Episode 155: Essential Knowledge About Protecting Your Energy - A Shamanic Healer’s Guidance with Kara Hanks

The exploration of energy continues!

Energy is your most important commodity. When you’re feeling drained and exhausted, it doesn’t matter how much time, money or friends you have because you won’t have any energy to enjoy it.

There’s a vast array of strategies to help you manage your energy ranging from the foods you eat (chaga mushrooms, gogi berries, elixirs…) to boosting your mindset (that’s my work as a life coach), to the energetic realm (frequencies, vibrations, empaths…).

Today, we get to learn about energy from Shamanic Healer and teacher, Kara Hanks.

Kara helps people explore, understand and tap into their limitless selves and experience a life from their hearts and souls. She helps them understand the wisdom in their life stories, how to integrate the energy of those lessons and live a life beyond their imagination.

In this episode, we hone into the “energy” part of what Kara does. She teaches us the importance of understanding who we are from an energetic standpoint and how to use this knowledge that everything is a bunch of vibrations and frequencies to help us manage our energy better.

Topic Summary:

• Energy from a Shaman’s point of view

• How to increase your energy

• How to protect your energy

• How to break energy cycles

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Key Nuggets:

Intuition

We don’t need to have all the answers but we can seek those answers without waiting for somebody to tell us what to do. This is one of the most important things that Kara learned from being diagnosed with an illness in her 20s. This ultimately led her to grow knowledge in mind-body work, which she shares with us in this episode.

Energy

Kara’s mind-body work and work as a Shaman has taught her that we need to understand ourselves from a vibrational standpoint. She teaches us what she’s learned about energy from this perspective. Among some of what she dives into are:

• Everything has an energy field

• Consciousness is the energy of the planet

• 3 ways to protect your energy ( * spoiler alert * it definitely has something to do with being true to yourself)

• How to increase your energy

• How to break energy cycles

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

Trust yourself.  Our life stories lend so much for us to grow from .  When you trust yourself and your own knowing, things flow.  When you doubt yourself and choose to trust somebody else’s thoughts more than your own, then you run into trouble.

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

Nugget #1 : Find a mentor, a tribe, a friend…some sort of support so that you can do this journey together. 

Nugget #2 : Be in the moment and appreciate all that you are in the moment.  Trust that you’re exactly where you need to be and that the teachers and resources will come as you need.

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website: https://www.khevolution.com/

Email:   evolvewithkara@gmail.com

Facebook: Join Kara’s FB Group “Evolve With Kara” where she shares insights and channeled messages.

Episode 151 BITE SIZED: Increase Creativity and Reduce Stress, Anxiety & Overwhelm By Doing This One Counter-intuitive Thing

Our brains are wired to take action, problem solve and fix.  Anything that suggests it to do otherwise is met with resistance or lack of attention.

It's not the glitz that your brain is looking for but choosing to slow down will get you to where you really want to be - a place of peace, clarity and joy.

Today you'll learn the 5 pivotal benefits of slowing down and 5 ways to do it that you can try right away.

Resources:

Grab the free guided journaling exercise here: 7 Journal Prompts To Help You Slow Down & Find Ease

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Episode 149: Are You An Empath? How To Protect, Clear and Optimize Your Energy with Rebecca Gibson

Energy is your most important commodity. When you’re feeling drained and exhausted, it doesn’t matter how much time, money or friends you have because you won’t have any energy to enjoy it.

There’s a vast array of strategies to help you manage your energy ranging from the foods you eat (chaga mushrooms, gogi berries, elixirs…) to boosting your mindset (that’s my work as a life coach), to the energetic realm (frequencies, vibrations, empaths…).

In this episode, you’ll learn about energy from the perspective of the energetic realm.

Rebecca Gibson, Spiritual Strategist and Psychic Medium, teaches us about empaths and how to manage your energy (whether you’re empathic or not).

In short, empaths are people who are so attuned to other people’s energies that they absorb what others are feeling emotionally and/or physically. For example, if a friend is sad and worried, you won’t just feel bad for them (sympathy) or just understand what they must be going through (empathy). You will actually feel the sadness and the worry (empath). This might also happen for physical pain like if somebody is sick or has a sore knee. If you’re an empath, you can actually feel it.

Most relevant for 2020 is that if you’re an empath, you might feel the continually transpiring world events weighing down on you. Maybe you’ve experienced unexplained dampening of your energy or maybe even bouts of sadness that leave you drained.

This all happens on a spectrum and maybe you feel it a little or maybe you feel it a lot. But when you don’t know that you’re an empath, you’re susceptible to getting bogged down and not be able to do anything about it because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Well, now you know ;)

We also dive into the deep layers of what it really means to be an empath and how to use it for the superpower that it is.

Oh! And I learned a new term - spiritual hygiene. I love that term and it really helps me better understand how to take care of my energy. I’m really excited for you to learn about it too because it makes all of this stuff feel more second nature and easy.

In specific, you will learn:

• Traits and signs to help you know if you’re an empath

• How energy exchanges cause empaths to feel drained

• What to do about the fact that empaths who are disconnected from themselves and operate through ego might attract toxic situations into their lives

• What you need to know about how empaths help bring others back to the frequency of love

• *How to protect your energy so that you don’t absorb what you don’t want

• Not only that, but how to get MORE energy

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Key Nuggets:

What is an empath?

What does it really mean to be and empath…what does it feel like to be one? What kinds of experiences do they or have they encountered? Rebecca shares with us traits of an empath like how they absorb other people’s emotions and experience massive fluctuations in their own emotions.

Are you an empath?

Rebecca shares 13+ signs and examples that will help you know if you’re an empath such as:

• absorbing other people’s emotions

• being drained from watching the news

• feeling completely isolated

• noticing that groups of people vibe at your vibe (ex. if you’re happy and you walk into a room others seem to be happy; if you’re anxious and you walk into a room it seems that everyone else becomes anxious)

• people confide in you and leave feeling amazing while you’re left feeling like crap (headache, anxious, cramping…)

Spiritual Hygiene!

One of my new favorite terms! This is an easy term to remember to help you cue into protecting your energy.

“Just as you’d wash your hands after shaking a bunch of people’s hands, you need to wash off your energy after bumping energies with others”

Rebecca gives us several amazing ways to clear and protect your energy. They’re simple and definitely something that you can do right away!

Links:

If you have any questions for Rebecca or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  www.rebeccagibson.com.au

Email:    info@rebeccagibson.com.au

Instagram:@rebeccagibsonpsychicmedium

Facebook: @RebeccaGibsonPsychicMedium

PS. If you want to learn more about how to live optimally as an empath, Rebecca has a new course coming out this month (September 2020)!

Episode 142: Quick Guide To Intuitive Eating - Using Food To Deepen Your Inner Connection with Rachel Tu

Our relationship with food has become more complex than it needs to be. There’s a plethora of diets out there and even more information about what you should eat. One day eggs are good for you and the next they’re not. It’s confusing!

What’s even more confusing is that each diet restricts different things. The restricted foods are usually deemed as “untouchables” (I’m thinking about my good friend bread - completely refined carbohydrates….I love you so much).

But what if you lived in a world where you give yourself permission to eat whatever you want? Chips and chocolate cake are no longer synonymous with guilt. It’s not “indulgent” or “sinful” to have rich desserts.

Stay with me here. What I’m about to propose next is pretty radical…

Also, WHAT IF allowing yourself to eat whatever you want can even deepen your spiritual practice? Like, Cheetos can help with your spiritual growth??

Hey, I’m happy to live in a world where I get to hangout with bread whenever I want and not feel bad for it. I probably won’t eat it everyday but even just having the option to feels liberating.

Cue in this amazing thing called Intuitive Eating. Apparently spiritual Cheetos can become a reality!

I’m so glad to have Rachel Tu on this episode because she teaches us how Intuitive Eating works and how to initiate it into our lives right away.

Rachel is a busy new mom, registered dietitian, yoga teacher and creator of Food, Flow, Thought. She has worked in community health care for over 5 years and is passionate in helping others find food freedom and heal their body image to help decrease the prevalence of eating disorders. She integrates yoga in her counseling through her training and research in trauma-informed yoga, Yoga Nidra and embodied yoga.

In this episode Rachel teaches us about what Intuitive Eating is and how it can help deepen our mindfulness, yoga and spiritual practice. The cool thing about Rachel is that Food, Flow, Thought is her side hustle. This woman is an inspiring example of how you can totally love your day job and also branch off to create something to express a different side of you without having to choose on over another. We get to hear her story of how she landed in a place where she’s so in love with everything that she does.

This one’s a great one! It can also make you feel super good about eating bread or chocolate cake so what are you waiting for? Grab the earbuds and listen in!

Topic Summary:

- How can you know that the work you’re doing is aligned to what you’re meant to do?

- Connection between mindfulness, yoga and intuitive eating

-What is intuitive eating and how can it help us live more joyfully

- Intuitive eating vs. mindful eating

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Key Nuggets:

How do you know this is what you’re meant to do?

Rachel loves the work that she does - day job and side hustle. How did she know that dietetics was for her? How can others check in to see if they’re aligned with their best path in life? She talks about using core values as a guidance system for navigating your life.

Intuitive Eating:

Give yourself permission to eat what you want. It’s not what you eat but the intention that you eat it with.

That carrot cake isn’t necessarily bad for you - but why are you eating it? For enjoyment or are you trying to seek comfort in it?

Rachel tells us how we can start doing intuitive eating right away.

Mindful Eating:

Slowing down and using all 5 senses can lead to you feeling more satisfaction with your meal.

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

“I have to say it's to let go of perfection.

Growing up I felt this need to fit in to what is socially acceptable like get the best marks, get a good career, eat healthy, exercise, be fit, be happy, get rich, dress well, buy this, buy that, the list goes on ...

What I’ve learned is that this just leads to anxiety  or judgments in comparing myself with others and ultimately leading to confusion of how I truly show up. Yoga gave me this space to explore imperfection and challenge my perfectionist need to master a pose. I’ve learned in yoga this ability to explore polar opposite thoughts and dualistic and be okay with both and that's why I love bringing it into my teachings.”

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

“A nugget of wisdom ill share about my growth is understanding my purpose. As a child, I always pondered about my own purpose in life is or what I wanted to be when I grow up. I finally think my purpose is living within my values and helping others to do so whether it’s through body image healing or helping people eat with in their lifestyle.

It's about connecting to our values and its about finding  a community that shares those values but also challenges them.  Values never end and it can help drive our decisions in the life we want to live.

Life is not a goal ,  just like yoga is not about a pose. I think we are set to think that way, but if we can enjoy the journey we are more likely to feel more free from our to do list and be in the moment.”

Resources:

If you want to learn more, Rachel also does 5 Day Intuitive eating workshops. her most recent one is August 27th-31st, 2020.

Links:

If you have any questions for Rachel or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  www.foodflowthought.com

Instagram: @foodflowthought

Episode 141: How To Stop Emotional Suffering with Amber Goodenough

We met wellness coach, Amber Goodenough , in Episode 128 where we showed you a powerful tool that can help you completely change your mindset so that you can stop feeling crappy.

Today we have her back on the show! She shares her story of how she ended up becoming a wellness coach and the health journey that changed her perspective on life.

She’s experienced her fair share of physical and mental pain and because of that, she’s become quite adept at dealing with pain.

This all brings us back to the Byron Katie tool that we were showing you last time! Byron Katie is a profound spiritual teacher and her tool, The Work, helps you feel profoundly better.

As we said last time, when you experience dissatisfaction, pain or hardship in life, you’re suffering. More often than not, the dissatisfaction, pain or hardship isn’t coming from the circumstance, it’s coming from the stories we’re telling ourselves about the circumstances

(ex. circumstance - my cat ran away

but we might make up a story about that - my cat ran away because he hates me. Everyone hates me and runs away from me…even my furry friend. See how this story creates unnecessary suffering? How in the world do you know for sure that, that’s why the cat ran away?)

Suffering from the stories that we tell ourselves is called emotional suffering and The Work can help alleviate it.

The only thing is, it took me a minute to understand how to use it. I had so many questions about it and needed a deeper understanding before I was ready to dive in….

How could it be so simple? Aren’t we lying to ourselves if we try to pretend that something that bothers us doesn’t? Sounds kind of like an emotional bypass. And how about when other people are involved - do you just let them off the hook for lying/yelling/or otherwise breaking your boundaries?

That’s why we dive deeper into The Work in this episode and offer up another demo. These questions might be rolling around in your head too so I wanted to help you get a better sense of The Work.

This tool is free, you can use it on yourself and there’s even free resources and more info on Byron Katie’s website.

There is something to be said about being guided through it though. If you are experiencing emotional suffering and want help with it, both Amber and I offer complimentary intro coaching sessions.

Topic Summary:

- How did Amber become a wellness coach?

- How can our thoughts cause emotional suffering?

- How does The Work really work? (is it a bypass for actually dealing with a situation? how could it be so simple?)

- Demo of coaching tool for problem: urgency to get everything done faster. Exhausting to always have to rush.

Resources:

Byron Katie offers tools for The Work for free on her website thework.com

JOIN a free online community for you to find support and connect with like minded people to create heart-centered living.

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Key Nuggets:

Going Deeper Into Byron Katie’s The Work:

Other than what you’re thinking or believing about a situation, chances are you’re actually fine. The Work helps you alleviate the emotional charge out of the situation so that you can make better decisions. Being angry, hurt or self loathing doesn’t help you make good decisions. It’s more effective to deal with situations with clarity and calm.

Veronica Gets Coached:

At the time of recording, I felt the urgency to get all things done as if there was a timeline that I could never meet. Amber coaches me through it using the The Work.

Links:

If you have any questions for Amber or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Facebook: @everybodyshineon

Instagram: @everybodyshineon

Episode 140: Veronica Get's Coached On "There's Never Enough Time!!" with Olena Gisys (3rd Interview)

We’ve finally made it!  After detouring with an episode on perfectionism (that’s well worth your time to listen btw), fellow life coach Olena Gisys is back for the third and final episode of this incidental mini series. 

In this episode, we show you, for a second time, how to use your home to deal with your problems. Listening to it a second time will help you get a better hang of using it on yourself.

Olena coaches me this time. My problem is feeling like time is moving too fast.

What happens is that I plan to do way too much which usually leaves me feeling like there’s not enough time!  Using the Living Space Tool, I was able to look at the problem without becoming completely overwhelmed. 

Ready to try this on yourself too? Grab a journal and pen to follow along!

PS. We also offer up a couple of BONUS tools that you might like to try on.

Topic Summary:

- How to use your home to help you deal with your problems

- Veronica gets coached “there’s never enough time”

- Outcome of coaching: are you being too hard on yourself?

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Olena and I started a new podcast together! Follow us on instagram and click on bio link to listen @by_podcast

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Key Nuggets:

Living Space Tool:

People reveal themselves in everything they create, including their home. Your living space is a reflection of your inner life.

By taking a closer look at your home, you can actually use it to help access your problems…especially the sticky ones that are too hard to talk about. It helps you dust off corners of your mind and find the dusty thoughts that lurk underneath it.

When you become aware of what’s really going on then you can move out of the struggle and into a place where you can start making changes that will feel better (and therefore make you happier)

Veronica’s Challenge:

Using the tool, I pinpointed that what I disliked the most about my home was the general disorganized and dirty feel of it. The words that I used to describe it were:

• Unkept

• Neglected

• and Unbecoming

It was a surprise that the word “neglected” came up because I definitely take time and care to make the house a home. Nonetheless, that’s how my home felt like to me at the time.

At first, I thought it had something to do with my time management - I over plan a lot and usually end up feeling like as if I have no time. As Olena coached me further using a few other exercises, it came to light that there was an innocent and playful part of me that was being neglected.

The rest of the coaching was spent on digging further into this - being too hard on myself, needing more time for play, and ultimately a sense of stress that came from a place of fear.

Try this tool on yourself:

1. Look around your house and notice the room or area that you hate the most.

2. What are 3 adjectives that you would use to describe this space that you don’t like?

3. What other area of your life feel like these 3 words?

4. There you have it - you’ve identified the underlying root cause problem that’s been lurking beneath.

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  Superwoman.School

Email:   Olena@Superwoman.School

Instagram: @olena.gisys

Episode 139: Ditch Perfectionism. 3 Supertips To Stop Worrying About What Others Will Think with Olena Gisys with Olena Gisys (2nd Interview)

Perfectionism is when you're gripped by the feeling of having to do more and/or having to do it right. 

There's no room for failure and there's an illusory set of high standards that you'll probably never meet. You’re never going to meet them because one of the foundations of perfectionism is the fear of not being good enough. So no matter how extraordinary your outcomes are, it’ll still feel like it’s not enough.

The other foundation of perfectionism is the fear of not being lovable.

Ultimately both fears’ fear ( a mouthful there) is rejection.

In order to avoid rejection by others (especially the ones we love), we strive to be, well, perfect. To say, do, look and act the “right” way. We may even tell ourselves that this behavior helps us become a better person and that’s how got so far in life in the first place.

What a lie! The truth is that perfectionism is self-destructive and it holds you back from being your true self in the world.

Also, before you decide that you're not a perfectionist, think again.  We all have perfectionist tendencies - even if it's just for a small part of our lives. Become aware of it so that you can choose to act differently rather than have it reign over you.  

Today fellow coach Olena Gisys is back to help us better understand perfectionism and gives us tips to stop worrying about what other people will think (will they judge me?  will they reject me?...) so that we can just be ourselves (*sigh of relief*)

Topic Summary:

- How do we end up becoming perfectionists?

- How to stop letting these feelings of “never enough” hold us back

- Making the shift from bettering ourselves because we’re ashamed of our shortcomings to a place where we’re bettering ourselves for healthy achievement

- 3 tips to stop worrying about what others think

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Olena and I started a new podcast together! Follow us on instagram and click on bio link to listen @by_podcast

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Key Nuggets:

What is perfectionism:

It stems from shame and is a sense of having to do more and to do it right. The belief is that if you act perfect, look perfect and do things perfectly then it’ll minimize the feelings of shame, judgement and rejection.

You end up believing that you are your accomplishments, achievements and your looks (this is a false believe because you’re so much more than that. Ex. if you get fired from a job it certainly does not mean you’re a failure in life)

Why do we become perfectionists:

Usually comes from a sense of our more vulnerable self (perhaps the inner child) trying to survive.

3 Supertips To Stop Worrying About What Other People Think

We talk about about how positive self talk, taking action and mindfulness are your antidotes to perfectionism.

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  Superwoman.School

Email:   Olena@Superwoman.School

Instagram: @olena.gisys

Episode 138: What Does Your Home Say About You? An Unexpected Coaching Tool That You Can Use To Access Your Subconscious Mind (1st Interview) with Olena Gisys

People reveal themselves in everything that they create, including the home that you live in. From the color of your walls to how you keep your bathroom - your living space is a reflection of your inner life.

This is a coaching episode where I'm joined by Confidence Coach, Olena Gisys. We teach you a coaching tool that you can use on yourself to access your subconscious mind and find answers to a problem that you're stuck on.

This tool is especially useful for when something feels wrong in your life but you can't pinpoint exactly what's causing the crappy feeling.

We also talk about how perfectionism holds you back, what life coaching really is, how it's helped us along our journeys.

Topic Summary:

- How can life coaching help you achieve your goals

- How do you know when you need a life coach versus a therapist?

- How perfectionism holds you back

- Tool (living space tool) to help you access your subconscious mind and find the answers that you need

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Olena and I started a new podcast together! Follow us on instagram and click on bio link to listen @by_podcast

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Key Nuggets:

Perfectionism:

It’s a myth that aiming to be perfect makes you a better version of yourself. That’s not the type of striving that will create growth - in fact you’re doing it because it’s a way to shrink. It’s a way to fit into what you think is expected of you and avoid rejection rather than showing up as your true self. But it’s only showing up as your true self that allows you feel the sense of belonging that you crave.

What’s Life Coaching Really About?

The difference between coaching and therapy is that coaching is meant to help you move from functional (life is fine) to optimal (life is super awesome). Olena and I share how our coaches have helped us get to where we are now.

What Does Your Home Say About You - Living Space Tool:

We’re teaching you this tool so that you can use it to help you with a problem that you’re stuck on. Bring a paper and pen along so that you can do it too!

Sometimes we know something’s wrong but we don’t exactly know what it is. Or, we know exactly what’s wrong but it’s hard to think or talk about it. This is where the living space tool comes in.

I demonstrated the tool by coaching Olena. The tool helped reveal that her irritation with her disorganized balcony was related to her guilt of procrastinating on her finances. Her finances are hard to talk about - something that she doesn’t even want to touch. By talking about her balcony instead, we were able to alleviate some of the anxiety that she had about her finances.

Summary of Steps:

1. What part of your home do you dislike the most?

2. Use 3 words to describe this part of the home.

3. What else in your life matches the 3 words that you described.

4. What’s one thing that you can do to make this part of your home feel better?

You can go deeper with this by applying The Work to the problem that’s identified by Step 3. We taught you how to use this tool in Episode 128 with Amber Goodenough.

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

We can’t always control the circumstances in our lives but we can control the meaning that we attach to it and our reaction to our circumstances.

As Viktor Frankl says in Man’s Search For Meaning - it’s our search for meaning that drives us in our lives.

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

Recognize that there’s an inner child that sits within you. It was wounded when it was little and it’s part of your ego.

Go back to visit that child part within you to understand yourself at a deeper level.

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  Superwoman.School

Email:   Olena@Superwoman.School

Instagram: @olena.gisys

Episode 137: A Playful Way To Reveal Your True Self with Erica Buchholz

Laughter Yoga Teacher and fellow life coach, Erica Buchholz, is all about play nowadays but that's only because she she got sick (quite literally as well as metaphorically) of living the uptight academic life.

In this episode Erica tells us how she was able to transform from a rigid life to one of laughter and play.

We also teach you a fun tool that you can use on yourself to access your subconscious mind and solve limiting thought patterns that keep you stuck.

In between we take pit stops at:

- Getting more play into your life

- What is this whole life coaching thing anyway

- What you need about finding the right coach for you

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REsources:

Erica offers free laughter yoga sessions every Tuesday morning. You can sign up at www.becomingplayful.com

Key Nuggets:

Getting more play into your life:

Erica shares her story of living the uptight life and how getting ill from it led her to find a life that’s light, flexible and playful. She teaches us the benefits of laughter and how to easily get more play in our life with practices like laughter yoga.

What’s this whole life coaching and why get one?

Life coaches seem to be popping up everywhere and for good reason - life coaches can help you get over hurdles that are currently keeping you from living fully or achieving the goals that you’re striving for. Erica and I both had coaches and it immensely helped us with our growth.

It can be confusing to understand what life coaching is though. There are so many kinds out there. This confusion might be causing you to miss out on getting the help that you really need.

We discuss what life coaching is in hopes that it will give you a better idea of it so that if it’s exactly what you need you can start taking action right away.

• Life coaches help you take your life to the next level no matter where you are

• They challenge you against the things that keep you stuck

How to find a life coach that’s right for you:

Just like how you wouldn’t go to just any random hairdresser to do your hair, you want to do some due diligence when finding a coach. If you want to turn your black hair to blonde, you’re going to look for a hairdresser that knows how you do that. Otherwise, you might end up with orange hair (trust me, I’ve been there). If you need help improving your relationship, you’ll want to find a coach who specializes in that. If you have a ton of self-doubt and want to start a business or become a yoga teacher, you’ll want to find a coach who specializes in that.

We give you specific pointers of what to consider when looking for a coach.

Resources:

Erica offers free laughter yoga sessions every Tuesday morning. You can sign up at www.becomingplayful.com

Links:

If you have any questions for Erica or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website: www.becomingplayful.com

Facebook:   @everyonehappier

Instagram: @becomingplayfulcoaching

Episode 131 & 132: A Place To Rest

If you're exhausted, confused, anxious or otherwise feeling stretched (maybe even beyond your limits) here is a place to rest.

Not to avoid responsibility or to shy away from the dark places but to come back to your heart. To reconnect with your anchor - that place within you of ever present stillness, clarity and peace.

It’s not possible to create loving new perspectives with a heart that’s closed. 

An open heart is needed for creation, change, new perspectives, and peace.

It has always been an open heart that has created the kind of massive loving change that elevates us as human beings.  The type that inspires us to be kinder, more patient, more compassionate and to be more easily able to recognize the light within ourselves and in others.

Here’s a place to rest so that you can approach your issues with an open heart and learn, be and do more effectively.

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Episode 128: Feeling Crappy? A Simple Coaching Tool To Improve Your Mindset In Minutes with Amber Goodenough

When you experience dissatisfaction, pain or hardship in life, you’re suffering. More often than not, the dissatisfaction, pain or hardship isn’t coming from the circumstance, it’s coming from the stories we’re telling ourselves about the circumstances.

It’s emotional or psychological suffering.

Example: You go on a bad date. Now you’re convinced that you’ll be alone for the rest of your life.

Circumstance: you went on a bad date.

Suffering: the story that you created for yourself about being alone forever.

It’s not that the circumstance isn’t true or painful - maybe it was a reallllly bad date - but the stories make it worse. Meaning that oftentimes we create unnecessary suffering for ourselves.

Cue in life coaching! Coaching is all about challenging the thoughts and stories that we tell ourselves so that we can reach a better state of well being. We become happier and feel more in control of our response to life because we see the circumstances for what it is. The scary stories don’t get to be on autoplay anymore. You get to decide what meaning you’d like to make of it.

Today I'm joined by a fellow coach, Amber Goodenough, and we talk all things coaching.

- What does life coaching help with anyway?

- How can you know if a coach can help you?

We share a tool with you that you can use on yourself to relieve any emotional grief or suffering that you're experiencing - from self doubt to overwhelm to judgement and shame. 

Topic Summary:

- How does life coaching help?

- How to know when you need a life coach

- Byron Katie’s The Work

- Demo of coaching tool for problem: life plans got derailed because of COVID-19. Amber was going to move to her favorite city but now that’s on hold. Dealing with the grief and disappointment of it.

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Key Nuggets:

What does a life coach do for you?

Somebody to walk alongside you and help you grow and shift. 

Help you see the things that are holding you back that you might not see.

It’s different than talking out your problems with a friend because your life coach won’t try to fix anything or prescribe answers for you. They keep an objective point of view and pushes you to look in the dark places all with the intention to guide you to your own inner knowing.

They’re different than a therapist because life coaching is forward looking. You go to therapy to deal with past traumas. Your life coach helps you answer the question of “now what? how do I move forward?”

Getting Answers For Your Life

The thing is, you already have the answers within you. Coaching and the coaching tools are there to guide you toward it.

The Work:

Byron Katie’s The Work is a fundamental tool in our toolkit. If you answer just 4 simple questions, you can start cracking down on the grief causing stories in your life. It helps you stop feeling so bad and reign in on the worst thoughts (ex. I’m not good enough, I can’t ever make it, everybody hates me, he doesn’t love me anymore….you name it).

Demo of the work:

I coached Amber with The Work. Because of COVID, she’s had to delay her big move to California, which is one of her favorite cities. Now it feels like she has to put her happiness on hold and there’s grief and disappointment that comes with that.

Resources:

Byron Katie offers tools for The Work for free on her website thework.com

JOIN a free online community for you to find support and connect with like minded people to create heart-centered living. ~This journey is your own but you’re not alone~ Click here to get notified

Links:

If you have any questions for Amber or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Facebook: @everybodyshineon

Instagram: @everybodyshineon

Episode 126 BITE SIZED: 3 Tools To Save You When Everything's Falling Apart

Today we go deeper into the first phase of Martha Beck's Change Cycle: Square 1 Death and Rebirth. 

The Change Cycle, created by life coach and author, Martha Beck, depicts the phases that we go through for every major change.

Phase 1 is when everything seems to be falling apart. Your old way of life crumbles around you

and while it might feel like chaos, it's the first step to transformation.

There’s relief and validation when you can understand what you’re going through. Once you know what the heck is happening then you can take the right action.  I give you 3 tools/advice on how to move through this phase with more ease.

Topic Summary:

- What happens in the first phase of transformation

- 3 tools to help you through this tumultuous phase

Resources:

If you haven't listened to the first episode of the Change Cycle yet, listen here.  I give you an overview of all 4 phases.

Other episodes referenced:

Ep 118: Press Pause (to help you with presence)

Ep 119: Presence Is The Path To Peace (to help you with presence)

Ep 104: Using Story to Heal + Transform Your Life with Anjanette Fennell (to help you understand Hero's Journey)

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UPCOMING

RECONNECT

8 Week Group Coaching Program for heart centered who feel the calling to show up and share their gifts to help the world.

GET RE-INSPIRED AND RECONNECT TO WHAT YOU WERE MEANT TO DO

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Key Nuggets:

The Change Cycle, created by life coach and author Martha Beck, depicts the process that we go through for every major life change.

4 phases, split into internal world and external world.

The analogy of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is used to understand it.

Square 1: Death & Rebirth

Butterfly: The caterpillar builds it’s cocoon and deconstructs every part of itself into caterpillar soup.

You: Something change in your life and it deconstructs your system of being in this world. You no longer are who you were but you don’t know who you are yet.

Challenges of this phase:

It’s uncomfortable to be here so some people might deny that it’s happening and just wait for things to “get back to normal”. Others may try to move through this phase really quickly before letting things process (ex. having a rebound after a breakup).

The thing is, RESISTING WILL SLOW DOWN THIS PHASE.

How to get through this phase with more ease:

1. Let the dust settle. Allow the emotions and discomfort to surface.

2. Burrow and be a burrito. A lot is shifting in your inner world right now, give yourself time. You may find yourself going through the stages of grief.

   I recommend Yoga Nidra as a nourishing and restful practice.

3. Practice presence and mindfulness. Presence is the path to peace.

   I recommend Tara Brach’s RAIN meditation.

Resources:

If you haven't listened to the first episode of the Change Cycle yet, listen here.  I give you an overview of all 4 phases.

Other episodes referenced:

Ep 118: Press Pause (to help you with presence)

Ep 119: Presence Is The Path To Peace (to help you with presence)

Ep 104: Using Story to Heal + Transform Your Life with Anjanette Fennell (to help you understand Hero's Journey)

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Episode 125 BITE SIZED: Making Sense of Challenges - Get Through Difficult Times With More Ease

Challenges can feel scary because they throw a wrench in our plans and test us on what we think we know (are you really happy in your relationship? can you really stay in your comfort zone forever? is being the big fish in a pond that you don't like really better than being a small fish in a brand new pond?). 

It breaks down the current systems in which you work and pushes you to try on new perspectives.  A new way of living - a new way of being in the world.

One of the scariest parts of a challenge - whether it be a breakup, leaping for a dream, or say a pandemic like Covid-19 (which is what 2020 is going to be known in history for)…, is the uncertainty.  You really don’t know what’s going to happen.  Will you be alone forever?  Will you fail miserably and lose everything? Will the world be the same after this?

What if you could reduce the level of anxiety and number of sleepless nights caused by uncertainty?

Actually, you can! There’s relief and validation when you can understand what you’re going through.

In this episode, I share with you the Change Cycle - a process created by life coach and author, Martha Beck. It depicts the phases that we go through for every major change. Even a pandemic.

When you realize that feeling confused and formless is just part of a bigger picture you get a bit of relief. And when you know that each phase is part of a transformation that’s taking place within you, it doesn’t seem so hard. You know that there’s an end and not only that, you can take relevant action to move through each part with more ease.

This pandemic of Covid-19 is uncharted territory but the process is the same. Knowing this process will help you navigate the odd new terrain of the pandemic as well as any other challenging times that you may come across in your life.

I’ll go into more depth and give you useful for each phase over the next few Bite Sized episodes.

Topic Summary:

- Phases of The Change Cycle:

• Breakdown of something in your life

• Imagining a new way of being

• Creating a new life and new identity

• Living, transformed, in a way that you could’ve never imagined as your old self

Resources:

Referenced in this episode:

Episode 104: Using Story to Heal + Transform Your Life with Anjanette Fennell

Join the 8 Week Coaching Program to help you Reconnect With The Possibilities Within You

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Key Nuggets:

The Change Cycle, created by life coach and author Martha Beck, depicts the process that we go through for every major life change.

4 phases, split into internal world and external world.

The analogy of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly is used to understand it.

Square 1: Death & Rebirth

Butterfly: The caterpillar builds it’s cocoon and deconstructs every part of itself into caterpillar soup.

You: Something change in your life and it deconstructs your system of being in this world. You no longer are who you were but you don’t know who you are yet.

Square 2: Dreaming & Scheming

Butterfly: The cells that hold the blueprint of a butterfly gets activated and the caterpillar soup begins to build itself back up, cell by cell, into a butterfly.

You: One day, a new possibility dawns on you. Something that you never thought of before - a new way of being.

Square 3: Hero’s Saga

Butterfly: Now the butterfly is fully formed in the cocoon. It needs to use all it’s strength to bust out of the cocoon and into the world.

You: You’re ready to take action to bring your vision to life! You apply for new jobs or maybe a business license. Or maybe you take a course on photography.

Square 4: The Promise Land

Butterfly: Out of the cocoon and with its wings dried, it flies out into the world, experiencing it from a whole new perspective.

You: You’ve transformed. You feel settled in your new identity and this new you feels normal. A little stronger and wiser than your “caterpillar” self.

Episode 122: How To CHOOSE A Meaningful and Intentional Life with Meghan Pherrill

“I’ve been given this opportunity to live and it’s my duty to find goodness in it and to actually do something with it”

Meghan Pherrill an international yoga and meditation teacher as well as the host of the Balance Your Life podcast; a podcast designed to inspire and empower you to begin and maintain your yoga, health and wellness journey.

She’s an international retreat leader and teaches locally in her home country of Canada. When she isn't doing all things yoga you can find her sitting on a beach, counting her crystals, or reading.

My first interaction with Meghan was so energizing! She’s got this bubbly, energizing, no nonsense attitude that’s so easy to appreciate. What I liked most about her was her outlook on life - she’s ever so grateful for what life has brought her and she’s so FULL of life herself!

It’s surreal to think that she was once an OCD, anxiety ridden, depressed and suicidal person. I’m honored to have her on this episode to share her story of being in such pain to becoming the life filled person that she is today. Meghan shares all that she’s learned about living a meaningful and intentional life, starting with how you need to start by choosing it. When she decided that she didn’t want to be that miserable person anymore, things started to change. The journey after that was about doing the things that helped her feel better everyday.

Topic Summary:

- How Meghan shifted from a life of OCD, anxiety, depression and addiction to a life full of contribution and joy

- Every single day is a choice

- How to choose the things that create a meaningful life for you

Resources:

Checkout the podcast I did with Meghan on her podcast, Balance Your Life - How to figure out what you want in life with Veronica Thai

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Key Nuggets:

Choosing to Live a Better Life

Meghan’s life changed the moment she DECIDED that she was tired of being a miserable person and she wanted to make a change.

She had an idea of where she wanted to be because she observed people that lived like how she did (ie. happy kids who were going off to college). From there it was a contemplation of how can she be like that too? What needs to change?

You get to decide to find the goodness in your life

Living a Meaningful Life

We’re all meant to do certain work in this world, a meaningful life doesn’t have to look a certain way. It just needs to feel good to you and light you up.

The key is that you need to choose everyday to do the thing that you like. And if you can’t spend each and every minute doing it, that’s okay.

One tip that Meghan gives is to bookend the tasks that you don’t like to do but are necessary. For example, doing taxes! Do like 15 min of yoga (or whatever you’d like) before doing it and then treat yourself to something else that you enjoy doing (dance party? latte?) afterward.

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

Find joy in the journey and recognize that life is a roller coaster. There will be ups and downs and sometimes you get spun around but that’s the joy of it. What a gift to experience all of this!

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

Get quiet with yourself.  In the quiet and stillness, write down what lights you up. Your heart already knows and you’re just simply tapping into that.  Stop yourself when you get bombarded by distractions (ex. thoughts telling you that you can’t do it), find that quiet again and then write.

Resources:

Checkout the podcast I did with Meghan on her podcast, Balance Your Life - How to figure out what you want in life with Veronica Thai

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website: www.balancebymeghan.com

Facebook: Balance by Meghan

Instagram: @balancebymeghan

YouTube: Balance by Meghan

Twitter: @balancebymeghan

Episode 120: How To Do More Of What You Love with Amanda McKinney

“ Not everyone is going to like you but once you identify who you are, people respond to that.  Basically, the more you are you, the more confident you become”

Our guest today is a marketing coach as well as a fellow yoga teacher and podcaster. Today is all about inspiration and actionable exercises to figure out what you actually want to be doing (aka. what your passion is) and how to do more of it.

But first, an introduction…

Amanda McKinney  has a passion for empowering yoga teachers to earn more money doing what they love.

She does this through her podcast: Marketing Yoga With Confidence and Online Membership. Both focuses on building confidence and community with an extra dose of encouragement every step of the way.

Before working with yoga teachers, Amanda graduated from the University of Florida with her Masters in Marketing and then spent almost 10 years in international corporations.

She eventually created her own business…only to find that it felt lackluster and not very satisfying. In this episode she shares with us how she went from not really enjoying her business into creating one where she loves every single project and every single client.

She had to take some leaps and make some hard choices, but ultimately she kept following what she actually liked doing and found more of it in her life.  This isn't just applicable to owning a business or your career.  This is something to apply to your entire life so that you can wake up everyday excited about what you've filled it with!

Plug in those earbuds and start listening so that you can start doing more of what you love!

Topic Summary:

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Online Yoga Classes:

As mentioned in the episode, I’m offering Live Online Yoga classes on YouTube Live. Sign up here to be notified about upcoming classes: www.veronicathai.com/yogaonline

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Key Nuggets:

What if you don’t know what you like doing? How to figure it out.

When Amanda was laid off from her corporate job, she wasn’t clear what she wanted to do next. So she started by surrounding herself with people who had great energy. They happened to be entrepreneurs and after some time spent with them, she decided that she wanted to start a business as well.

At the same time, she also started picking back up her yoga practice (which she had to put on pause at her busy corporate job).

She just kept doing the things that made her feel good.

Lessons learned:

• Surround yourself with people who have great energy

• Keep trying out the things that you seem to enjoy and do them more

Additional tips from Amanda:

• TRACK YOUR TIME

  • When Amanda tracked how she spent her time in her business, she realized that her corporate clients paid more but she’d spend more time with her yoga clients. She also realized that she was more excited to work with her yoga clients. This helped her make the decision to change who she wanted her clientele to be

• JOURNAL. Journal everyday, even for a few minutes. It doesn’t even matter what the topic is because it’s the act of writing that will help you tap into what your dreams are

• At our very core, we’re all seekers.

• To start doing what she loved, Melanie had to get out of living a life of “shoulds” and tune into awareness and consciousness. She had to learn to feel the emotions that were coming up for her and meet up with who she really was.

• Life is more than the box we’ve been conditioned to live in.

When you know what you like doing, how to shout it out to the world! How to do more of it!

• Say it out loud to somebody. The more you say it out loud, the clearer you get about what it really is that you are doing. Try to hone into what feels true to you.

• Start sharing and leave the pressure. Maybe start an Instagram account to show case your work. Forget about how many followers you have. Just start sharing.

• Learn more about how you can serve the other person better (ex. how to serve your clients better if you’re a business; how to serve your team or boss better if you’re employed; how to serve your kids better if your goal is to dedicate yourself to parenting…)

• Lastly, START TODAY. ON THAT NOTE, HERE’S YOUR ACTION ITEM (I know, this episode comes with accountability ;) )

  • JOURNAL ON THIS TOPIC: WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU DO WHEN NOBODY ELSE IS AROUND?

  • Feel free to share your discoveries with us either by replying in the comments below, emailing hello@curiousmonki.com, or tagging us @curiousmonki and @amandamckinneyyoga

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

“Patience. It's still a lesson I'm learning and will likely always be learning this one but everything worth doing takes longer than we think it will. Nothing comes easy. I think so many of us (myself included) think "it looks so easy for so and so but it's hard for me". But what we don't know is that it took 10 years for her to build her business. Or it took him 15 years to write that book. But if we find our true passion, then we will figure out the things we need to in order to make it happen. I truly believe that. So it's taking time to build my business but it's totally worth it. There are days I have to remind myself of this though so I'm always learning this lesson.”

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

“Have support. It doesn't have to be support in the same way that I have it or someone else has it but you need to have support in the journey of life and business. For me, this is definitely a supportive husband and family but it's also incredible biz-besties that help lift me up on hard days and celebrate the good days too. This is imperative to have. Know that we all need the support and reaching out to find it is something you will have to do. It likely won't just land on your doorstep, you have to take action and seek out to the find the people who will be best for you.”

Resources:

Listen to my episode on Amanda’s Podcast, Marketing Yoga With Confidence.

Episode 24: How To Market Yourself Using Your Energy

Links:

If you have any questions for Amanda or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website: www.marketingyogawithconfidence.com

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

Facebook Group: Marketing Yoga With Confidence

Episode 119 BITE SIZED: Presence Is The Path To Peace

Bite Sized episodes is where I go deeper into a subject.  In this episode, I elaborate on presence and mindfulness.

Presence is the root of yoga philosophy, spiritual teachings and all other self help.  Tools that stem from these teachings all basically show you how to maintain presence and mindfulness in various ways.

I would even go as far as to say that maintaining a practice of moment-to-moment awareness (presence) is even more foundational than self-love.

Maybe it sounds like a radical statement to you but think about it - you need some level of awareness in the first place to even be able to recognize the negative emotions arising within you. And then a great sense of presence to hold the space so that you can sit with the shame/judgement/guilt/worthlessness (name your poison) while maintaining a sense of love.

Being in presence helps you navigate difficult emotions like uncertainty, make better decisions and ultimately be in peace. It’s also a practice that we need to consistently practice.

In this episode, I share with you what I’ve learned about presence from a variety of teachings including The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, life coaches like Martha Beck and spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle.

Of course, the practice part of it is always most challenging so I also share with you a few of my favorite ways to get into a sense of presence.

Topic Summary:

- What is presence and mindfulness

- Connection of presence from the world of yoga, coaching and spirituality

- Tools and techniques to get into a state of presence

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KEY NUGGETS:

My favorite tools for getting into a state of presence:

• Thich Nhat Hanh’s Tea Meditation. You can just Google it or listen to the first 10 min of Episode 16 where Sally Powis-Campbell guides you through the tea meditation.

• Eckhart Tolle’s suggestions for stillness is such a great reminder that getting into presence doesn’t have to take long at all. The simple shift of your attention is all it takes. Here’s a strategy that I learned from his book A New Earth:

  • Hold up your hand so that it’s touching nothing. With your eyes closed, ask yourself “how do I know my hand is here”

  • Another one is to ask yourself “how do I know I’m breathing”

• Also love this TED Talk. by Jill Bolte Taylor who talks about her experience after having a stroke that prevented her from using the language part of her brain. Without language, she was in a perpetual state of presence. In presence, she felt light and expansive.

Episode 117: Using Yoga To Get Through Challenging Times with Nichole Hines

“ Keep doing the work to stay connected the universe, god….faith. Stay grounded especially when times were good”

Why do you practice yoga?

While the path of yoga ultimately leads to the union with our oneness (true nature), the journey there is as colorful as the flora and fauna of this Earth.

Yoga may mean different things at different times in your life - maybe at one point practice because it’s a good stretch and at another you want to press your body to new limits. Still, as your practice evolves you may move away from asanas (postures) altogether and become interested in the mindfulness and meditative part of the practice.

Sometimes, circumstances like a difficult challenge shifts your intention for practicing.

Today’s episode is a story of how yoga helped one woman through one of the toughest challenges of her life.  In 2011, Nichole Hines’ young daughter was diagnosed with leukemia.  Life as she knew it changed in the blink of an eye and the following year became about chemo, relapse and the children’s hospital.

Nichole Hines shares with us her journey, how her yoga practiced helped her stay anchored as she not only took care of her daughter but also run two businesses at the same time.  Nichole shares with us her lessons learned on how to get through challenging times and her insights about human connection, faith, letting go and giving back.

This episode is so relevant right now because we’re all experiencing a challenging time worldwide.  Nichole says “when you connect with others, you’ll find that your story isn’t so different from theirs”.  I hope you find connection in this story.  Happy Listening!

Topic Summary:

- Letting go/surrendering

-Staying grounded through challenging times
-Insights about how to move through challenging times

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Key Nuggets:

Lessons From The (Yoga) Mat

Yoga (specifically Yin) taught Nichole to be in stillness. To settle into surrender event through a challenge like her daughter battling through cancer.

To allow herself to be held and trust that not everything will fall apart (or maybe that’s exactly what had to happen and it’s okay).

Her big takeaway from her practice is to keep doing the work to stay connected the universe, god….faith. Stay grounded especially when times were good

Letting Go

Nichole shares her story of having to let go in order to maintain her sanity, especially during the first night of her daughter’s chemo. She had to let her daughter go. To tell her daughter that “this is your journey and these are the lessons that you need to learn”

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

People are innately good. When you connect with others, you’ll find that your story isn’t so different from theirs.

You may not know who you affect and who you touch along the way.

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

Follow your gut and your heart.  There’s nothing more freeing and wonderful than to not be on pause from your authentic self.  She started seven different companies and so many iterations of it, that if she cared about what people thought about that and maybe think that she’s crazy then she wouldn’t have had the opportunities that she’s had and not live her truth.  Doing the wonderful things that she’s done and meet the amazing people that she has met. That she didn’t stop: I wish I could but I’m not going to.

Be true to yourself and don’t worry about the rest. If you do that you won’t have your greatest happiness. You won’t be the most fulfilled that you can be if you don’t be your true self.

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  www.bellabar365.com

Facebook: @BellaBar365

Instagram: @thenicholehines

Episode 116: Let Your Soul Lead They Way. Ego, Forgiveness + Manifesting with Rebecca Gibson

This is a jam packed episode with Rebecca Gibson who worked as a mental health nurse for 20 years before stepping into her work as a psychic medium and Spiritual Strategist. It’s fascinating to learn about her story of coming into her own spiritual health - she always had her psychic senses but learned to shut them down because they were not well accepted. Going against who she really was took its toll on her health and through a number of pivotal events, she started to do the work that was calling out to her.

Today, she helps people align to their soul and transform their lives

I have SO many questions for her!! Which is why this episode is jam packed. We talk about spiritual health and how to let your soul lead the way, being energetic beings, manifestation, forgiveness and gratitude. All with the intention of understanding ourselves at a deeper level.

This is a thrilling and eccentric episode! Plug in your earbuds and let’s go!

**As excited as I am about this episode, we touch on some heavy stuff like forgiveness of abuse. I invite you to take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. If you’re not ready for this episode yet, then no worries. Leave it and it’ll be here for when you are ready <3

Topic Summary:

- Spiritual health is about letting the soul lead the way but how do we know what comes from ego and what comes from soul?

- On an esoteric level, we're energetic beings - frequencies and vibrations....but what do we do with that information?  How do we use it to our benefit?

- How does the knowledge of the first two points help us manifest the lives that we desire?

- The energy of gratitude and forgiveness.  How forgiveness leads to soul alignment and better manifestations

Resources:

• ho'oponopono prayer/meditation for forgiveness

• Heal For Free documentary on Gaia TV

• EFT Tapping

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Key Nuggets:

Spiritual Health

Your spiritual health is just as important as your mental and physical health. This is where you recognize that you have an ego and a soul and you choose to let your soul lead the way.

Live through your soul and let your heart lead the way.

Ego versus Soul

Ego - eat, sleep and general brain consciousness. It’s affected by how you grew up, who you spend time with, your experiences…

Soul - understands who you really are and hold the big picture of your journey

Ego - keeps you in a state of worry

Soul - keeps you in a state of expansion

Energy (from a spiritual standpoint)

• You’re a walking beam of energy: your thoughts create emotion which then emanates frequency and vibration

• Everything is frequency from your cells to your emotions.

• Certain areas of your body are affected by certain emotions.

• If you’re an empath it’s important for you to understand your energy and know how to energetically protect yourself (like through grounding/earthing)

• Ground your energy by being outside, being by nature and maybe even letting your feet touch the earth like the grass or along a beach.

  • Salt water is so helpful for recharging energy. Even if you don’t have an ocean by you a bath with salt water will be beneficial.

Manifesting

Whatever your soul truly desires feels confident (some people feel the desire in the right back side of their head)

How to counteract negative thoughts so that they don’t manifest

• It’s like a ctrl + alt + del - when you catch yourself thinking about something low frequency, just choose something that feels better.

• For example, if you’re afraid that you’ll end up in a trash can with cats, don’t wish to “not be living in a trash can with cats”. Consider what you do want like “I desire to live in a beautiful home”

• Think about what you do want not what you don’t want

• Tune into gratitude…it’ll bring your vibes up right away

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is releasing negative frequencies and gratitude is bringing in positive frequencies.

“Anger can fuel you or burn your whole village down”. You choose.

How do we know what or who to forgive? Anything that still stirs up guilt or shame still needs your forgiveness, including yourself.

Sometimes you need to forgive a person or situation multiple times before you can truly release it.

Tips and advice for practicing forgiveness:

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

Gratitude is absolutely life transforming.  It’s how you alchemize all of the dark stuff into gold.  Even in the crappiest of times if you can find something to be grateful for then you’re okay

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

Mindfulness and living in the now is going to lead you exactly where you need to be.  Follow what feels joyful and what feels good – it may not make sense but you don’t see the bigger picture, your higher self does.

Resources:

• ho'oponopono prayer/meditation for forgiveness

• Heal For Free documentary on Gaia TV

• EFT Tapping

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  https://www.rebeccagibson.com.au/

Email:    info@rebeccagibson.com.au

Instagram:  @RebeccaGibsonPsychicMedium

Episode 115: A Yoga Story. Lessons of Self-acceptance, Worthiness and Dealing With Difficult Emotions with Cory Angel

I don’t think I’ve said this enough lately:

This journey is your own but you’re not alone

We’re interconnected beings, each living our own unique stories with many points along the way in which we can connect and relate to each other.

It’s like we’re an Earth sized venn diagram, each person’s journey is a circle and various pieces of our experiences overlap with others’. Each story interwoven one way or another, held together with the common threads of human experience.

The human experience being the vast array of emotions that we feel - love, hope, despair, anger, fear, compassion, acceptance, peace….

In this episode, hospice nurse and yoga teacher, Cory Angel shares the story of her Yoga journey. She shares the benefits that she got from yoga including how her practice has helped her through injury, grief, perfectionism and ultimately changed the way she sees the world.

What I like most is that Cory is a wizard at bringing her lessons from the mat and into real life!

As she says, “Who you are on the mat is who you are in real life”

Listen in and see where your own story might connect with hers!

Topic Summary:

• Learning to take what you need “what do I need right now?”

• Slowing down

• Taking lessons from the mat and into real life

Resources:

Mentioned in this episode was Episode #40 with Melanie Klein: Body Image and Yoga [RE: When me and Cory were talking about feeling safe in your physical body)

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Key Nuggets:

What Cory has learned from her yoga practice:

She was a perfectionist, always striving for more, feeling not enough and having an urgency to “be productive”. Yoga has helped her let go of that sens of urgency by showing her that the worthiness gremlin and perfectionist gremlin are signs for her to show her that something is out of whack.

When she receives this communication, she goes back to her practice or to meditation to see what her body and soul have to say.

Other lessons:

• SLOW DOWN and let it be good enough

  • Where am I at today? What do I need? What’s going to help me with that?

• Rest

• You need to feel safe in your physical body b/c it’s a container for your mental and emotional body too

• Whoever you are on your mat is who you are in life

• Take yoga off the mat:

  • Ex. learning to breathing through emotion in yoga and using that to breathe through emotion in day to day life

  • Ex. learning to back off in a pose and using that when you need to back off in day to day life

• Normalize negative emotions. It’s okay to feel grief and to feel sad. You can grieve and also have joy.

Tips to reconnect to your body now:

• Ask yourself: What do you need right now?

• Accept that this is what you need and don’t give any other meaning to it

• Give space for change

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

“The thing I struggled with the most was my voice and it became my biggest teacher and tool in my classes. I was literally petrified to talk in front of a class. Had to go through much inner healing work on feeling safe in my body, worthiness and confidence.  Now the thing students love about me the most is my ability to create safety using my voice. I am constantly told they love listening to me. (the universe works in magical ways)”

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

“Nobody is the same and no person experiences their world the same ways. Giving choice in class is one of the greatest gifts we can give students. Choice creates safety and empowers people to begin exploring how they feel, both physically and emotionally. The choice to move into asanas (with options) and then the choice to remain still. Also the choice on how they feel an asana in their body needs to be there. Telling students exactly what they should feel in a posture reinforces what they already feel - out of control. Even choice with breath is important as this literally is life sustaining so taking someones choice with breath away can feel very traumatic.”

Resources:

Mentioned in this episode was Episode #40 with Melanie Klein: Body Image and Yoga [RE: When me and Cory were talking about feeling safe in your physical body)

Links:

If you have any questions for Melanie or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Instagram: @_coryangel

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Episode 114: 3 Things To Know About The Enneagram w/ Sarah Hamilton

Personality tests are fantastic tools to help us in self-discovery, self understanding and self acceptance. Not only that but it can also help with our understanding of each other as well…perhaps even to accept and embrace each other’s uniqueness.

The Enneagram is no exception. It’s been very popular especially among the yoga, self help and spiritual communities for a while now. It’s based on 9 personality types that are portrayed in a geometrical shape. The shape illustrates the rich, diverse and intricate interconnection between all personalities.

It’s a helpful tool for helping understand your unique tendencies. It also shows you what your shadows are.

….but for me it’s so complex! Some people totally understand it and others, like me, are mainly confused. But I want to know more! That’s why I invited Sarah Hamilton, Enneagram expert, onto the show to teach us!

Sarah Hamilton quit clinical medicine seventeen years ago to live a fuller life. Today, she’s the founder of WildWomanUnleashed and strives to guide and inspire women to reconnect with their authentic nature so that they can flourish with lives of balance, passion and fulfillment.

Plug in those earbuds and get ready for some self-discovery!

PS. Okay, I need to put this out there - as much as I love personality tests and find them to be so much fun, I also need to say that at the end of the day nobody and nothing gets to dictate who you really are except for yourself. These tests are tools to support you along the journey of self-discovery and is not the be all end all to who you are and what you should do. You’re the ultimate decider that.

Topic Summary:

• What is the Enneagram?

• How can it help you (benefits)

• 3 things you need to know about the Enneagram to get started

• Sarah explains her own personality (9-7-4) as an example

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RESOURCES

• Sarah recommends this online test for your Enneagram profile: https://landing.trueself.io/

I’m still learning what it means but here’s what I got! Apparently I’m a “gentle spirit”

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Key Nuggets:

What is the Enneagram

• A personality test based on 9 personality types that are portrayed in a geometrical shape. The shape illustrates the rich, diverse and intricate interconnection between all personalities.

• Has a spiritual heritage

• There are different schools of thoughts on numbers and measurements

• One school of thought depicts traits for head-heart-gut

• Typically results shows you your wonderful qualities and also reveals shadow qualities (ex. A

  type 8 can be like Martin Luther King or if the shadow side is strong then a type 8 can also be a super paranoid person)

• There’s an instinctual sub-types that drive all of our behavior. We have all 3 but in varying strengths:

  • 1. Self preserving: Taking care of yourself

  • 2. Social: safety in numbers.  Hierarchy.  Where do I fit in socially?

  • 3. Intimate/Sexual: Deep connections to others

Benefits and 3 things to know about the Enneagram

Shows you your core desires, needs and fears

1. It helps you understand your personality

2. It lets you step back and be the observer of your own life

   • Knowing what your tendencies are actually helps you release judgement when in shadow. To be able to take a step back see “oh okay, that’s just my personality taking over at the moment”

3. It helps you understand others

Sarah’s Example of Herself:

Based on the tri-type Enneagram, she’s a 9-7-4. The “9” is her gut, “7” her head and “4” her heart. She gives examples of how this plays out in her life and how it helped her understand her desire for comfort and ease even though she fearlessly pivots her path if it doesn’t feel like the right direction.

One of Your Biggest Lessons So Far:

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that we never stop growing and changing, and there’s no such thing as perfect… and so fulfillment in all areas of life comes down to exploring and accepting who we are, imperfections and all, and learning to love ourselves.”

What is one nugget of wisdom that you would share with fellow seekers who are on this journey of growth and transformation?

“One nugget of wisdom I’d share with pretty much everyone is that cultivating gratitude for what we have as well as letting go of our attachments and expectations of things turning out in a certain way are the keys to fulfillment. It doesn’t mean giving up on wanting things, instead it’s taking the time to figure out what it is exactly that we want, as in the emotional experience, and then leaving it up to the Universe to make it happen in the right time. This generally involves working through fear, which feeds attachment.”

Resources:

• Sarah’s teacher is Katherine Fauvre and recommends her teachings and also her Enneagram test at TrueSelf.io

Links:

If you have any questions for Sarah or want to learn more, connect with her through:

Website:  https://wildwomanunleashed.me

Email:   sarah@wildwomanunleashed.me

Facebook: @wildwomanunleashed.me

Instagram: @wildwomanunleashed.me

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