like, this is what I want to bring in, you know, and bringing in more maybe geometric elements and a mountain, things that represent stability, whatever it is that comes through, right? But you might be exploring.

it through dance, through music. So might like dance chaotically to things and just feel like discombobulated but then like you'll you'll change the music or it's a song that just switches halfway through into like this really stable slow like maybe now it's monks chanting and you're just like you're still and you're just breathing and you're like like you're just doing your thing like be expressive and yeah explore thank you yeah just explore

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:31) Nice chance.

Catherine Vincent (51:35) through a way that you want to, whether it's journaling or ⁓ archetypes, role playing, ⁓ playing music. Like you might be maybe, you don't need an instrument. You could just sing, sing, make a little ditty, a little tune ⁓ that changes key. Yeah, yeah, you could do sand play or drum on the table. Like it could be a drum, like a really chaotic, like drum beat. And then it slows down like.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:53) sing along. I'll tell you the...

going to shoot.

the desk.

Catherine Vincent (52:05) Yeah, exactly. So expressing can help, but ⁓ also I think inviting your higher self to witness where you're at and where you want to go. ⁓ Manifest it. Pray. Those are two different things. Use your power as a manifestor.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:29) What does that involve to you?

Catherine Vincent (52:29) create a goal

and it involves ⁓ definitely being resourceful. It involves ⁓ going through a process. It could be a cyclical or a spiral process. Maybe it's more linear. It's different for everyone, but that process definitely involves. ⁓

Developing a goal and intention refining it. Maybe some action steps. Maybe there's a bit of a flow in between Maybe it starts with a flow because you don't know what your goal is So you're just flowing just flowing until you develop a goal You have to notice what you want first, right? You have to notice what your needs and desires are And some people aren't there yet, right? They're just kind of in robot mode doing what society has brainwashed them to do

But once you've broken out of that, the brainwashing and you've developed a goal, yeah, from there, like, let's make a smart goal and then let's create some action stuff. like, yeah, it's a little bit of left brain stuff. And then you might cut it up into sub goals ⁓ throughout the month. It might be a monthly goal. There might be a yearly goal. And then you break it up into weekly goals. But then just having that goal in mind, maybe it's just one overarching goal ⁓ that you just follow each year. ⁓

and maybe in different spheres of your life, like nutrition, sleep, ⁓ you know, when it comes to like navigating my natural cycles as a woman, things like that. ⁓

or just like ambitions in my career. So just different goals for different spheres and then like you're just holding to that one goal for each sphere until you feel like you've mastered it. Then you move on to the next goal for that sphere. Now that can be written down for potent manifestation. You can do little rituals around it. You could really amplify the manifestation around the full moon, for example. ⁓

So yeah, there are lots of ways that you can explore manifestation, but praying is just straight up praying. It's just talking to maybe your higher self. It's maybe talking to the higher power or the divine guide and asking for things and just having conversations, asking for messages. Ask them to co-create with you. Yeah, asking for a sign.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (54:42) asking for a sign. Co-create.

Catherine Vincent (54:47) Yeah, just ask them to co-create with you before you ⁓ go into that workspace and deal with those difficult people or whatever it is you're doing, a difficult conversation where you have to perform, right? You have to do your best. So ask Source to co-create with you and ask for the very best outcome to happen. It doesn't hurt to ask.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (55:12) You can absolutely ask and you mentioned the highest self. I don't know precisely what that looks like for everybody, but I'm wondering, maybe it would help to even have trust in the better versions of ourselves. Trust that we can show up how we need to instead of maybe the frozen up or the struggling versions of ourselves. So even have faith in that version of us. Think so?

Catherine Vincent (55:38) Yes.

Yeah, yeah that works. Yeah, by myself I just spent the very best version of you that you know, it's it's the part of you that's always there ⁓ beyond the thoughts and emotions and physical self

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (55:58) the version of you beyond your thoughts and emotions because those things pass. We can feel an emotion one moment and then a different emotion another moment and the thoughts can flow through and go but there's a you that stays despite all of those things.

Catherine Vincent (56:07) Yes.

Exactly, yeah, and your thoughts can also be quite rigid. know, if your belief, if your belief system is quite narrow, then like your thoughts aren't the best part of you, the best version of you, a lot of the time. It can be like the mean girl version of you bullying yourself, beating yourself up, right?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (56:31) true we are.

You're your worst critic, apparently.

Catherine Vincent (56:37) Yeah,

yeah, we can be.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (56:40) We can be. Look, we're getting pretty close to an hour and you've taught me and taught everybody so much. I'm wondering in perhaps two to three sentences, what's your key lesson that everybody should learn today? Something actionable.

Catherine Vincent (56:59) something actionable. I think you should start noticing what lights you up and slow down your breathing and do what lights you up. So slow down your breathing to bring in that sense of inner calm to regulate your nervous system and to start balancing physical, mental and emotional and social selves.

because ⁓ it's going to improve in every sphere once you slow down your breath to over five seconds on the inhales and exhales. The second thing is notice what lights you up because most adults aren't there. They're just brainwashed. going through the motions. They're doing what they think they should be doing, but they're not noticing what their soul actually loves. And this can be linked to childhood. might be, love rollerblading or I love race car driving.

or whatever it is. I love making ice cream. So just do it. Just notice what lights you up and don't be logical about it and just do the thing that lights you up that's unique to your soul expression and that will bring more joy to you and it'll manifest more you know joy, gratitude, abundance, all the good things, fulfillment.

And it's a key. Noticing what lights you up is the key to, you know, helping you to find your true vocation and to find fulfillment in your personal life as well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (58:33) amazing. Catherine Vincent, thank you so much for your teachings. It has been great to hear from you today.

Catherine Vincent (58:41) It was a pleasure, Melanie. I'll see you soon.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (58:44) Awesome.

Okay.

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Keywords

Catherine Crestani, spiritual awakening, burnout, intuition, healing, leadership, authenticity, empowerment, shamanism, self-discovery, business transition, self-care, professionalism, career change, personal growth, emotional regulation, accountability, kindness, gratitude, human connection

Summary

In this conversation, Catherine Crestani shares her transformative journey from being a successful speech pathologist to embracing a spiritual awakening that led her to intuitive healing. She discusses the challenges of burnout, the importance of trusting one's intuition, and the process of letting go of her business to focus on her health and family. Catherine emphasizes the significance of self-discovery, authenticity, and empowering others to find their highest potential while navigating the complexities of healing and personal growth. In this conversation, Catherine Crestani shares her journey of transitioning from running a business to exploring new avenues of personal and professional growth. She discusses the challenges of managing staff, the importance of self-care, and the need for humanity in professional settings. Catherine emphasizes the significance of making informed career decisions, trusting oneself, and the power of gratitude in fostering a positive mindset. The conversation highlights the importance of being curious and kind, both in personal interactions and professional environments, and encourages listeners to pursue their dreams while remaining true to themselves.

Takeaways

Catherine transitioned from speech pathology to spiritual healing.

Burnout and anxiety were significant challenges in her journey.

Letting go of her business was a crucial step for her health.

Trusting intuition played a key role in her transformation.

She emphasizes the importance of self-discovery and healing.

Catherine helps others find their highest potential.

Authenticity and vulnerability are essential in healing.

Empowerment is about creating one's own path, not relying on saviors.

Gratitude for past experiences is vital for healing.

Catherine's journey illustrates the power of following one's inner guidance. The transition from business ownership can be freeing.

Self-care protocols are essential in professional settings.

Professionalism should include humanity and kindness.

Making informed career decisions requires clarity on values.

Feeling scared and excited indicates growth.

Gratitude can shift your mindset and energy.

Dreaming is the first step to achieving your goals.

Trusting yourself is crucial for personal growth.

Being curious fosters deeper connections with others.

You have the power to create a life that aligns with you.

Titles

From Burnout to Breakthrough: Catherine Crestani's Journey

Embracing Spiritual Awakening: A Conversation with Catherine Crestani

Healing Through Intuition: Catherine Crestani's Transformative Path

Letting Go: The Power of Surrender in Business and Life

Navigating the Dark Night of the Soul with Catherine Crestani

Sound bites

"I had to let my company go."

"I had to face my money story."

"I had to do a lot of internal work."

"I can see their greatest potential."

"I am grateful for that experience."

"Remember to be human."

"Be curious, not judgmental."

"Gratitude flips the energy."

"Dream and see what you can come up with."

"You need to learn what's true for you."

Chapters

00:00 From Speech Pathology to Spiritual Awakening

03:11 Navigating Burnout and Health Challenges

05:50 The Journey of Letting Go

08:49 Trusting Intuition and Spiritual Guidance

12:01 The Power of Healing and Self-Discovery

15:05 Leading Others to Their Highest Potential

18:02 Understanding Authenticity and Vulnerability

20:50 Empowerment vs. Victim Mindset

27:22 Navigating Business Transitions

30:16 The Freedom of Letting Go

31:51 Teaching Self-Care in Professional Settings

34:32 The Importance of Humanity in Professionalism

41:49 Making Informed Career Decisions

49:54 Trusting Yourself for Growth

Transcript

Catherine Crestani (00:00) Sometimes it doesn't, just so you know.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:04) Right,

right. Yeah, the band is good. So how do you say your last name? Crestani is that right? ⁓ I got it right. So we have Katherine Crestani and Let's start off. I'm really curious to know what exactly you do because from what I saw online it looks like you made quite a switch from speech pathology to things like shamanism and more it so

Catherine Crestani (00:12) Perfect. Perfect.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:34) Let's get to know each other. What have you been up to?

Catherine Crestani (00:39) Well, it depends. Do you want the long version or the short version?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:44) Well, we have an hour, so you could talk

about it for 20 or 30 minutes if you wanted to. What's the slightly medium version?

Catherine Crestani (00:50) ⁓

slightly reading version. So yes, my background was as a speech pathologist, and I built two very successful companies ⁓ as a speech therapist. So the first one I did with a business partner, and that was a seven figure business. And then I chose to leave that for various reasons. But the biggest one was ⁓ to choose myself. And then I built my other company, which I was

running simultaneously and that ended up being a six figure business, but I'd run it in such a way that it just consumed my life. So I say I was working 24 seven because I'd wake up in the middle of the night and go do emails and things. It was not the healthiest way to set up a business, but that's why we do these things we learn from them. But my health wasn't okay. So the biggest thing from that is that I was suffering from burnout from anxiety, I had panic attacks, I had

adrenal fatigue, I was going to my naturopath every week to keep me alive. And part of that, you know, COVID happened and lockdowns happened. And because we're allied health, we were able to still stay open. So that wasn't the big pressing factor. But it was always this yearning that there was something more that I should be doing, there was something bigger that I should be doing. And yes, I helped 1000s of children.

to speak or to communicate or whatever level that I was working with them, but I never felt fulfilled. I loved celebrating their wins with them, but it wasn't, it was always something yearning, something bigger. So through 2021, I started a spiritual reawakening and it came through my naturopath. It's so funny how much he was in my life, but his partner had this offering and I said, hey, I saw that she's

offering these things because yeah, you should book in with her and I said, Okay, so I did. And every two weeks, I went back and it was like coming home, it was like, this is the information I have been missing in my life. This is what I've been looking for. And I just kept following my curiosity. So I went and did Shaman courses, I went into the herbology, I went into medical intuition, I went into neuro emotional technique like any T, like I just kept following and honoring

⁓ that yearning and that pull. And part of my spiritual reawakening, ⁓ if you ever this, there's always a dark night of the soul and it's not one night. So a dark night of the soul is kind of like your test of coming into your power and you make a choice. It's like you're at this crossroad and you can choose to go back or you can choose to keep, you know, unpacking. And I say it's round one, round two, round three.

that's how it shaped but mine was my company falling apart. So ⁓ the like in the space of a week, I had three staff resign. And I was so ⁓ broken because I knew I had to step back. I want to spend more time with my family, my health was precarious, you know, all these things. And then I lost three staff in the space of a week. And I was like, on the ball crying, you know, because

I didn't know how I would find anyone to replace them because it's incredibly hard to find good quality staff and train them and then where were all the clients gonna go you like all these things, right? Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:16) have a question, was that adding to your burnout?

Were you having to cover all that work until you found more people?

Catherine Crestani (04:22) Yeah. Yes. And so that was just, you know, making it like it was just even worse. That's why I was on a ball crying, you know, my husband's there telling me to get up my son's like, Mommy, it's okay, you know, get out, get up. And then my guides are saying, Get out, get up. So I did. And I kept going. And a month later, another three resigned in a week. And I kid you not. Yes, that's what's my

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:47) does that

happen? Universe, coincidence, did they all have life events happening? How does that happen?

Catherine Crestani (04:55) They had no idea that it was going on. I know why it was, I always say things happen in threes. So I understand the three symbology, but at the same time, this is what had to happen. I had to get to a point that I let my company go. So when the three resigned the second time, I was so angry. I was yelling at the universe. I was really angry. like, you want me to do this spiritual work, but at same time you're letting this.

You know, because I always had this vision that the company would run and I would step back and just it would be an income. But that's not what had to happen. I really had to let it go. And then a month later, another three resigned. Yes, there was. It was quite a big practice anyway. And then I went, you know what? They're not meant to be in my life anymore. And I'm not meant to have this company anymore.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:37) Everybody? Was anyone left?

Catherine Crestani (05:50) And I remember meditating and going up to my guides and they're just like, finally, she's figured it out. You know, this is this is what we were trying to show you. So I sold my business, which was really beautiful. And then I stayed working in it. ⁓ Whilst I was setting up coaching and that sort of thing, but I had to do a lot of work on myself because subconsciously, I didn't believe I was worthy of the money that I got paid for the business, even though I'd worked my ass off to get it. ⁓

you know, so I had to face my money story, I had to start to believe in myself again. And it was only actually when I invested in my own coach and started working with him that I then actually had that belief and started attracting clients, you know, I started to get all these. Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:33) Let's dig into that for a second, if that's okay. ⁓ Why

did you have that feeling about the amount? I won't ask you what the number was, but was it because you didn't grow up seeing those sorts of numbers? Was there a different reason?

Catherine Crestani (06:51) because I didn't work hard for it. So because I end up with it. Yeah, that's that's that was the deep belief. It was I didn't work hard enough for this money. And that's what I really had to unpack. I definitely did. But in my subconscious, it's like, you know, we grow up with all those things, you know, like money doesn't grow on trees, you have to work hard to earn your money, you know, like all these cultural and societal things you have to unpack.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (07:01) I needed,

Catherine Crestani (07:17) it can be really, really difficult, you know, and you don't realize how much it actually impacts on you. And for me, it was definitely like a very imbalanced sacral chakra. So if anyone does work with chakras, I only learned this recently, the front is how you express yourself to the world, but the back is where you receive. And I was having a friend do a treatment on me. And I said, Can you check the back of my sacral chakra? Because she actually shared that.

And she's like, Oh, yeah, let me, she goes, Oh my God, it's so blocked. I said, I know, I said, I'm not receiving money. And then as soon she did that, all these kinds of shifts happen. But I had to do a lot of internal work to get there as well. So, you know, it was just, it was really interesting. And then, you know, once it started to shift, these, these chunks of money started to appear out of nowhere. I was like, Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:09) How does that happen?

Catherine Crestani (08:13) It just does. It just did. Well, for example...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:13) How do things appear out of nowhere? People were approaching you or were you finding examples, sorry, were you finding opportunities that you didn't see before?

Catherine Crestani (08:23) Well, for example, like I said to my husband, said, I really want to keep working with my coach and he said, well, let's find the money. So we sold a car. So we had this massive surplus of cash and then we use that to invest in things. And then my parents just gifted us money out of nowhere. We didn't ask for it. They just gifted us money. I had clients would just randomly drop money in my account just because they were saying, thank you for being you. ⁓

I had another thing even when I was going through the worst thing where I really wanted to do a medical intuition course. And my guides were just like, just pay for it. I was like, but like, I have to take it out of my overdraft. I don't want to do it. They like just do it. Trust us. Just do it. And then sure enough, this client that I hadn't seen for years paid that amount that they owed, which was the exact amount for this course. So things like this happen when you're in alignment.

And when you when you really trust and follow and see what happens, you know, even you know, as I kept working, because after I sold my company, I kept working as a speech therapist. And staying there. I was ⁓ lots of things happened, which made me challenged and had to ask for money and things like that, because of just shifts and changes in the business. But the biggest thing was that I had to learn to listen to my body. So I conditioned myself that

I would quit the job when our house sold. Our house still hasn't sold, but I had to actually leave the job to allow that to start to shift and happen. But because I was ignoring that so much, I was actually going numb. So I lost feeling in my ⁓ my left pinky and it started spreading up to the point I couldn't feel half my face. And I was working with these two beautiful intuitives and they said their husband and wife Jen and Darryl and they said

The numbness will never go away until you figure out the underlying cause. And when you figure it out, you'll know, but if you don't figure it out and keep doing what you're doing, you're going to end up with an autoimmune. And I knew on my heart that it was true. Yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:23) look at that. As a therapist,

you think part of this was that the stress or the pressure you're putting on yourself or the expectations might have been freezing you up? What do you think was happening?

Catherine Crestani (10:33) you

I was numbing myself to go to work. So I was literally numbing myself to be there because I knew it wasn't in alignment with who I was anymore. But my autoimmune system was already fried from years of extreme cortisol and stress levels and the burnout and everything like that. So when your nervous system's already that fried and you're putting more ⁓

more weight and more need on it, it's not gonna it's not going to be okay. And that's where we can head to those autoimmune. And once you get to an autoimmune energetically, it's really hard to come back from. So I knew that it was kind of the cusp of that. And I was meditating ⁓ in a coaching session, we're doing like a group healing thing. And he's like, check in with your heart and watch your next step. And this was the end of April. And I got this non negotiable quit. That was the word.

quit. It was like, you have to quit, or this is it, this is your tipping point. And I was really numb at this point, too. And I was scared. I'm not going to lie, I was waking up fearful every day, because I could hear intuitively heading for an autoimmune and the numbness was just there constantly, no matter what. And I would go see these amazing tamer practitioners I had, and it was shit for one or two days, and then it would come back because the underlying cause was still there. So once I heard that,

I had a big blow up with my husband because he's like, where are going to get the money from your Aurora? And I was like, I don't know. Yeah, the fear it's the fear. It's the fear that keeps us small. It's the fear that keeps us where we are. And then ⁓ but the day I quit the numbness nearly all but disappeared, I still had a little bit in the palm of my hand. And then it came back a little bit like a week before I finished.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:06) See you.

Catherine Crestani (12:26) because I could feel like the, know, like, what have I done? You know? And, ⁓ but then once, once I shifted into being like my main primary focus is being a stay at home mom, and then everything else comes second, then the first day I was in that role, every symptom disappeared, every single symptom. So

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:35) goodness.

Catherine Crestani (12:52) This this is like a journey of for me of learning how to trust and follow my intuition in such a powerful way. And, you know, this is where I am now where I say I'm a leadership coach and intuitive healer because I lead people back to themselves. And I allow them and do that through whatever way ⁓ I'm guided to do that. And I hold space for them in that capacity. So you were sharing about, you know, shamanism and everything like that. They're all just aspects. And it's just, you know, like I

work with anything or anything, but any. Exactly, exactly. And some of the tools I have, I can't even explain to people because I was just gifted them in meditations or in breath work, I'm going to pass life regressions and things like that. And it was like a reawakening of these soul memories. And people like, how did you learn that? And like, I didn't, I just knew it, you know, so there's this ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:24) they're all tools within your toolkit.

Catherine Crestani (13:46) Even I remember the first time I was making a smudge bundle from scratch. I was using eucalyptus leaves because we're both in Australia, right? So I was trying to be honor, honor what we would do if we were exactly. And I made this smudge bundle and it was so easy. It was like I'd done it a hundred times before. And I was like, hmm, there's a soul memory. know, it's in it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:55) It's what's around as well, it's what's available.

Catherine Crestani (14:10) people can't explain these things and they'll say it's deja vu, but I often say it's more than that. So there's deja vu where you catch up to a timeline, right? And you're like, I've already had this conversation, but I haven't had this conversation, but I have had this conversation. And then there's soul memories where you just know how to do things, which they're a bit more fun because you're like, I don't know how to do this, but I do know how to do this. And this is really weird.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (14:38) Just pop that phone onto silent. Absolutely. Sometimes you just know how to do something. You're right. And I guess we all have things we try to do that just come easily into the other things. ⁓ to compare it for a second. I'm terrible with math. I just could not. And so some of us will have something like that where you could climb that hill. That's really steep.

Or just find the slightly less steep hill, whatever gets you in the same direction. So it sounds like you are finding the things that you know how to do easily.

Catherine Crestani (15:18) Yeah, and a lot of them just come because I learned to really listen to that inner pool and that inner knowing. And that was a big part of my spiritual reawakening was really tuning in my intuition. And ⁓ when I stepped out of my role as well as a speech pathologist, it turned up even more because I suddenly had this space and created that ability to step in there. And I just get downloads. Well, I call them downloads. So I'll just have this knowing and

allows me because I have a podcast as well, but it allows me to interview people from like all over the world about such a huge range of topics. A friend asked me the other day, she's like, how do you even do that? And I was like, I don't, I just hold space, like, I just get the information I need, and I listen really deeply. And I just get this deep understanding, like, it's very rare.

that I'll get a guest that I have no idea what they're talking about. And then I can ask the questions because I'm genuinely curious. So it's okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:19) Yes, it helps when you're the one asking the questions and you can let people feed the topic, the direction to you. And it feels like just talking to you for the first time ever, I can sense that you can naturally talk. You're a talker. And I think some people lean towards that more than others. and sometimes if you can just trust the words will come to me.

the words will come out somehow and that I think what I'm saying and what you're saying is that what you need will just appear. I remember hearing years ago a quote from Judith Durham where she would say she opens her mouth and trusts from something greater than herself that will help her to just get the right sound out. She opens her mouth, breathes and then something happens because

We are human and so it sounds like you simply know how to lead people into who they are meant to be.

Catherine Crestani (17:26) Exactly. And that's exactly what I do with my clients. And I have this beautiful gift where I can see their highest timeline. And what that means is I can see their greatest potential and their dreams or their vision, and actually guide them to the steps to get there. So that's like a really beautiful thing that I love to do. And I can do it in such a practical way.

and having my own background of experience because you know, this is why I so go through different things of running my own businesses, I can tell them all what not to do as well. hey, from a person that's tried.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:56) We need to learn that, what not to do?

Catherine Crestani (18:02) Yeah, and even, you know, I was, I wrote a book and I published a book this year, and I was about spiritual ethics. And I was having talking to someone about it. And I said, Yeah, there's the red flags in there of what not to do, you know, like, if you go see somebody and you ask questions, and they don't answer them, run the other way, you know, like, or if they don't give you a response that feels right, you know,

then you're not in alignment with them. You know, there's a point where you ask too many questions rather than finding them yourselves. But then there's also a point where you're asking questions and they're avoiding them because they don't know the answer. And instead of saying I don't actually know that, they'll be like, stop asking questions, you know, there's this contrast of energy and those sorts of things. So yeah. And sometimes it's nice to know what the red flags are.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:45) ⁓

So it's when people don't

want you to dig deeper and you can see that there's something they don't want to reveal.

Catherine Crestani (19:02) 100%. You know, and, and that's where you're not really living in your authentic self, right? Because if you're aware and able to be vulnerable, and if you if you're so triggered about what you're sharing, you know, like I can easily share my story, because I've done all the work around it. It doesn't trigger me anymore. I don't have an emotional reaction to it anymore. Because I've done all the healing around it. But if you're someone that's

hasn't done the proper work, you haven't done the healing, you haven't gone deeper, you haven't had that compassionate inquiry with yourself to ask him what all those lessons taught you, you are going to be triggered as you know, that that's concerning that, you know, this is about knowing yourself. And there's actually a thing called knowing your chapter called knowing yourself and knowing others, because the more you know yourself, the more you know your triggers and your wounds, and the more you can make peace with them.

the less likely you are to be triggered by somebody else, but also the easier it is for you to hold space for people to work with them.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:04) Absolutely. I have a question around that that could be relevant to leaders of a particular specialty or just any listeners at all. So if people are trying to see your authentic intention, be it in a traditional profession or in something alternative, and maybe you're still on that path towards

to say you're on that path towards healing something maybe you recently had a trauma something like that how do you suggest people can balance that if maybe they want to connect with their fellow humans but some things would maybe involve picking a wound a bit too much what should people do then

Catherine Crestani (20:50) This is where you need to learn your own truth and discernment. So, you know, it comes back to what aligns for you and what doesn't because I can't tell you Melanie, what's right for you and what's not, because I don't know you at that soul level. You know yourself at the soul level. I can say this is what I can see, but it's always comes back to your choice, what you want to do or you don't want to do. And sometimes picking out that wound to the point that it feels really, really invasive.

that it's kind of you face with the choice you can keep. So for me, I run towards that stuff because I'm like, I don't want to deal with this again the next time I reincarnate. And I don't want to deal with this lesson again. So give it to me now and I'm going to heal it. So that's me, right? You know, because and it's funny, my spiritual mentor and I we joke to her like, we don't want to do this again. Who wants to do this again? I don't want to do this again. You know, let's just let's just deal with it and move on.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:35) Noice.

Catherine Crestani (21:47) you know, whereas ⁓ for some people it is too triggering. And that's the thing, you know, when anyone that you work with, if you're unpacking these layers, you need to feel a vulnerable and safe enough with them that you can go quite deep, but also have a way that if it is too much, you let that person know. And, you know, sometimes I've met with clients and they just want to have this one client. And she's like,

I want to cancel all my karmic contracts. And I was like, are you sure you want to do that? Because a karmic contract or a soul contract is what you kind of sign up to learn in this lifetime. And you know, if you don't learn those lessons, you have to do them again the next lifetime. And the image I got shown for her when she said that was it was almost like she's climbing a mountain and she's so close to the top.

that if she canceled it all, she has to start from scratch again. So I'm like, are you sure you want to do that? She's like, yes. I said, No, you're not 100 % sure we're not doing it. I said, I'm not having the karmic repercussions on me, let alone on you for canceling this out. And then she went to another practitioner that was a friend of mine, she asked the same thing. And she got the same image as I did. This is sometimes nice when you get this like confirmation, right? She's like,

Are you sure you want to cancel things out because she's like, you are so close. And, you know, even when things are the hardest, when we feel the lowest and that sort of thing. Sometimes that is the breakdown before the breakthrough, right. And that is that's, that's the juicy things. And as crap it is, is that is why it's so important to find support and find those around you that you can go to in those lowest times who will

not talk you off the ledge, but at the same time, help you like get a different perception, I want to say of everything happened to you, because when you're in it, it's really hard to get out of it. And that's why we often need someone else to pull us through.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:51) Absolutely, you need an outsider's perspective because when you're in the center of something you don't know how it looks beyond that and especially sometimes I don't know if you saw this in a lot of other people but I found that in some chapters of life there's maybe storm after storm after storm and that becomes the new normal and you forget what else is even possible you forget that peace or

Catherine Crestani (24:00) 100%.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:19) a healthy life where you're not completely energetically fried or something like that. You forget that's even possible. Have you seen that?

Catherine Crestani (24:28) Yeah. And especially like I have a client at the moment. And basically, she knows the answer intuitively, but because there's so much crap happening, she just goes, it's just all too much. I said, you told me this last week, but you're still here. You know, and sometimes, you know, we get we have to be really careful when we're in these positions of ⁓ healer, bodyworker, you know, psychiatrist, it doesn't matter whatever you are, where someone comes to you.

looking for assistance, looking for empowerment, looking for healing, whatever it is. And we have to be really conscious that they don't turn us into a savior. And this is what this client was doing. And I said, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna save you. I said, I will support and challenge you. I will help you through these nitty gritty things. I'm happy to help you implement these things. But I'm not going to save you because well, a savior helps people stay in a victim mindset.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:17) What's the difference?

Catherine Crestani (25:23) They stay always looking for someone to help them and always for someone to blame or the perpetrator, right? Think of any Disney movie, right? There's always a hero and an antihero, right? That is a victim mindset. Whereas if you move into a creator mindset where you can create what you want in this world, then you're actually supporting and challenging the person and the energy is incredibly different. So instead of being a savior, you're being a supporter and a challenger and a challenger.

pushes you to the edge of your comfort zone, but to the point that you can then up, up, up level up level yourself, right? Whereas the supporter is going to go, yeah, you can do it. Keep going, keep going, you know, and, they're people you want in your life too. Whereas the hero is going to go, Oh yeah, let me help you with that. And you know, different energy. So, you know, go go go. Yep.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:12) Do they encourage you to be

your own hero and your own rescue?

Catherine Crestani (26:22) Yeah, to a point, but it's almost even taking you completely out of that mindset where you don't even need to look for a hero. So instead of saying, is this happening to me? You start asking why is this happening for me? Because you're then learning to get the gratitude and the blessing out of all the crap that you've been through. And when you start to look back at every hard moment you've had in your life that you have come through, what can you say is your blessing and what can you say you've learned from that?

And that is when you know that you've learned that lesson. That is when you can actually truly heal at that deeper level because you can go, wow, that taught me X, Y, and Z. If I hadn't gone through that, I wouldn't be who I am today. And I am grateful for that experience, no matter how crap it is.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:10) Is that how you felt about winding up your business that it happened for you, even though there might have been moments perhaps where it felt like it was happening to you?

Catherine Crestani (27:21) Partially, I feel like the happening to me felt when I had all the staff leaving, but the actual selling of the business, it just felt really aligned. And I still remember I had, so we used to be open on Saturdays. And the first and I used to run nature camps for kids on Saturday. So it was my own thing I did I take kids out into the bush, you know, we go connect with Nades to love it, absolutely love it, you know, and I plan to do it again soon.

And anyway, but once we were, was this about a month before I'd sold the business. I was getting ready to go out to take the kids out just finishing like having a cup of tea and I had all these missed calls on my work phone. And this staff member had slept in and was still an hour away and he he started an hour beforehand. And I was like, when are you going to actually get to the clinic? And he's like this time.

So I had to in the space of 10 minutes, like stressfully call, first of all, the client still waiting for him in the waiting room, the next client that was about to come sit in the waiting room, the client after to cancel them and the first client to profusely apologize for him missing the appointment completely. So, and I was just so frustrated because I was like, you're an adult, take responsibility for this, you know, like, this is, this is insane. You know, you should be the one calling your clients to apologize, not me.

because it looks better coming from you. anyway, fixed, fixed. So then I just couldn't also, couldn't believe that in this day and age you, can sleep in like that, especially when you know that you have to get up. And I have a child, a child wakes me up anyway. So anyway, so then the first week end that I didn't own the business anymore, the same thing happened. I was about to take these kids out on this nature camp and I had all these phone, these phone calls and messages. And I said,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:50) Sure.

Catherine Crestani (29:16) Here's your new boss's phone number. Talk to him. So I was like, done.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:23) is free.

Catherine Crestani (29:25) It was freeing exactly it was freeing so it wasn't, you know, as soon as I stepped out of that victim thing of like, hey, you know, and I'm so grateful for running businesses, I know that I can build them up from scratch. I know how to see gaps in the market. I know all these things. And I learned so much from doing that. I also learned, like I said, what not to do. So I can see so easily the gratitude in

everything that I went through. And now it's my story, I get to share with people to inspire them that they don't have to stay in that rabbit, or the guinea pig, you know, the guinea pig wheel, you don't have to stay in that if you choose not to, you can build a life that aligns with you. And, you know, you can wake up and be excited about your day rather than hitting the snooze button 20 times over.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:16) Absolutely. It's amazing. You're right. That professional knew that people were relying on him and there was a responsibility. People were aligning their day and arranging their time around that. And we need to honor people's time. So it sounds like once you had shifted that managerial hat to someone else, then you felt a bit of freedom. I've been wondering.

Those industries though still serve a purpose to particular people and sometimes people have to engage with those industries. And I'm wondering, so I'm not from that field at all, but I really hope so much that the people in those fields can work from a sense, from an energy that isn't burned out and from a...

a space where they can focus on helping people instead of, feel overwhelmed by all the, you know, sometimes people do get overwhelmed by the, yes, the paper, let's just say it, okay, look, I'm just saying it as someone from the outside who's not one of those specialists, but I can see even from here, they get overwhelmed by the backend or, you know, just hiccups like what you saw. So I'm wondering, do you have any words of wisdom?

Catherine Crestani (31:20) Paperwork. Policies.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:42) for those spaces so they can help people who need to engage with it in a way that everybody can thrive in.

Catherine Crestani (31:51) Yeah, so the biggest thing that I started to do Melanie was when I had students, I would start to teach them actually self care protocols, you know, very early on, you know, and had these the last two students I had last year, were beautiful. And one of them actually I said to her, what's going on with you? And she goes, What do you mean? I said, you have a gift, don't you? She's like, I can see auras. And I said, Oh, great, let's unpack this.

you know, and she's like, and I said, this is your gift. I said, you're gonna, it's actually going to benefit you because of x y. And so we had a really cool session, actually, like I did a reading for her was really cool. And then my other but both of them, you know, there's this, do I describe that? There's something going on with the younger generations where they think it's okay to talk crap about each other. And I say like, they say really negative things, right? Like,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:45) Really?

Catherine Crestani (32:48) you're so stupid. Like it's a joke, but yes. And yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:51) explains so much. Sorry, I just, I saw

this attitude even directly from people who are a decade younger than me. I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. So is that just how they talk now?

Catherine Crestani (33:02) Mm.

Hmm. So I had to actually stop them because I felt to and I had a really powerful conversation with them. And I said, if you keep saying that about yourself, you're going to become that because your words carry energy and power. And for one of them, she saw and it wasn't even the one that could read autos. It was the other one. I just saw this shift in mindset when she realized that's what she was doing to herself. And she actually like flipped who she was like halfway through that placement.

And I said to them, you're not going to have supervisors like me again, I know you won't because I'm like, you know, I'm a different field and they know that too. And then I said, but remember my words and remember these lessons because I'm teaching you now how you don't end up in burnout and how you don't end up in these things. You know, learn to go home on time, leave work at work, get stuff done so it doesn't keep lingering, you know.

these are the shortcuts you can do, but in a good positive way. You know, we're very lucky to that as ⁓ technology keeps speeding up and things, you know, when I started as a new grad, I had to handwrite all my notes. Now you can just like copy and paste and change the like change the outcomes for each kind of goal, you know, whereas, you know, so there's all these things that are more time saving. But at the same time, it's learning how to still be yourself.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:23) Right.

Catherine Crestani (34:32) in all of that. And there's this big movement of like, you have to be professional. And know, you can't be friends with them. I'm like, but you need to be friends with these parents, you need to be friends with the kids. Because if you're not friendly with them, if you're not kind and caring, and actually genuinely a human and concerned, you're not going to get this deep level of connection. And I find that this is the problem that's kind of going on where it's like, that's not professional, but

And I had ⁓ a client last week, and we were unpacking this. And she and her, her, her, one of her colleagues came in and said, professionalism is contextualized, because it's all depends on the person and their version of what professional looks like. So you'll have some people that will tell you professional is you have to wear a suit to work every day. Whereas I was barefoot wearing jeans in it my work polo.

And my clients loved that I was barefoot all the time. And I was like, I can't wear shoes. And my boss was like, you do you that's fine, whatever. And I was like, great, thank you. You know, so, ⁓ you know, it's how you show up, but I never had once had a client tell me I was unprofessional because I didn't have shoes on because I still cared about them. And I still as much as that job wasn't fulfilling me, I still cared about them. So I guess if you're still working in an allied health profession, your health profession, whatever it might be, remember to be human. That would be my

short answer to that. Remember to be human. And remember that kindness goes further than sitting there and judging. Because when we learn to be curious rather than judgmental, that is when you can have a really deep and profound human to human connection. And that is where you'll see the biggest growth with people as well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:15) He froze up for one second.

You still there? Okay. I think it's back again. You froze up for one second, but the dot points or the keywords I heard in that were curiosity and humanity. And that's so fascinating to me. I was really only exposed to that sort of field in the last few years, again, from the outside of it. even it's really, it's really funny that, I came from a public speaking background and

Catherine Crestani (36:22) They caught up. I'm still here.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:51) I've seen some speakers that basically to word it badly, they turn a little bit robotic. It's like you're being more professional if you're having less expression or personality and the suit, like you mentioned, if you have the suit, but you're right. How human does that feel? And I used to hear early on.

keep the skeletons in the closet. There are some things here to never tell the world, but if you're not revealing anything about yourself or if you're not finding any common ground at all, then what are people connecting with? People need the humanity in, I think, any profession. Let me know if you agree that this could translate to people who teaching or training or even leading teams in any field. You're dealing with humans.

Catherine Crestani (37:47) Mm-hmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:48) I saw, especially in this, at this age in life, it seems like we're at a slightly similar age where someone might be great at their job, but they're a parent. And the reality is that they need to be on time, but also people catch a cold, things happen and you need to see the whole picture or, you know, there's the, there's the old fashioned professional view of, you don't go talking about how someone just died. You just be professional and proper.

You have to acknowledge reality. Do you think so?

Catherine Crestani (38:22) Yeah, and I feel that that's this, ⁓ whether we're being told to bottle up our emotions to write, so we get told not to get emotional, but sometimes, especially from working with children, explain explaining and displaying your emotions is the best thing you can do for them, because then they learn how to regulate their own emotions. There's no level of emotional regulation that we ever taught, we just get told to, you know, sit down, be quiet, don't talk about that.

you know, especially like you said, Melanie, our generations was very much, no, you don't talk about someone's passed away. It's like, well, maybe they actually just want to know that they're okay. You know, even I was talking to a family member the other week, and something had happened. And to another family member, and they were pushing me to try and find out what happened. I just kept saying, well, that's their story to share. And they're like, ⁓ I don't know what to do with that. Because it was trying to get into that gossip kind of thing. So there's

know, if anyone's watched Ted Lasso, this is where that quote comes from where it's be curious, not judgmental. Because when you're curious about why people are how they are, or why they might be sad, or you never know what is happening, they might have had the worst train wreck of the morning, and they've still shown up just as they are. Acknowledge them showing up just as they are. Thank you for showing up today. Really appreciate seeing you. ⁓ what? What?

but I look terrible. It's like, no, but you're here. Thank you. You know, and it can be as simple as that. And, you know, there's this whole movement of acts of kindness. It just needs to be kindness, really. You know, shouldn't be acts. It should just be be kind and be human. And I guess the other flip side of that is, you know, yes, if it's a parent, you might run late because of what's going on. Or, you know, your child is unwell or things like that. But you also have to learn to be accountable.

Because if you're not accountable and take responsibility for that and own it, rather than blaming, there's a different energy. Blaming is very low energy, whereas if you're like, hey, I apologize for running late. ⁓ X, Y, and Z happened. And I understand it's really frustrating, but I am really grateful that you've been waiting for me. Very different energy, you know, so yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:41) Absolutely, and you mentioned before

that that worker that you had could have apologized and tried to support the people who waiting for him. Try to help to find a solution.

Catherine Crestani (40:51) 100 % you know.

Yeah. And I'm like a person if people start to blame other things for their not doing their job or things like that. It makes me really cranky because I'm like, own it, take responsibility of it. Like actually, instead of blaming everything else, you're just going to stay in the blame and shame cycle rather than, okay, this happened. Let's move on. And what can we do to change that so we don't stay in that cycle anymore?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:19) for solutions and I have one more question about that moment when you shifted away from Allied Health and into something else because you said also that you had a moment of wondering what have I done and I'm wondering for anyone looking for a career change or just shifting what they do be it stay at home parent or going back to work whatever it might be how can you be sure

How can they be sure that they are making the most informed decision and maybe not acting out of fear and stress in the moment? Because we all know that he can have a stressed moment and then hours or days later you're in ease and realizing, ⁓ goodness, I've made a big decision. How can people be sure about that?

Catherine Crestani (42:11) There's so much to unpack and what you just said, Melanie. So no, it's funny. So I guess the biggest thing I teach people and I just ran a retreat where this is the most powerful thing that everyone said they learned was first of all, you have a vision or a dream. Everyone has a vision or a dream. If you don't have one, you would live in somebody else's so go get your own. That would be my tough love moment. But

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (42:14) Sorry.

Catherine Crestani (42:35) Once you know that you can tap into your values and then get really clear on what your yeses and nos are. And your no needs to be a powerful no and your yes needs to be a powerful yes. What do I mean by that? If it's not 100 % yes, it's a no. And that sounds really extreme to people. But at the same time, a decision is just a decision. You make the decision and then you make the next decision and then you make the next decision. When you sit in the maybe energy when you sit in the I mean, and I

It drains you is so draining. And it just exactly so you know, you can say yes, with conditions you can say yes and move forward. And this is the biggest thing about what you said about knowing if you're going the right thing. If it feels scary and exciting at the same time, you are on the right path. Because if it's not scary and exciting, you're actually not growing, you're not stepping out of your comfort zone, you're not expanding yourself with who you are.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:06) It's neither direction.

Catherine Crestani (43:33) You know, and I can give you so many examples of things that I would never thought I would share with you that I did to run a retreat, to write a book, to do all these things. But it's because I just kept having it risky, risking it all. Essentially, like quitting my job was throwing it all in going, I cannot do this anymore. And the week I quit my job, hadn't even left yet. All these opportunities came. I got invitations to speak on women empowerment themes. I've got interviews booked in where I was going on podcasts. I had

monetary of things like because I opened up the space to that. So if you know, 60 % of what you you need to know about 60 % of where you're heading, because it won't all be there perfectly. And sometimes it's just such a strong urge, and no one else is going to understand it. And you just have to say yes to it anyway. Even if your partner says no, if your family says no, just do it anyway, because in the end, you have to wake up and live with yourself every day.

They don't. Even you think, yeah, even if you think your partner, no, they don't have to live with you every day, you have to live with your decisions every day. And if you can say, I did it, and I failed, but this is what I learned. And I feel that there's a lot of what you said to Melanie, there's this stigma around failing is a bad thing. You know, like relationships, like, even I went through this when I had a divorce, like my first marriage when I got divorced.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:34) Absolutely.

Catherine Crestani (45:02) there was a stigma of my family, like it was a bad thing. And I was just like, yeah.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:04) I'm curious, when

was it held? How were you?

Catherine Crestani (45:10) I think I was about 26, 27. So I got married quite young. So the first time. So, you know, it was ⁓ this stigma around divorce, but and I feel it comes from like a Catholic upbringing and all that stuff. But in the end, I didn't see it as a bad thing. My family did. But I saw it as actually reclaiming myself and my freedom. And all my and all my clients were like,

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:33) wasn't there in that rage, really.

Catherine Crestani (45:38) Hey, have you lost weight? You look amazing. And I was joking and said I lost 80 kilos because that's what my ex used to weigh. And they're like, wow, I didn't know you were like had that much to lose. And I said, no, I'm getting divorced. And they're like, I'm sorry to hear that. I said, I'm not, you know, I'm like so happy. And

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:57) Isn't it funny

how a breakup makes you actually lose weight?

Catherine Crestani (46:01) I know, but it was just it was really interesting, like contrast and that sort of thing and coming from there. But in the end, yes, that was a scary decision. I was ending a marriage, I had to sort out our house, you know, like all things like that. But I never regretted it for a moment. And even I met this other beautiful lady at this cafe we used to go to a lot. And she got divorced and

she had three kids so it was quite traumatic like the divorce because she had to try and get full custody because of the relationship dynamic and she goes look if I knew everything and I feel this is such a pertinent story but if I knew everything I had to go through to get to where I am right now I wouldn't have done it she said do I regret doing it no I would do it over again in a heartbeat as long as I didn't know what was coming because that's the whole point we're always on a journey we're always evolving

We don't know what's coming, but in the end you get to your goal. If you do get to your goal, it's okay if you don't, you know, it's like, but you're heading somewhere and you're evolving. And that is the beauty of being human. And that's the beauty of our soul evolvement because you know, we have to go through the lows to experience the highs. have to feel sad to feel happy. We have to feel angry to feel that sense of peace because everything is polarity. And when you can find and see the beauty in that and that everything's connected.

know, even there's so much talk about, you know, like all the evil in the world. I'm like, well, you need evil, because the evil balances out the good. You know, it's not that I'm saying condoning saying yes, you know, do evil things. It's not that it's actually showing you the contrast of what you don't want. And I think the biggest thing I learned was me saying, thank you, I'm glad that's I'm grateful. That's not my journey. Because otherwise, I would just go into judgment. And I'm like, Nope, I'm grateful. That's not my journey.

know, and that can help you stay out of being pulled into that energy too.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:58) Yes, the dark side of the world can show you what you don't want and what you don't need.

Catherine Crestani (48:03) Exactly.

Yeah, but then if you sit in the fear of that, you're going to attract that to, you know, if you sit in the fear, and you sit in on all the things that you don't want, you're going to attract it like you're a magnet because like attracts like, and this is where this thing is when people are constantly looking at what they don't have and coming from that scarcity mindset. This was something I had to learn through my money journey. You have to flip it and be grateful. I'm grateful I can pay this bill. I'm grateful I can

go have some food, I'm grateful I can buy groceries, I'm grateful I've got a roof over my head and I can pay the council rates, know, whatever it might be, rather than sitting in that scarcity, because that is where it will become misaligned and you'll just attract more of that into your life.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:46) We froze up again.

There you are. The gratitude. Yes, you got back. It's okay. The gratitude. And in the last 10 minutes, this is a great direction to go in near the end. I feel like this is just flowed without having to map it out. This is amazing. So if people are trying to bring their attention towards the good that they want to.

I create the goodness that they want to aim for, then I wonder if you have any more advice on how people can bring their attention to maybe the specifics or the goals or what that looks like. And to just bring one example into that question, the one marketing lesson that really stuck with me was that we see food ads more when we're hungry. And it sounds like if you are hungry for growth, you will see ways to grow.

Do you want people to be hungry for growth? What does that look like? Should they get detailed or broad umbrella? What would you say to people about that?

Catherine Crestani (49:54) feel it's learning to trust yourself is the biggest thing in all of that. Because if you can't trust yourself and honor yourself, then it doesn't matter how many coaches you get, how many courses you do, how many different career paths you go down, because if you don't learn yourself well enough to know what aligns for you and what doesn't, then it doesn't matter any of those things, you know, and I always say to people, I don't care what your certificates are, or who you are, or whatever I care about.

what you do for me. And in the end, that's what it comes down to, you know, if you have something good you want to share in the world, it doesn't matter what background that you're in. In the end, you have to really come back to what why are you doing that? Is it because you know, and there'll be a selfish reason there too. And I don't like the word selfish. My coach calls it so full. And I love that. ⁓ But you know, there's always a reason you know, for example,

For me, I started my podcast because I wanted to blast open my throat chakra. And then that was my like kind of little selfish thing. And then it became a massive thing where I get to hear people's beautiful stories. I get to learn from them. I get to connect with them and network with them. And then I get to connect them with other people. And it's so beautiful how it evolved. But at the same time, it started for selfish reasons and self for reasons. And if you have gone into a profession that doesn't excite you, that doesn't light you up,

that doesn't make you want to like share it with the world for whatever reasons. There's so many people I talked to will be like, I had a session of Reiki or I had a session with this and then I was then I was curious, you know, so it started for selfish reasons, because it started off like, how can I nourish myself, but we have to find that balance between over giving and receiving and where we can find that balance in between. So if you want to get started, just dream.

dream and see what you can come up with and then find ways to anchor that dream into reality with really manageable steps. And I know that's what I teach my clients to do. And that's how I work with people that come to me, whether it's just for a healing thing, or for coaching, it doesn't matter, it always ends up being the same thing where we get actionable steps to move forward to keep going. But sometimes, the best thing you can do as well is invest in yourself.

in whatever way that might be, whether it's you want to learn more about you. So you go get, you know, astrology or numerology or human design or whatever, you know, you might get a reading, or you might want to start unpacking layers. So you go work with an intuitive healer or you feel pulled to it doesn't matter what it is, like it truly doesn't matter in the end, you need to learn what's true for you. And then discern from that because what's true for you isn't true for somebody else. What's true for me isn't true for Melanie, what's true.

You know, it's your truth and that's what you need to learn to honor.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:50) Catherine, you've really taught us to be within the directions that make sense for our strengths and what we can provide and how we can thrive. Because you started off talking about how you were literally going numb. And so going in a new direction might have saved your life and then helped other people in the process. It was through

exploring this new direction that you ended up on your podcast and this podcast. And so you've connected with people that you wouldn't otherwise connect with by exploring that different space. And I want to thank you so much for showing us how being open to new possibilities can save ourselves and also save other people.

Catherine Crestani (53:42) 100%. Very well summarised, Melanie. And thank you so much for having me on the show and for letting me share my story. Thank you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (53:50) Thank you so much. Any last sentence or two before we wrap up?

Catherine Crestani (53:57) I guess I live every day and I wake up and at even it's on my alarm on my phone and it says be the change you want to see in the world. And that's how I live my life because if you can't be the change you want to see, who else is going to do it for you?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (54:13) Spot on, be the change. Thank you so much. And I feel like we could have talked for hours, but thank you so much for your time. It was an honor.

Catherine Crestani (54:20) Thank you, Michelle, Melanie. I would say Michelle, Melanie.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (54:24) I'll let it go.

Okay, well, next time.

Catherine Crestani (54:28) Ha ha ha ha!

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Show Notes

This episode contains potentially triggering themes.

Keywords

Ethan A. Poetic, adversity, resilience, community engagement, personal growth, survivor's remorse, mental health, wellness, self-worth, transformation

Summary

In this conversation, Ethan A. Poetic shares his inspiring journey of overcoming adversity, including growing up in a challenging environment and facing personal tragedies. He discusses the importance of community engagement, knowing one's worth, and the power of resilience. Through his experiences, he emphasises the significance of mental health, wellness, and building supportive relationships. Ethan also shares success stories of individuals he has inspired, highlighting the transformative power of support and belief in oneself. The conversation concludes with key lessons for life transformation and the importance of authenticity in sharing one's story.

Takeaways

• Ethan A. Poetic emphasises the importance of community engagement.

• He shares his personal journey of overcoming adversity and challenges.

• Knowing your worth is crucial for personal growth and relationships.

• Resilience is key to facing life's difficulties and challenges.

• Support systems play a vital role in personal transformation.

• Ethan encourages individuals to seek help from therapists or life coaches.

• He highlights the importance of authenticity in sharing personal stories.

• Wellness practices are essential for coping with life's complexities.

• Ethan shares success stories of individuals he has inspired through his work.

• He concludes with key lessons for life transformation and growth.

Titles From Adversity to Inspiration: The Journey of Ethan A. Poetic Resilience and Community: Lessons from Ethan A. Poetic Sound Bites

"I graduated college and wrote my own book."

"You have to want it bad enough to change."

"Wellness is important to practice every day."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Ethan A. Poetic

00:50 Overcoming Adversity: A Personal Journey

06:35 Community Engagement and Inspiration

09:02 The Importance of Knowing Your Worth

12:20 Life Lessons from Achievements and Values

15:09 Survivor's Remorse and Personal Loss

18:50 Resilience and the Power of Support

22:00 Finding Solutions to Overcome Challenges

22:01 The Power of Storytelling in Community Support

22:51 Inspiring Change Through Personal Stories

25:59 Building Effective Support Systems

27:20 The Importance of Genuine Intentions

30:56 Navigating Media and Personal Narratives

34:18 Coping Mechanisms and Wellness Habits

Transcript

Transcript

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:01)

It would be great. It would be great if you can tell me a bit more about yourself. I saw bits and pieces about what you do, but what should everybody know about you that we wouldn't hear in life?

Ethan A. Poetic (00:03)

you

I graduated college twice. I wrote my own book called The Inspirational Story of Ethan A Poetic Chronicles of Adversities, Education, Sports, Relationships, and Resiliency. I've been featured on television, radio, podcasts, newsletters, magazine, and I was a recent recipient of the NAACP award.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:34)

What's that award?

Ethan A. Poetic (00:35)

It's a non-profit organisation. It recognised me for community engagement.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:41)

How are you engaging with the community?

Ethan A. Poetic (00:44)

Sporting events, musical events, inspiring kids and athletes and adults.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:50)

That's amazing. So were you sharing your personal story to inspire people? Let's start from the beginning. What happened in your life to bring you to where you are today?

Ethan A. Poetic (01:03)

I had some adversities and life challenges. grew up in a single-parent house with a five. My mom had several kids by different men. And it creates a dynamic of an incentive for school districts to receive money from the government for learning support classes.

There's also growing up in poverty, where it became normal to me until I saw different ways of life. Like when I saw the Amish and Men that live and they had multiple children, but all in one household with the same parents, and they didn't depend on the government for anything.

So I noticed somethings...

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:38)

Is that something?

effort.

Ethan A. Poetic (01:42)

Well, it was different in the sense of this is a new way of life, but it also shows me that men do care about being around their children.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:50)

You saw from seeing other families that men care about being around their children. Did you grow up feeling isolated?

Ethan A. Poetic (01:59)

I just felt like, when I look back on it now, I realized my parents never had a serious relationship together. But I also realised, you know, my dad had already started a whole other family. And he didn't give that reassurance to my mom that I'm going to be there for you, and all this other stuff will be exclusive. But at the same time, I realised my mom didn't require no commitment either. Yet here I am.

Well, ultimately I realized, you know, as I started telling people later on in life that these are two people who check that are co-parenting and far too often, you know, some people like to say they helped you out in your childhood. Then later on in life, they try to weaponize it against you. And then I got to set boundaries with them like, hey, you you did that as a, did that for me as a child, a teenager. I don't need someone to throw it in my face.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:53)

gets thrown in your face.

Ethan A. Poetic (02:56)

It's like, for example, at Family Gatherings, like, you know, the first situation, my cousin and her mom got drunk, you know, under the of alcohol, and started talking bad about me and my mom. And then my dad and I didn't eventually, you know, I didn't want to talk to him about it at the Family Gathering because it's hard to talk to people who weren't intoxicated. So I ended up writing him a letter setting boundaries moving forward.

And the one person I haven't talked to in almost 10 years, the other person I didn't speak to for several years until I ran into her, my uncle at the time. And, you know, we kind of got talking. We weren't on better terms, but she knows that she starts drinking alcohol. I'm walking away. Then the other situation was my other aunt.

On two occasions I got drunk under influence alcohol and tried to force a conversation with me by my parents by grabbing my wrist and that's considered assault, battery.

Let's see, false imprisonment and harassment. And got to the point where I haven't spoken to her in five years. The only time I may have seen her was two years ago and that was at funerals.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:12)

Do you mind if I ask who the funeral was for?

Ethan A. Poetic (04:15)

that was my aunt. That's my dad's sister.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:19)

How did you cope with?

Ethan A. Poetic (04:20)

What'd say?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:22)

How did you cope with the funeral?

Ethan A. Poetic (04:24)

I mean, it was with a person who was suffering from, you know, a serious health condition for many, many years. I didn't know it was that serious until, you know.

You know, she was in the hospital and she decided, you know, enough's enough. She's ready to go. It's one of those situations where a person doesn't want to receive treatment anymore. They just want to go about their life and allow themselves to go off in the sunset. You know, eventually, the health situation got worse without the treatment. And then when it was her time, it was her time. And when I, it was more of her, um...

The funeral was more of a memorial, not an open casket.

Then there was a, what's that thing called, a repass, you know, at this nice place about 20 minutes away. This is a time where people cheer up, have fellowship together, say a prayer, eat, and then eventually, you people go on about their lives separately.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:17)

stud.

Right, so they're celebrating the time that has been, and then they move into the next chapter of

Ethan A. Poetic (05:37)

Yes, yes, definitely.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:40)

So you overcame the detachment of growing up with parents that were not really creating the family life that you believed you needed. Is that mainly what inspires your work for the community?

Ethan A. Poetic (05:59)

because I see a lot of kids that I can relate to.

And I see certain single moms.

I can't repeat this cycle of, you know, not having that requirement, but also not knowing their worth. But then all of sudden, when a claim victim to having a child with a bad man, when the reality is that they open themselves up to that and they didn't properly vet them. Because what I know is that far too often, not all, but some women want to vet a man through tests and emotional intelligence. When the reality is that you got to know a person's family history.

What is the family known for? Who in your own family is going to be willing to properly vet this man himself? And then there's also the reality of what is your purpose with this guy? And it can't be answered with subliminal answers. You gotta be straightforward and be 100 % about what it is that you're looking for.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:58)

You have to know what you want and know your worth. If you can believe it, this is really aligning so much because I live in an area where a lot of people don't know what they want and they get into, especially these days, they get into something that's not officially labelled as a relationship and everybody has a different idea of what's going to happen next. And there isn't the commitment or the support. And then.

You're right. Women are accepting that maybe because they think they can't find more than that. Or have you seen other reasons why they settle for less?

Ethan A. Poetic (07:38)

I that some people are not wanting to do the work on an individual level to become the healed version of themselves from underlying pain, wounds, scars, trauma. And unfortunately, you you attract certain people with certain, you know, energy and vibes. It's not always about looking attractive. It's like, for example,

I could find a woman attractive across the room. That might be my initial attraction, but the online attraction could be, hold up, let me see. You grew up in a single parent house like me.

And from a female's perspective, when they don't receive the daddy's love and guidance, far too often they turn to other vices and other ways of thinking to compensate. When the reality is that, you know, we as a people have to know what type of time period do you want to have with that person you may be interested in?

a season, a marking period, a semester, a year. And when I look at marriages, I realize people are giving up too easy because they didn't go through pre-marital counseling. They didn't get rid of the excess baggage. They didn't work on themselves. They were more focused on the celebration of a wedding and reception, but not the journey and the marathon of a marriage.

Because the first year is a transition. Everything after that is just taking it one day at a time. But unfortunately, some people don't want to face things they need to face. And that also goes back to where they prioritise their mental health. If you don't prioritise your mental health, you're going to drive people down with you. And we see that with people who are, you know, unfortunately homeless, turn into drugs.

alcoholism, certain addictions, people caught up in mass incarceration. Then we also have to look at the bigger perspective, of this person doesn't even know their values. They don't even know their gifts and their purpose on earth. Because everyone's born with that. It's a matter of finding it. And for me, I found it, and it was bigger than just doing sports.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (09:53)

So you found your value in more than sports, but did sport contribute to your personal value?

Ethan A. Poetic (10:00)

It did allow me to be around positive men that believed in me. Coaches for football, track, wrestling, basketball. And those were the males. Men that were educated. Men that believed in me. Men that were teaching me, finish when you start. Like that drill, the training, the recovery.

and doing the work you need to be doing when nobody's looking.

And I was able to apply those same principles to life, where when can't even write my book, my first book, I got finish what I start.

and go through the process. Same thing with cooking. We see ourselves cooking something before we actually eat it. So you gotta have that vision. Well, unfortunately, some people, you know, make excuses for why they wanna be late, not be punctual for someone's time, but I realise they don't value their own time. Yeah, it's just I realised they don't value their own time.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:37)

Absolutely.

Sorry about that.

Ethan A. Poetic (11:02)

and they're not gonna be respectful of somebody else's time.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:05)

I see. I see. I know that I personally become sometimes a bit distracted by things and then maybe overfilling the calendar and people struggle to be on time because they're trying to overachieve and to do too much and they over commit. But do you think even when people are doing that, it's because they're not valuing their time enough to put a buffer in between?

Ethan A. Poetic (11:33)

Well, it depends on what they're trying to do. Like, for example, never go into a meeting, go into a blind meeting. Ask some preliminary questions to see if everything allows what you're doing ahead of time. Also, it's a matter of, you know, what are you doing by the hour? And the important thing is don't spread yourself too thin.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:53)

All right, all of these.

Ethan A. Poetic (11:53)

As far as being overachiever,

as far as being overachiever, you know, it depends on what they're trying to achieve, what are they trying to do, and when is the deadline for when they do achieve it. But also remember the one catchphrase, the top of the one mountain is the bottom of the next, so keep climbing. But ultimately realize you can have all the achievements in the world, but when it's your time to go on earth, you can't take it with you.

You can leave it behind for other people to learn.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:20)

What would you say is more important?

What do you think is more important than the achievements?

Ethan A. Poetic (12:24)

I would

say you can achieve a lot of things that's attainable, but the question is what type of value does it add to other people's lives? I've seen people work nine to five jobs, get injured in a job and get replaced. I've seen people work six, seven figure careers, making all the money but don't have as much family time or intimacy.

I've seen people do more with less by making maybe 60,000 a year while having a balanced lifestyle.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:56)

Which one of those do you aim for?

Ethan A. Poetic (12:58)

Well, it depends on how it aligns with my time and what my value is. Like, for example, when I write in my book, I write that more when I'm alone from people.

where people come in and help me is the editor, then it's the book cover designer. So when I make the audiobook, I go to the studio. Like it's a recording studio to do that. Then it's time to do the copyright. Then it's time to choose out the ISP numbers and everything else. So it's a matter of just keeping a balance on what aligns with what you wanna do because not all money's good money.

because you got to read the contracts, read the fine print, because you got to know the business before you get into the business.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (13:38)

That's so true and you mentioned that you had been on TV and you made all sorts of appearances. How do you decide where you're going to appear?

Ethan A. Poetic (13:47)

Well, the first time, it was a long time ago when I was a teenager, they interviewed me about something else going on in the city. At the time, I was nervous, didn't know what to say, but I learned a valuable lesson, just be prepared. The last interview was me speaking at the Boys and Girls Club to the youths, how to overcome adversity.

how they can become the better version themselves. Another time I got interviewed was about survivors remorse.

and how I still overcame adversity while receiving the NAACP award. The previous time before that was last year when I was featured on 6ABC Action News for speaking at Kings Highway Elementary School where I was a keynote speaker there thanks to the principal at the time, Dr. Bridget Miles and the teacher, Mrs. Kara Mann.

Ultimately, I've been on numerous podcasts, including yours. I've been featured in a newspaper. I was most recently featured in a magazine called The Mills Review Magazine. I was also featured in...

⁓ something else, but I'm not able to remember right now.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:09)

That's okay. You mentioned survivors remorse. How does that tie into your experience?

Ethan A. Poetic (15:14)

A couple of errors, I lost my brother.

15 years ago, due to gun violence. I remember like it was yesterday, my mom got the call.

and she dropped on the floor. I never seen her cry so hard. And then I became the older brother overnight. Then they found the guy who did it almost a thousand miles away from where my brother was living. He was caught by the US Marshals. And eventually, you know, the guy was convicted. The getaway driver that was involved

He cooperated as an eyewitness. He didn't face any jail time. So he got a slap on the wrist with the law, but he lost something even bigger. He lost his marriage. His wife divorced him, took the kids. He was forced to pay alimony and child support. So he lost so much more just from being involved in something that was a careless act.

Another survivors from worse situation was me in a near-death experience. We had a 99 % chance of death versus 1 % chance of life.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:23)

What happened?

Ethan A. Poetic (16:23)

I'm a driver hit an 18 wheeler while under the influence of pharmaceutical medicine.

And next thing you know, when a blink in an eye, my life changes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:33)

How did your life change?

Ethan A. Poetic (16:35)

I should have been dead.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:36)

Right, right. So you thought that you were basically lucky to be alive. Did that change how you approach everyday life and your goals? Because did it show you that time is limited?

Ethan A. Poetic (16:51)

It showed me anything can happen to anybody. Time is sometimes limited based on how we look at it. But also realize life is too short to be involved in bad situations. I look at my life compared to others. My life is a better version of itself now than it was 14 years ago.

But I also look at dope. I was in a different space, recovery, rehab, being on a feeding tube. Well, I look at where I'm at now, I realize there's people in prison that wish they were in my position. That can see the light of day, drive a motor vehicle, attend networking events, have their own business. But instead, they have to live with the decisions they made.

that not only affected their life but also the lives of others.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:47)

Absolutely. You mentioned rehab and a feeding tube.

Ethan A. Poetic (17:51)

⁓ basically I had to relearn how to walk again, do talk therapy, neck exercises, physical therapy, occupational therapy. Then my vocal cord got paralyzed. So I got put on a feeding tube for five whole months. That means I couldn't drink. I couldn't eat. It got so bad that

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:09)

You couldn't.

Ethan A. Poetic (18:10)

Yeah, couldn't eat. Couldn't eat my mouth. It got so bad that I had to use a towel under my mouth when it was time to go to bed, because my mouth was just drool.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:21)

That's after the car accident.

Ethan A. Poetic (18:23)

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:25)

That shows that we all need to have gratitude. We take for granted things like being able to eat.

Ethan A. Poetic (18:32)

Yeah, it was a journey of not being able to consume anything. Because if I would have so much as consumed some water or took a bite of food by mouth, the consequences would have been pneumonia and it have made things worse than what it already is.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:33)

But you couldn't do that.

Ethan A. Poetic (18:47)

So.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:47)

That

is... That's a shock.

It's amazing that you survived all that. Did it take a lot of willpower and belief to get through those times?

Ethan A. Poetic (18:59)

Yeah, one day at a time, one hour at a time, people coming in praying for me. There was a special anointing that was being put on prayer lists as I'm reading the Bible. I'm just like at the lowest point of low. And eventually I did come out on top where I was able to eat again, drink again, but then I go through some more stuff.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:23)

So you got better and then more things were happening. everybody listening, would one of the lessons to everybody be take it a day at a time?

Ethan A. Poetic (19:26)

Yeah

Yeah, you can say that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:35)

What are some of the other lessons that you share with people, especially when you're speaking? What do you tell people? I know that you talked about how women need to know their worth, but when maybe talking to people who are shifting into any sort of next stage or overcoming something, what is the toolkit that you wish everybody would use?

Ethan A. Poetic (19:55)

Just understand resiliency, that life is never easy. It doesn't matter how much money you're making, the nicest clothes. You're gonna have to face something you have to overcome in life. You don't have to do it alone. You can do it with a therapist, counselor, life coach, pastor, or people in your inner circle that can help you. Then there's also researching the thing you're going through and see the blueprint of how other people went from victor to victor.

or decide to be a victim. But either way, there's a cost to pay at being the victor, because you're going to stand out from the crowd.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:33)

There's a cost in standing out.

Ethan A. Poetic (20:35)

Well, it's like some people want to start a pity party for things they have to overcome versus doing the work and realizing that somebody else already been through this and they overcame it. So let's look at what they did. It's like the old saying, same game, just different people. Or in other words, same adversity, trauma, wounds, scars, just a different person.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:04)

Are you saying part of the solution is to find people who are a step ahead of you and get inspired by what they did to overcome similar obstacles?

Ethan A. Poetic (21:14)

Yes, because far too many times we think we're alone or may feel we're alone, but I realize on the other side of that energy that's a waves of emotion is answers, clarity and closure on how to move forward.

I realize some people overcome something just by hearing a certain statement, seeing a certain action. I know certain things are different for those who are blind and deaf. They overcome things a different way in their own language, whether it's reading through Braille, listening into audio books, hand sign language. I'm not the best, but I'm just giving an example like the peace sign.

So yeah, everyone has something to overcome.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:00)

Those things work. There are solutions.

You're saying whatever is going on, there's solution to what people are facing.

Ethan A. Poetic (22:07)

Yes, there is because this Earth is over 2000 years old. What isn't there not to overcome? You know, our elders have seen a lot in the many years of every 10 years, which is a decade. So they see things and experience things that this generation may not have experienced. They have a story to tell.

in simpler terms.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:36)

Circling back for a moment to how you're inspiring young people, for example, have you got any stories, I mean, only say what you can say because it's young people, but have you got any stories where someone heard about your experience and then turned their life around?

Ethan A. Poetic (22:51)

Can you say that again? We kind of like

Can you say that question again?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:55)

Sorry,

I'm wondering have you, yeah, I'll ask the question again. I'm wondering have you got any stories about how a young person or someone in your audience when you were speaking heard your story and then turned their lives around?

Ethan A. Poetic (23:12)

Yeah, there have been, like, for example...

There was this one kid who learned about my story. He told his mom about me.

And it just so happened around that time, I knew somebody that worked at the Milton Hershey School, actually, actually they're alumni of the Milton Hershey School. I introduced that person to that child's mom and that child ended up going to the Milton Hershey School.

And then after that, they went off to college and graduated with a college degree, being the first in their family ever.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:42)

Great.

Ethan A. Poetic (23:43)

It was about relationships and connections. I people join this one nonprofit organization. There's these two girls I knew when they were in middle school. I believe in them the first moment I saw them as they were playing on the basketball court and doing track. I was able to help them get into the program and eventually not only graduated high school together, they also graduated college together and they became the first intergeneration.

But ultimately it's about just looking out and providing resources to certain people who believe in themselves But also want to do better for themselves on an individual level

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:18)

Do you think people need to want to change?

Ethan A. Poetic (24:21)

Yeah, they have to want it. Like for example, there could be a guy who went through an intervention with the family who got tired of, you know, certain behavior patterns of a person trying to use him. And the problem was some people don't want to go to rehab because sometimes they don't want it bad enough because they haven't figured out a why. And some people don't want to go on the other side and realize they need to face certain things.

that they've been putting off. But we can tell by many stories, like for example,

There's one movie in a book called Homeless to Harvard, where this one girl was homeless for a good period of her life. Eventually she found support and laid it on the road. She got accepted into Harvard, which is an Ivy League school that has one of the highest academic requirements to get involved in there. Another story could be the Michael Orr-

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:17)

It's competitive.

Ethan A. Poetic (25:20)

Yes, another story could be the Michael Orr story where he grew up in poverty and everything else with the odds stacked against him. But there was his family that saw something in him. They took him in like their own child, helped him get into this private school. He signed up for football, basketball, ended up getting a full ride scholarship for football at Ole Miss.

and then became a multi-millionaire by being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:50)

That's such a story, it really is.

Ethan A. Poetic (25:50)

So

those are two stories I can name right off the top of my head.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:57)

They turned their lives around.

Ethan A. Poetic (25:59)

Yes, with the right support system and people coming together for the greater good of humanity.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:04)

support system and people coming together. What do you think the right support system should look like for a community? So do you think it's different for everybody?

Ethan A. Poetic (26:13)

The right support system comes with understanding who wants to add value, who wants to help you multiply, and also wants to see you become a better version of themselves. Who wants to invest into you? And eventually you'll do the same for other people as well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:33)

help people to grow and then they can help other people to grow.

Ethan A. Poetic (26:37)

It happens sometimes with teachers doing more than just a curriculum.

You can show and coaches stand a little extra time with certain tricks or not seen athletes making sure they have food, clothing and other tall trees that they can go home with.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:57)

make sure people have the basics. it sounds like it starts, sure motivation is great, but it sounds like it can also start with the bare essentials, the basic supplies people need.

Ethan A. Poetic (27:09)

Yes, it sure does. It's just a matter of just making sure we understand the right intentions behind it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:17)

Okay, do you sometimes see the wrong intention?

Ethan A. Poetic (27:20)

Yeah, I do. I've seen some people like, wanna donate stuff to certain people on the street, but then wanna have their camera ready just to post it on social media for, you know, clicks, something that go viral. When reality is that not everything needs to be posted on social media, it can be done just for the moment and then go on about their lives.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (27:43)

Interesting, interesting. Do you think that some of the best things that can happen are offline? I know I believe that.

Ethan A. Poetic (27:51)

Yes, because not everything needs to be posted online that we do in real life. Because we take away mystery, we take away the element of surprise and what we're really doing without people seeing. And then you have other people feel different, like, you doing this just to be posted on social media, just for your own good?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:15)

Absolutely. It's such a fine line. I'm wondering how people can really get their intention across because sometimes we want to share a message to help people and using traditional or modern media to spread that message. But then it can end up looking attention seeking, even if that's not the intention. How do you, because you've been

You've been with a good intention speaking to all sorts of audiences. So how do you make sure that people can see that you're genuinely trying to help? Is it about maybe just including moments that are offline or what do you do?

Ethan A. Poetic (28:57)

It's times where some people are invited in. Sometimes some people are not invited in and they end up in the situation. Like for example, when I got interviewed on television and in the newspaper, they came to my workplace and took pictures and used it for B-roll.

Then it was also kids involved.

It was for the purpose of sharing my story on what I'm doing in the present tense instead of what I overcame as a past tense. There can also be situations of, I could be at a networking event and I could just be the person to be in the background and not have to worry about the spotlight being on me.

There was a couple of times, you know, a certain individual, there was a time where, you know, a certain individual did want the attention on me just to, well, I back, I was kind of exploiting, trying to win the favor of, you know, certain donors, sponsors, and prospective board members to come support this nonprofit.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (29:45)

Right.

Ethan A. Poetic (30:08)

But I realized you should have made the time to ask me if I felt comfortable talking about that stuff.

and far too often I look back on it I do I just say yes because

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:13)

Right, did you feel used?

Ethan A. Poetic (30:18)

I just don't want someone, at the time I wasn't comfortable talking about my near death experience because when I look back on it now, I realize, sure I made the recovery, it's like some people see the outside, like I recovered and everything. What they don't realize is that there's a journey in that recovery. I just didn't get there.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (30:38)

That takes time.

Ethan A. Poetic (30:40)

Yeah, and like when a person's on like all those medicines and gets off, they went from their bodies, I went from my body's five senses being numb, like desensitized to when I get off, feel like a different person.

something seems different, but I ultimately realized looking back that there's certain things that should have been addressed much sooner than later. Eventually I did have that talk with that guy last spring and tell him this is the reason why I didn't feel comfortable talking about it because I was going through survivors for months. He didn't know about it, I didn't know about it. And he was able to have a better perspective.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:11)

Which guy?

Right, right.

Ethan A. Poetic (31:24)

and gave more clarity.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:25)

Do you think

that...

Do you think that various forms of media creators might be on their own learning curve trying to understand how to relate to people who have gone through something?

Ethan A. Poetic (31:38)

The media already knows how to relate to people going back to when television was black and white, also when the newspapers were more in demand than ever, then there's also on the radio and telegrams, whatever, all that other stuff. It's not new, it's just everyone has a voice due to technology being available.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:53)

So it's not new. That's what you're saying.

Ethan A. Poetic (32:02)

to different hands. But now it's a matter of fact checking if someone's telling the truth or not. And the only way to find out is test it in a logical and evidential way. For example,

My story is true because, you know, the first story I was reported about me was, you know, me being in critical condition in the newspaper.

Then 10 years later, I finally get an updated version where it shows me being an evolved version of myself. College graduate, self-published author, earned three certifications as a mediator, restorative justice and circles facilitator, and mental health first aider, earned other awards and accolades.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:42)

Nice.

Ethan A. Poetic (32:51)

And it shows, you know, social media just adds more value to it than what I already have added value to myself.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:58)

Are you saying that people in this story were skipping straight from your accident to the achievement? And it's important to acknowledge the journey that happens to get from one side to the other.

Ethan A. Poetic (33:16)

Yeah, because there's certain things that people didn't understand. It's like they saw me cross the finish line overcome, you know, adversity, but they didn't realize the mental aspect of it. The emotional aspect. Like I'll say this again. When I was desensitized with all those pharmaceutical medicines. It's like, let's say, for example, I come over to your place in Australia. We have lunch.

I shake your hand, you know, we feel that, feel that connection. But if I shake your hand with an oven mitt, you're not going to feel a connection.

Because that's what the medicine does. It desensitized me to where I didn't feel any emotion.

I didn't feel no sensory. ⁓

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:01)

You couldn't feel emotions

as well as physical feelings.

Ethan A. Poetic (34:06)

I couldn't feel it. I couldn't

feel it from here because because medicine goes just like the neurology into the brain which controls all the nerve systems all over.

And then I realized when oppression goes through all that, when they get off the drugs and everything, unfortunately we see why people get addicted to opioids because they like that feeling to cope with life.

instead of doing the work.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:32)

How does that

happen?

Ethan A. Poetic (34:33)

Well, what happens is when a person has all that downtime being on all these drugs, they feel like, know, depending on how a person's mindset is, they feel like they could just turn to the drugs instead of doing the work from within with their mental health.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:48)

Right.

Ethan A. Poetic (34:49)

And then when you take away the pharmaceutical drugs, unfortunately, some people don't want to go to therapy or see a counselor. And they start doing things to get back on the drugs again, to get that high, that illusion again. For me, I did the opposite. I did the work and became a better version of myself without being addicted.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:10)

Are you saying that these people can't cope with life and they use those substances to cope with their everyday existence?

Ethan A. Poetic (35:21)

Yeah, yeah they do. It's no different than someone using coffee to cope with life.

because

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:27)

I drink a

lot of coffee.

Ethan A. Poetic (35:30)

I'm just saying like, too much of anything's not good for us.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:34)

Right.

Ethan A. Poetic (35:36)

I just only use coffee as an analogy because I see some people are looking for that caffeine rush.

in the morning, but I realized there could have been something else I could have consumed in the morning, like a cold-pressed juice that's organic. A smoothie.

or even, hmm, what else could they assume, they could consume a kibacha, it's basically a fermented drink that cleans out the gut. Yeah, that. So what I'm saying is there's alternative things to be drinking besides looking for that caffeine hot.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:03)

I know, can betcha.

Ethan A. Poetic (36:14)

I'm not saying it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:14)

Because coffee

is what? It's technically a bit of a drug, isn't it? Coffee.

Ethan A. Poetic (36:20)

Well, it's not necessarily a drug because that's not what it was designed for. It just turns into an addiction because somebody wants to cope with life or want to get that rush, which is like a substitute. But I realize when a person works on themselves, they don't need that rush of caffeine anymore. I'm just only saying that as an example, not that coffee is a drug.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:31)

bread.

Ethan A. Poetic (36:46)

Because according to the FDA, Food and Drug Administration, coffee is not a drug. It's just something that people consume.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:47)

understood.

I understand. Now, I think what we're saying though, is that people need to do the wellness habits. And I think that here's the thing, wellness has became such an industry and glorified. And some people become skeptical about the consumerism of wellness. However, in a simple, everyday, common sense way, we all need those wellness

habits to really cope with the complexities of life so we don't then end up turning to things that on the surface appear to make us feel better but they're actually causing damage.

Ethan A. Poetic (37:36)

mean, wellness is important to practice every day all year round. That's how we become a better version of ourselves. That's how we learn to cope with life much better and face things head on. But also it can be done in a group setting where you have support. There's some people who more experienced in certain areas to help us become a better version of ourselves.

I'll just say the information is out there, relevant books, ebooks, audiobooks, you know, then there's also on the internet.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:11)

There's almost no excuse

then.

Ethan A. Poetic (38:13)

Well, excuse is one thing, but it's a matter of does a person feel motivated and do they want it bad enough. And so far, with the information that's out now, some people are definitely making changes in their lives.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:25)

Absolutely. There's so much available. There are so many resources. So I'm wondering if you want to sort of wrap up and give a message out to anyone who's trying to turn life around. What are three key lessons that you would want everybody to know about turning life

Ethan A. Poetic (38:48)

Don't invest more than you can afford to lose or your decisions and the people be around the most is who you'd like to become

and be willing to understand that there is beauty for your underlying pain wounds and scars where you can turn it around for the greater good.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:03)

great lessons. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your vulnerable experiences.

Ethan A. Poetic (39:10)

You're very welcome.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:11)

It has been great to hear from you. So this is Ethan Poetic.

Ethan A. Poetic (39:15)

Yeah, that's me. I'll just give a wrap up and say if you want to follow me, you can follow me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn. My username is Ethan Poetic or Ethan Poetic 23. Also for serious speaking engagements or opportunities on the summit, a panel or your event, you can book me through ethanspeaks.com.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:41)

Awesome. Reach out to Ethan Poetic. Okay, thanks for talking.

Ethan A. Poetic (39:48)

You're welcome.

Transcript:

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:01) Hello, welcome to the Motivate Collective podcast. I'm your host, Melanie Suzanne Wilson. I'm a professional speaker, sustainable wellness supporter and diversity advocate. The show is an opportunity to gain sustainable wellness and success by learning from thought leaders around the world. I invite you to subscribe to the show and reach out if you would like to be featured in an episode. Enjoy.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson: https://www.melaniesuzannewilson.com

The Motivate Collective: https://www.motivatecollective.com