Episode 72: Communication Challenges

Episode Summary:

Oh, the trials of miscommunication! Even when we think we have been crystal clear there are still breakdowns that lead to disappointment and unmet expectations. In this episode, we dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly about communication and offer some insights on what we most need to know to have better experiences and outcomes.

Listen for These Thought Pearls:

• why the breakdowns are not your fault

• how our brain filters out information....for better and for worse

• why these filters are the biggest influencers of what we say AND what we hear

• what causes us to perceive things other than they are

• the necessity of understanding our own communication style

• the benefits of being able to see how someone arrived at their point of view even if you can't agree

• how we assign meaning and 'take it personally'

• how self-awareness takes practice and living

• what happens when we can drop our defenses

• the courage and trust it takes to really hear one another

• how to develop that trust

• the thing we most need from others when in communication

Episode 71: Uncertainty and Self Doubt

Episode Summary

There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now. It can be confusing and downright disturbing and hard to trust oneself in the face of an ever-changing landscape. In this episode, we explore how the world can condition us to not trust ourselves and how we can be our own guru and take back our power.

Listen for These Key Points

• cultivating your own internal compass

• exploring what to do when we feel our compass needs recalibrating

• the value of staying in the present moment vs living in past or future

• how we must balance internal and external feedback

• why perspective is a valuable calibration tool

• where there is a healthy place for black and white thinking

• the importance of having access to your own wisdom

• remembering that the only person's job it is to save us is our own

Episode 70: The New Work World

Episode Summary:

Pandemic times have created a shift in values and have changed the way we work.  We have created a ‘new normal.  The whats, whys, whens, and hows have been altered.  In this episode, we explore the good, the bad, and the neutral of these shifts and how to find our own ideal.

Keep an Ear Open for These Insights:

• How less oversight impacts creativity….and distraction

• Learning how our messages can be translated to a broader audience

• Creating connection in an online world

• The negatives and positives of the new work world

• The distractions of working from home

• How to have boundaries when working from home

• Things that can tank our productivity

• The important keys to successful work from home experiences

• Ensuring that we don’t make transitionary situations our natural state

• The role of resilience and flexibility

• How our values have shifted

• Tools to help us get the most out of our day

Episode 69: Dealing with the Doldrums

Episode Summary:

Ever have those days where it’s hard to get your head in the game?  We all struggle with periods where keeping inspired and in action in the world is difficult.  Even when we love what we do it’s easy to become disenchanted with the day-to-day and let the minutia and mundane weigh us down. In this episode, we unpack how the external world can impact our ability to ‘do the things, how we can overcome what is going on with ‘the collective’ and honor our own truth and harness the power of our natural innate wiring to get over the hump.

Listen for these Wisdom Nuggets

• Right and left-brained thinking and how it impacts our interest and focus

• The value of being grounded in the world

• How assessments and tools can help us better understand ourselves (and which ones we like)

• The paradigms of structure and discipline and the flexibility required within them

• Why discipline can be nuanced and does not have to be as black and white as we all might think

• The gifts of embracing how you are naturally wired and using your strengths

• How the seasons and the cycles of nature can impact us

• How a temporary shift in environment can be key

Episode 68: Anger, Betrayal, Boundaries

Episode Summary:

In this episode, we tackle a tricky and trigger-y subject. Real-life is what we all face and from time to time have a difficult time navigating. Join us as we dive in and see what happens while we explore times in life when boundaries are breached, betrayal happens and anger erupts. When finding the silver lining, turning the other cheek, and simply thinking positive doesn’t serve you, we unpack the alternatives. Sometimes it isn’t in our best interest to simply reach for a better feeling thought but rather excavate the shit and make a shift.

Listen for these powerful truth bombs:

When we can go overboard and take TOO much responsibility for our role in a situation

• How it's appropriate to place anger at the feet of people who do harm

• Everything is not black and white right and wrong….and the skill required to tease out the grey

• Why anger is a positive emotion and useful in giving us the energy needed to make necessary and important changes

• Evaluating our own paradigms, thought processes and lenses through which we look, and change filters where needed

• The dark side of personal responsibility

• How being quick to take responsibility is sometimes a form of control so we don’t have to feel our feelings

• How taking the high road is sometimes a smokescreen for a wrong turn

• How to know if you are carrying more responsibility than is truly yours

• Understanding the feelings of others…knowing we don’t always have to understand them….but we do have to believe them

• The importance of enacting strong powerful boundaries even with people we love

• How we can love and still be sad and angry with someone

• Holding ourselves with a ton of compassion when we don’t get it right

Episode 67: Integrity and Wholeness

Episode Summary:

What is integrity? Everyone wants to claim it as their code of conduct and value system without thinking about it, because no one wants to be lacking in integrity right!? In today's episode, we ask ourselves a lot of deep questions about what it means and how we embody it. Not only do we have to honor our own integrity but also model it in the world. Join as we define it, but more importantly, explore how we live it and the surprises it holds in both definition and execution.

Listen for these insights:

• The win-win, the win-lose, and the lose-lose

• Why integrity is not just about telling the truth or being honest

• What do we do when challenged

• What is required to keep ourselves whole and in integrity

• What happens when do fail to honor agreements

• Collateral damage and considering the one vs the many

• The necessity to widen our perspective and reflect on each situation individually without black and white rigidity

• Why many people don’t do the deep reflection on this

• What allows us to create and maintain wholeness

• What if it wasn’t about creating win-win…but rather creating connection and wholeness

• How truth can be changing…and how threatening that thought can be

• How integrity, at its roots, is an exploration of self

• How integrity is compounded learning….with layers of new learning giving us greater perspective

Episode 66: Banning Banishment

Episode Summary:

Here we discuss our pivotal point in human history and how we must stop ‘banishing’: parts of ourselves, parts of others, and whole selves and others.  In this episode we explore how we need to expand, expand, expand so that we can ‘hold it all’ to enlarge our perspective to end violence and punishment in favor of loving boundaries and wisdom.  We discuss the nuanced differences of still holding people and ourselves accountable with rehabilitation and healing vs total exclusion in an attempt to change patterns and even create a better future and thus a better history.

Listen for these insights:

• How when we feel the need to banish we can pattern interrupt and open instead of contract and defend

• When a small ‘prayer’ can help 

• Why we need to stop contracting and defending

• The necessity of self-trust

• Why expansion allows us to also extend our vision and perspective

• Vulnerability and its role 

• How control and vulnerability cannot exist at the same time

• The of asking the deeper questions and getting curious about our own thoughts feelings and triggers

• What is required to heal

• What happens if we don’t heal

• History and its repetitions…how we tend to save things for later

• How can we meet the beast in the eye and not turn away

• What allows us to switch from banishing to exploring

Episode 65: Next Steps Are Always There… When We Are

Please note in this episode we discovered, after the fact, that our audio was less than ideal. It was such a powerful conversation we hated to not share it.  Please forgive us for poor audio quality or audio disturbances…you just can’t recreate such things. Consider it proof we are keeping it real, always, and in all ways.

Episode Summary:

In our world we often struggle with not knowing all the answers and feeling like we don’t have clear direction or solid next steps.  In this episode we explore what to do when you are at the proverbial crossroads or don’t see the path clearly laid out in front of you.  We particularly loved this quote this week which kicked off our conversation:

“When we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” -Wendell Berry 

Listen for these discoveries and insights:

• Why it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a sick society

• How we are tricked into thinking we always have to know the answer, the way to go and what to do

• The gift in not just getting comfortable with the not knowing…. but EMBRACING the not knowing

• The gold of sitting in the not knowing

• How to trust that the next step is revealed.

• The lessons the caterpillar has for us

• How to relax into the process and not rush through it

• The importance of allowing yourself to BE in the in-between

• What a ‘lack of clarity’ has to teach us

• Why it's OK to not always ‘know’ the answers

• The perils of instant gratification

• Longing….why we try to avoid it, but shouldn’t

• Finding the treasure in the darkness

• The sweet spot of resistance 

• The role of GRIT over talent and intelligence
  

Episode 64: Stuck!... But Are You?

Please note in this episode we discovered, after the fact, that our audio was less than ideal. It was such a powerful conversation we hated to not share it.  Please forgive us for poor audio quality or audio disturbances…you just can’t recreate such things. Consider it proof we are keeping it real, always, and in all ways.

Episode Summary

In today's episode, we explore the fear of change and the necessary trust in the process of unfolding, how ‘not knowing’ is actually the thing that allows us to step forward, and how sometimes… the dark nights of the soul are what is required for our evolution. The roots need as much attention as the leaves. As above, so below.

Listen for expansion on these thoughts:

The gifts of the dark night of the soul

• How watching others struggle is sometimes more difficult than our own struggle

• How do we know when WE are ready?

• How do we know when OTHERS are ready?

• Why the struggle is necessary for the growth and strength for the next steps

• Listen for a lovely and poignant open from Rumi

• Acknowledging when suffering is present and

• Emotions are like storm clouds.

• Why both the shadow and the light are required

• The spectrum is different for everyone

• Why exploring the range is important to finding out what we’re capable of

• Why getting stuck gets a bad rap…but it’s vital to growth and maturity and is an ‘initiation’ of sorts

• How curiosity is the key to moving

Episode 63: Grinding it Out

Episode Summary

Do you ‘hustle and grind’ or ‘when in doubt wait it out’? There is no right or wrong way. We must learn to honor and accept who we are. In this episode, Carla and Jenn explore their opposite ends of the spectrum and unpack the learning and experiences in the imbalances that come with too much retreat and too much hustle and the striving to find the happy middle.

Listen for these ah-has and thought nuggets:

• Becoming physically aware of our bodies inability to grind in perpetuity

• The awareness required to listen
  external search for worthiness and acceptance

• Knowing your innate wiring and drive

• Knowing our limits

• Knowing our triggers

• How to tune in

• Asking for help and our bullshit stories about being a burden

• Finding the balance between when to push and when to rest

• It takes a village

• How we have become disconnected from ourselves and thusly one another

• The importance of remembering who we are

• Showing up in imperfection

• The value of presence

Episode 62: Nothing to Lose

Episode Summary

What would I be like to live as if you had nothing to lose? What would you choose? How would you live? Join us while we explore the illusions of safety in our lives and the things that keep us small and from reaching our greatest potential. In this episode, we cover limits and confinement and the dark places we can go and just how important it is to explore the dark to know the light.

Epiphanies include:

• The illusions of safety

• Where these illusions come from

• The meaning of life and other questions

• How we create meaning

• The stories we create

• Moving from despair to inspired and empowered

• The gifts of collapse and how it’s necessary

• The illusions of limit and confinement

• The value of bearing witness to the struggle of others

• How growth often starts in the dark places and from decay

• Ways to come alongside and support one another better

• The lessons in our discomfort with other peoples pain

Episode 61: The Gifts of Discipline and Consistency

Episode Summary

In this week's episode, you will find us defining ‘Discipline’…and finding our ‘goldilocks’ place with it vs swinging the pendulum too far in one direction or another. We explore creating healthy consistency and cultivating flexibility. Finding balance in our efforts so that we may experience both freedom and productivity is the goal.

This week’s highlights and wisdom snacks include:

• Exploring the definitions and trigger around discipline

• Harnessing the power of how we are naturally wired to take action

• Why it's important to find your own balance

• The importance of staying out of resistance and burnout

• The difference between being internally vs externally driven

• The kinds of discipline and how they can be connected to our value of freedom

• Masculine vs feminine Energy..when each serves us over the other

• Knowing your individual core energy and operating from it

• Why it's important to experiment

• Understanding we are always a creative work in progress

• Applying curiosity vs judgment

• How to stop treating it like a job

Episode 60: Resolutions Revisited

Episode Summary

Statistically speaking by mid-February, New Resolutions are starting to break down. Is this true for you? How are you setting yourself up for success this year? In this week’s riff, we dive into the concepts of resolutions, what causes us to lose our zip for the goals we set, and how to get back on track in ways that serve us.

Listen for these thought bombs:

• The importance of bustling systems around the things we choose to changeWhy willpower alone is not enough.

• The power of aggregating and compounding efforts

• How do we show up in a systematically better way each day

• Looking at big goals and breaking them down so we can create sustainable effort vs burnout

• Why being imperfect but consistent is always better than perfection once

• The things that undermine our success

• How to cultivate greater self trust to stay consistent

Episode 59: Unsettled Times and Transitions

EPISODE SUMMARY

Did the new year ring your bell? We have decided that February is the new January and January was a ‘gimme’ or ‘transitionary’ month, where we still cleaned up last year and prepped for this year…So bring on February! In this week’s episode, we explore the meaning we assign to the challenges we face and how to make sure that meaning does not lock us into stories that do not serve us.

LISTEN FOR THESE PEARLS OF WISDOM:

The perils of perfectionism

• Recognizing where we are on the timeline.

• Knowing the filters through which we are viewing the world at any given time and the influence those filters have on what we experience

• How resistance can cause pain

• The role trusting yourself plays in the stories we tell and the meaning we assign

• The difference between pain and suffering

• How we can not make pain ‘a big deal’

• What causes us to collapse

• How a lack of trust is often at the heart of our struggles

• Going through the breakdown to be able to breathe

• What happens when we get fixated on the destination vs the journey

Episode 58: Resolutions Do's and Don'ts

Episode Summary

Did you make them? Did you break them?  Did you ignore the idea entirely?  In this episode, we explore all things resolution and goal setting for the year.  You will find that we take an approach to the concept that stands outside the box and offers a fresh perspective.  Whether you set resolutions every year or think they are total BS or anything in between this episode is for you!

Keep your ears open for these wisdom snacks:

• The stats on resolutions

• The place we should engineer our resolutions  from

• Where the heart of our goals comes from 

• Our bigger ‘why’ and how we get to that.

• Why we have to ‘dig deep’ to sustain our efforts

• The importance of being pulled forward vs pushing and driving

• Perspectives about ‘will power’ that help us view it differently

• Why we must have a sane perspective about our resolutions

• Setting ourselves up for success

• The power of incremental vs sweeping change

• Stretching without snapping

• The role of supportive accountability

Episode 57: Hiding... It's a Thing

Episode Summary

Hiding….it’s a thing. A BIG thing. It is easy to get caught in the fear of vulnerability and judgment that sharing ourselves fully with people can create. Hiding is easy…being seen is not. It is a force that is making us sick as a culture. It can trigger perfectionism in the most unhealthy ways. It keeps us playing small, not fulfilling our potential or shining our big, bright, beautiful lights. It can also feel like safety and protection. In this week's episode, we dive into the what’s why’s and how’s of HIDING.

Listen for these elements:

• The damage that comes from living in fear

• Reasons why we withhold and hide 

• Times when it's good to share and times when it’s not

• How withholding our pain and struggle from one another keeps us separate

• Our tendency to censor ourselves and why we do it

• The stories we tell that keep us in hiding

• The role judgment plays in hiding

• Why we must be fully enrolled in our own truth to push past hiding

• The fears we have that cause it all

• The perils of secrecy

Episode 56: The Perils of Pleasing

Episode Summary

Being pleasing is something almost all of us face and society doesn’t exactly help us be true to ourselves in the face of others' expectations when trying to honor our own truths. It’s often hard to have uncomfortable conversations and feel like it’s ok to own what we need.  As humans, we inherently want to be accepted and it’s so tempting to be pleasing vs risking the wrath of others.  In this week's riff, we unpack the perils of pleasing and what we can do instead.

Wisdom nuggets to keep your ears open for:

• Why it's easier to people please

• The difference between ‘niceness’ and ‘kindness’

• How it can feel like it’s easier to be pleasing vs living as our most authentic self

• Why it's often a case of ‘alignment’…or rather ‘misalignment’

• The importance of having a lot of compassion for self

• What we are afraid of that leads us to the people-pleasing in the first place

• How biology wires for pleasing

• The things in our current day world that make us more susceptible to pleasing

• How social media plays a role

• What we need to be aware of to avoid unhealthy amounts of pleasing

• What skills help us overcome it

• The learning we need in order to move past pleasing and into healthier interactions

• Who we have to be in order to not people please

• The startling truth that others don’t really like it when we people please

• Learning not to ‘over’-explain. How to make it clean and clear

• Understanding It’s not about being nice….(hint: we tell you what it IS about)

• What it means to be an authentic human being…(spoiler alert: it's not pleasing)

• The superpower we already possess that is kryptonite to pleasing

Episode 55: Commitment Over Convenience

We’re back! Happy New Year!

Episode Summary

In life’s little lessons we are faced with many decisions. Alongside them, we are often faced with the ultimate decision: the choice between commitment and convenience. Commitment and Convenience do not live on the same street and doing powerful things in life calls us to do inconvenient things. The easy choices are not often the ones that move us forward. Join us this week as we explore decision-making and the role decisions play in how we get to live.

Listen for these truth bombs:

• The one universal constant of decision making

• Why it's easy to make commitments but hard to follow them through

• Even making a bad decision is a gift..and taking the car out of park

• How there are always other decisions around the corner

• The best kind of light that comes from a burning bridge

• Decisions that are not final..and how we can change course

• Failure as the path to success

• Understanding that there IS time to sit back and wait

• Why pushing never works

• What happens if we don’t push through resistance points

• An important question to ask ourselves in the face of challenges

• The benefits of trading up for better quality problems

• How to know the difference between commitments we need to see through and those we need to let go of and no longer serve us.

Episode 54: The 4th Quarter Grind

IMPORTANT UPDATE

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Jen and I wish for you to have a wonderful holiday season. Please take good care of yourself and get support if these are difficult days for you.

We will be taking December off from podcasting but we’ll meet you right back here in January!

SUMMARY

The 4th quarter of the year can be a real push for entrepreneurs. It’s the time where there can be pressure to make the most of this year, but also the push to look ahead and be priming the pump for the coming year. It is easy to fall prey to the demands of busy holidays and family commitments alongside the responsibilities in our business. We often see people just crash into the end of the year from all the hustle and spend the beginning of the next needing recovery time instead of pursuing their goals. It can happen week to week and layer by layer and before you know it we are buried in busy and everything is a chore and it's hard to find the joy. In today’s episode, we explore this experience and share our own stories and tools for recovering if you are in it, and offer suggestions on how to avoid it altogether.

FEATURED POINTS TO LISTEN FOR AND PONDER:

• Why it is important to reflect on the year that was and plan for what is to come

• The fear associated with making changes in how we ‘have always done it’…and doing it anyway

• Why it is paramount to find ways to take good care of yourself

• The tension point between making changes and living the changes

• The toxicity of always trying to be ‘producing’ in your business

• The value of slowing our roll and creating balance and rest points.

• How leadership plays a role

• The practice of exploring our edges and learning from them and growing through them and passing it on

• Why experimenting is OK…practice makes better. It’s not about perfection

• The myth of quarters….time and the stories we have created and why they aren’t real

• Why being aligned and in coherence with the Universe to BE-come our best selves starts with BE…then we can DO and Have

• Ways to be in your truth

• Looking at our stories and our perception of reality is skewed when we are the only one to dialogue with our own mind

• The value of looking at our internal landscape

• Tools for us to explore that internal landscape and BE-come the greatest version of ourselves

• What we can let go of to avoid the grind and stay in the joy while creating change

Episode 53: The Joys and Perils of Holidays

Summary

Join us while we explore the joys and tribulations of holiday times. Regardless of what faith base you practice, if any at all, the holiday time of year has the power to create the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We are here to tip the scales in the favor of balance and a rich experience…not just in food.

Sparkly highlights include:

• Non-traditional ways to explore the holiday season

• Giving ourselves permission to do it ‘our way’ and create new traditions that honor ourselves first.

• How the ’expectations’ can turn it all into a job

• The irony of how thoughtfulness  and gifts can get lost in the holiday shuffle

• ‘Net Gain’, ‘Net Neutral/Zero’, and ‘Net Loss’ as a tool for evaluating what to say yes to and commit to during holidays

• The value of recognizing creating an experience for others doesn’t have to feel lie it costs you

• How sometimes making grand sweeping change to our traditions is easier than incremental change

• Being mindful about getting caught in the stories of how its ’supposed’ to be

• Being empowered to create change by choosing a different narrative in advance of the holiday stress

• How the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ can be so dangerous

• Why it is important to learn from our past holiday experiences, but not get trapped into the dogma that we must repeat them

• How ‘tradition’ is peer pressure from dead people

• Seeing versions of ourselves through other people and looking with curiosity without judgment

• The importance of understanding the ‘essence’  and ‘operating systems’ of those we love

• Honoring thyself first and getting the support you need to make this your best holiday season to date