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How Everyday Words Shape Our Inner Life: A Conversation with a Poetic Author · Building the Best You

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Identity is a constellation of habits.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Identity is the first thought upon waking and the final thought before drifting into slumber.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Identity is selecting which belongings to shove into a backpack when the fire alarm goes off to shove into a backpack when the fire alarm goes off.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Identity is choosing the most fitting avatar to represent your insides.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Identity is having an idea of who you think you need to be yourself.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Identity is realizing we are more shaped by the cult in the word culture than we realize.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: What I know about identity is that defining ourselves in order to be ourselves is not always necessary.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: What I know about identity is that it shatters in the eye of the storm and shreds through the eye of the needle.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: What I know about identity is that when it dies, it swallows every belief and offers a forgiving blank canvas to begin again giving blank canvas to begin again.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the House of Jermar podcast, where wellness starts within.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: The House of Jermar is a lifestyle brand, empowering women to live all in through interior design and personal wellness.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: We are a destination for women ready to reimagine what is possible in their homes and lives and then create it.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: We are honored to have you join us on our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: I am your host, jean Collins, and I invite you to become inspired by this week's guest.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the House of Jarmar podcast, where wellness starts within.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, jean Collins, and today's guest is an author just like me.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to talk to her.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: So this is Raya Kuye Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly, or at least somewhat close and she is the author of this incredibly beautiful book everybody Life's Poetic Glossary and I'm showing it for people that can actually see it.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: This book is so beautiful.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It's about the humanity of everyday words and I will say when I received this book.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: First of all, the book is beautiful and it came with this most incredibly handwritten, gorgeous note.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: So you are truly a creative person which I can resonate and connect with.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: But one of the things we're going to talk about is not just the book, your journey to writing the book, what the book is.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: But when I first got it I was like poetic glossary.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not into poems, but I have to tell you I was so into this book.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I've already gifted it to someone.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: So, raya, welcome to the House of Jermar podcast.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to talk to you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm delighted to talk with you too.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to, you know, have have a rich conversation around all these angles about how we come to be the way we are as creatives and as writers.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well, and thank you for joining us.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Just so everyone knows, she lives in LA and we are recording this a little while after the height of the LA fires, and so she is safe and almost everyone she knows is safe.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: So I always want to commend people who are living in LA who are taking the time to do things like join us on our podcast and be guests, because there's a lot going on in your community and it's kind of a stressful time.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: So thank you for being willing to still be a guest on the show.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're welcome and it's really wonderful to have a focus like this to dive into beyond what's happening in the world.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: So I appreciate that Beyond what's happening outside your front door, yeah, yes, well, good, let's talk all things creative and poetry, and also there's a little spirituality that's going on in your book and there's definitely wellness and connection.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm really excited to dig into that.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: But before we do, I love to share my guests' stories and career journeys, because you didn't start out being a poetic writer and so I would love to learn a little bit more about you and your background and how you got to where you are today.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I have had a very poetic journey in my life.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I've had many careers.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I started off as an environmental advisor and I worked for a government in Canada.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I'm Canadian from Calgary, alberta, and I worked for ministry of forests.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I worked for the clean air act.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I worked for at the time there was a federal department called Department of Indian and Native Affairs, which is no longer in existence.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But I had a real passion for saving the environment.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: And I was young, in my early twenties, and I found once I got into that work it was a lot of paper pushing and I found like in my heart and soul, I am a creative and I want to express that creativity and have the value of my creativity be seen and received.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So I left my.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I then had a corporate job with full healthcare and views of the mountains from the 27th floor I even had.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I was well-established, considering I was in my late twenties at the time, and I sold my house, my car and I moved to New York.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And that's where I started a career as an actor and I did that for just over a decade and then I had a really big life transition which was pushing me into the direction of really looking at all of the patterns in my life's expression, including an intimate relationships.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Then that healing journey that I went on really urged me to go into the direction of therapy.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So I became trained as a somatic experience practitioner, which is trauma release.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Family constellation practitioner, which is working with intergenerational trauma, and both of them are very much their modalities that work with our heart, soul and body beyond the mind, which is one of the reasons why I particularly needed them, because I knew my mind could only get me so far through thinking things through and I became very passionate about these modalities that could help people in these ways and have profound change in their lives like I did.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: So I started to build courses and I had an online presence for a while, particularly supporting women with their connection to sensuality.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: That was very much my journey.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I'd been very shut down in that area of my life and I lacked agency around my own pleasure and I lacked agency in owning my desires, whether they were related to pleasure or not, and becoming an advocate for joy and beauty and pleasure in my life, without working so hard and feeling like I needed to earn it in order to have it.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So that was very much a through line for me and it's also informed this book and the process of writing it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: And then, as I journeyed through that, I had a vision to.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I've always had real estate investments on the side of my creative and therapeutic services.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: I invested in getting a retreat house where I could accommodate wellness retreats and other retreats where people could come together and have transformative experiences and or you know apply so many parts of myself, my business self, my creative self.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I have a passion for interior design so, like you, I could infuse all of this into that one creation.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: And then COVID hit and it was very clear to me as all of the structures around me broke down, especially the structures that were providing me my basic security, and that I could no longer make money from anymore because I couldn't rent and accommodate people for these retreats during that time.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: So it was a really profound, intuitive decision to let it all go.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: After I'd built it up and had it running perfectly before COVID and it was very successful, and I let it all go.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I sold the business and then I decided to take two years off and live around the world and just live an intuitive life, be only accountable to myself.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I also ended a long-term relationship around the same time, and so I had this incredible freedom in my life that I'd never had before, and it took a lot of courage to embrace it and to believe that whatever is next for me is going to reveal itself, and it was during that time that I started to write this book.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I've always written my whole life.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I've always loved writing with metaphor, because I could express sentiments that weren't available to me in the English language and that I couldn't really express other ways.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: So poetry for me was a vehicle of self-expression that I didn't find I had in my everyday life for a long time.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And the idea of this book came because I felt also working as a facilitator and a therapist.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: We use words that become very diluted in that field of work, like passion or joy or, you know, awe or bliss, like what do these things really mean in our lived experience?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And they're so personal.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: They're personal and yet so universal, and so my inspiration really came from wanting to give voice to those subtle nuances that we don't normally acknowledge when we're using the same words with each other all the time.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: And it's also recognizing that my word for awe is, or my personal lived experiences of awe, are going to produce understanding and definitions that might be very different from someone else's.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And so this was my kind of my ode to expressing what's been unexpressed with language, and specifically words that have the power to be very transformational if we connect with them in the lived experience in a certain way that feels expansive, that feels generative, that feels enlivening.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: So I wrote that book with that lens, and it was such a pleasurable experience.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: It really felt to me like a meditation.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So I felt nourished very much by the process of writing this book.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: How did you choose the words.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that for a minute before we talk about what you wrote about.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: How did you decide?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Because, just to give some context for everybody, choose the words.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that for a minute before we talk about what you wrote about.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: How did you decide?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Because, just to give some context for everybody, it's like here, let me see, I'm going to show this for people that can actually see this on the screen so she'll have a word, and in this instance it's a calling is, and then she'll have poetry about that.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: In some of the words there's a little bit more, and you might have a descriptor or a sentence, or you'll describe a character that possesses that quality, which is also really fascinating.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: But so every couple pages, every two pages, is based on a word.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: And how did you choose the?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: words.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It was a combination of a few things choose the words.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: It was a combination of a few things.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: One was feeling the desire to fulfill a definition that I feel these words hold, that I would use in a therapeutic sense, like passion or sensuality or eros or guilts, and these words that, when we can use them in a therapeutic sense, it has such a deeper meaning than the way we use them in everyday life, kind of transactionally.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And so I wanted to give voice specifically to those words that I found myself using in a therapeutic context or in a personal growth context, let's say.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: And then there were other words like calling it's so funny that you happened to flip to the page of calling, I just picked one.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I love how that's so synchronistic.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: You can do that with this book you can flip to any page and it can offer something in the moment.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So calling to me was something, a word I found myself using a lot with friends because we would talk about you know, what are we feeling called to?
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: And it would mean something among my little micro group of friends and we had a shared language and understanding around what it meant to us.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: But then when I started to meet other people, there wouldn't be a shared understanding around what calling meant and what does that mean to the greater public, the greater society?
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And so I chose words where I found there was some kind of like cultural context that was missing for that word.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: From my perspective, yes.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: And then the other way I chose words was quite indulgent, I would say, like it was to give voice, to indulge in, marinating in how that word made me feel expansive or how I could move through my day with a relationship to that word and that lived experience.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: That would give me juice for the day and that would give me perspective to anything that I happened to be going through at that time.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: So that was another way I chose the words was like just feeling the call, or feeling pulled towards, wanting to, like marinate in the juiciness of a certain word yes, wanting to live with the word yeah.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: So there's a couple of things here that I think are so interesting your point about you can open the book at any given point in time and any day and read the word and really think about that word and what that word might mean.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: And I almost kind of relate that to like a tarot card, like find an inspiration for the day, just like you don't know what you're going to get, but trust that the universe is going to open you to a page that is going to make you think or touch your heart or enlighten you.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: So I think the book is fascinating in that way, because you can read the whole thing and I read it and I folded down pages of certain ones that, like, really spoke to me and I was like Ooh, and some pages I sat with the page for like five minutes reading the words and they're short, it's easy, it's so easy to read.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: But the message behind how you, the poetry behind the what you're saying about that word, like really made me pause in some instances, which I think is really interesting.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: And what I also think is interesting as we're recording this in January, I have a word of the year right, and I know a lot of people that I know that are into spirituality and personal growth.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: We all have words of the year and I think your book is also really helpful in helping people potentially identify what word might resonate for them, and it doesn't need to be for the year.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's for the week or maybe it's for the day.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's for the day because it doesn't need to be for the year, maybe the word is just for the day.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Try on a word for size for the day, and I think your book could be really helpful with that.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I see it that way too.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I really share that perspective, and I've had that feedback on the book of it being used at women's retreats or in a conversation with family, of just flipping to a page and then talking about that word or that concept, because at the end of the day it's a philosophy of life in a way.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I hope that can be felt viscerally, which is why I like to, at least in my way, transmit a message that's poetic, because it can be felt in the heart and the body and there's an efficiency to it too.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: It's like having a shot of espresso.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: You don't need to read a whole book Sometimes that's just what we need, like just one line.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Just one line to have a gentle reflection for the day that orients us to how we interact with ourselves in the world, and I love that simplicity for myself, so I hope that others also.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, as a reader, I totally did.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: It's like all these little digestible, little bits of wisdom and thought provoking things.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Did you write the whole book while you were on your two year journey of traveling the world?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: No, I didn't.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I started it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Then I started maybe five or seven words and this idea just kept on baking inside of me.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't write the first full version until 2023.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: In November, I joined a movement called Nano Write.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've heard of it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: It's kind of known in many writing circles, but it's basically the concept of taking November to write every single day.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: No matter how many words you write every single day for that one month, you know, show up and work on that same.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You don't even have to work on the same project.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: But I chose to do that because I really wanted to finish the book and I did so for 30 days.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I wrote, you know, some some words took several days.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Other days I would write three words in one day and all of those definitions and I had my first draft to then start doing the revision.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So it was surprisingly a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, and I love things that are easier than what I think, Easier than you think, yes, Well, I have to say I can't write the way you write, and so when I read what you wrote to me, the thought of writing that actually gives me a little bit of anxiety and stress, because it's so creative in a very condensed little format.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: And it was like the understanding of words and the way that you're using words in a very short, condensed way to communicate your message.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I was like I am the opposite.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I am like blah blah, blah long sentences and stories, and so I read it.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: But I also have an incredible appreciation for your ability to be able to write this way and to be able to tell a story and be so impactful and so thought-provoking in what you're writing and heartfelt in such an abbreviated sense.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: So you are very gifted at that.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: So kudos to you.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I appreciate that.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Do you meditate at all to have it kind of come in subliminally?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Or do you walk and it comes to you when you're in nature Like how do the thoughts come to you?
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: So many ways.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I am a lifelong meditator.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I've been meditating for a long time.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: However, during this period of the 30 days writing the book, the book was my meditation.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So I just got really still in the morning and my morning is my favorite part of the day most days because that liminal space between waking and dreaming, where you know, there's so much kind of amorphousness in reality, it really allows my imagination to be free and alive without my full cognition operating Right, and that is so delicious to me.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: So I love communing in that time and space and also before there are sounds outside or, you know, the feeling of other people being busy outside in the morning, which was a new commitment for myself.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I'd never done that before and I wanted to make sure that this was the first thing that I started my day with, after a cold shower, which to me randomly at the same time and the idea is that gets your metabolism going and I'd have my cold shower, I'd do a little bit of movement, then I would sit down and just see where my fingers took me through the description and the meanderings of these words.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: And, yeah, when I sit with it and when I'm quiet, it comes easily the ideas and associations with words and my own life stories.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: They come very easily.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes the of the last poems that I added to the book.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: It wasn't part of the original and it just became a very important word for me as I was navigating an intimate relationship where I really wanted to stay open to the possibilities and not close down because I was afraid of getting hurt.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Sure, yes, common and still honor myself and still be true to what I really desired in sharing myself that way, so that one happened to offer me the gift of several weeks probably, of not just meditating with the word but living the word, really living the word.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I remember reading that one yesterday and I was like, oh, that's an interesting word.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: That's not the same, as you know, forgiveness and love, and you know there's some others in there Guilt, guilt was a big one, but I did like what you wrote about forgiveness.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I thought that was actually very beautiful.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: The way you wrote about forgiveness I thought was really pretty.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: So you take things that sometimes people just view as just difficult and hard and negative and you find a much more positive spin to them, which I think is interesting.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that reflection.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: That was my goal as well to find that.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: What is the life-giving quality even of a very difficult experience that we relate to certain words like guilt or forgiveness?
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk about the artwork that's in the book, because the artwork everyone.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: You have to buy the book just to check out the artwork.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, my goodness, like one page is better than the next.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: It's all I'm going to let you describe the artwork actually.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm I'm similarly excited to talk about the artwork, artwork with you as an interior designer, because and I've really wanted to send you my special edition book but it wasn't ready yet, so I'm going to show it to you now.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: It has the gold foil on the front Pretty, it's a hardcover.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: The artwork, these.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know if everyone can see this, but for those listening People can see it, can see it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It's stunning they're x-ray photographs of flowers, and there are over.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: There are almost 70 poems in the book, one poem for each word that I chose, and there are that as many different flowers, and my choice of flower for each poem was very deliberate.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: But first, what I was drawn to in the x-ray image was this quality of being able to see through the essence of beauty, right to the core, and seeing the different dimensions of it through a visual like an x-ray photo.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And I have I've had a love affair, especially with roses for a long time.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So it started with the rose and a flower on the cover, and then I started working with a graphic designer who helped to generate these images.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So they're images that are based on photography, but there is AI that was used to manipulate them so we could get the quality that we wanted to transmit with the book.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: But the process of choosing the flowers was really satisfying because it was the chance to sit with each word again and to really be with the essence of nature, like how nature expresses itself, and I really feel nature is one of the biggest teachers in my life in seeing how we go through these cycles of feeling.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: You know we go through these cycles of feeling alive and then we die, like every season almost we die, or at certain seasons we die.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: So I'll give an example of one that felt very.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: It just really mirrored what the word, the essence of the word.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I think it was lament and it was an image of an iris, that where the petals are just folded around the edges a little bit and there's that delicacy that can be a difference of those petals being open or closed.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to communicate that with the word lament.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: That lament can change its quality when we see and reckon with the unforgiving wish of wanting things to be different than they are number one, and then really facing the pain so that we don't carry it as part of the identity, and embracing the joy and for me the joy is about those petals being able to life.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: It's the biggest.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I don't even remember the word I used in the book, but it is the biggest revolution in a way.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Well, the imagery is really powerful and as an interior designer, I could fully appreciate that every image was different.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I did take a pause because, as a designer, I'm a huge proponent of artwork and I always encourage people that they should have artwork everywhere in their home.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: And artwork speaks to the soul, and artwork you can sit and you can look at it and it exhibits different emotion for different people and everyone's response to artwork is very personal.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And so for me, these images are all black and white and I happen to love black and white photography.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I have it in multiple rooms of my home.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Is our only have black and white photography?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And so for me, it really resonated in the simplicity and just the beauty of, as you said, the nature.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: I love nature.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's really good for the soul and so important.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: So I found, as an interior designer, I was like, oh wow, these images like even just the images, like have a calmness and they speak as well, without even the words.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: The images by themselves are actually saying something in the book.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: As wacky and woo-woo as that might sound, folks, they actually are.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: They're talking to us.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, they are.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: They are talking to us, yes, well, and I had a feng shui expert on the show and she was talking about how the books that you have in your room give consideration to the books on your nightstand, because they're talking to you at night.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: So when I had her on, I was like, oh my goodness, I must have 30 books on your nightstand because they're talking to you at night.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: So when I had her on, I was like, oh my goodness, I must have 30 books on my nightstand because I can't finish any of them.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: And she's like, but they're talking to you, and I was like, oh, they must be causing me stress because I can't finish them.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I need to get those out of the room.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I need to just have the few that I'm actually working on, because if I have all these books that I haven't finished that message actually.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Because she was like, how do you feel when you look at them?
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I said I feel incomplete, I feel like a failure because I haven't finished so many of them, because either they haven't captured my attention enough or I've moved on to something else, and so it's actually not a positive emotion, which I found interesting, emotion which I found interesting.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: And so then, when I think about your book and the fact that there's so much positivity and heart in here.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I was like, ooh, this is actually a good book to have next to my nightstand because it's talking to me in a very healthy, creative, heartwarming way.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited I'm putting it on my nightstand.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: It's going to get to stay there.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, that means the world to me you can't even imagine, because I designed it to be a bedside table book for that reason, not feel the overwhelm of a 400 page novel sitting on the bedside.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: That feels overwhelming and insurmountable.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And I really appreciate what you said about art and how the purpose of art is how it makes us feel and those choices of what we put into our environment is constantly making us feel something and it is very personal as well.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: We all relate to art differently, though it doesn't mean the world to me that you would enjoy just having it as a visual by your bedside, because that was my hope is that the beauty could be felt and appreciated from that standpoint as well.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: So that makes me very happy.
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Well, it also taps into you know I'm a mindset coach and so mindset's really important to me, and so the power of the words that you have is also very important.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: You are what you think about all day long, and so being able to leverage a book like yours to pull a word to take with you for the day and have that be your focus for the day, or even just pull a word and journal about that word for a little while, I think can be really impactful for people.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Or find a word that represents how you're feeling at that moment and journal about that, and that's important.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: And sometimes people struggle with words.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: They really do.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I feel like the English language is so complex and so complicated and I think the majority of people struggle to find the right words very often for how they're feeling or with what they're struggling with, and so your book is yeah, it's right there.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I really relate to that too the struggle to find the words to express a feeling, a thought, a sentiment.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: And the language is limited, it really is limited.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: So having metaphors to be able to express ourselves and our feelings for me has been game changing.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I would have done without it and having those as tools of wider vocabulary.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's powerful, so thank you for that.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: All right, so, on a different subject, for someone who's traveled the world for two years, what is on your bucket list?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: What do you want to do personally and professionally?
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Because, wow, I want to start by saying that during those two years, it was the most freeing thing to be ambitionless and to feel what it was like to not have any ambition, any goals, but just really to allow myself to enjoy the moment.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: And so, coming out of that, it feels really strange to start imagining a bucket list, because I really felt so fulfilled every single day by just living that bliss and feeling so fulfilled by it.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: So I do have things that I have on the horizon that I've been dreaming about.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I've been working on a memoir for many years, so that's really one of the next big things that I would like to release and share.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And related to that is a course for young women.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I've had a longtime desire to mentor young women in relational dynamics and relationship with their bodies and pleasure, to empower them and free them beyond feeling at the mercy of those things so that they can live their greatest life of those things.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: So that they can live their greatest life.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I know I spent so much time in my early years, like all the way up to my forties, being so consumed with not knowing how to navigate intimacy in my life and it was a real energy drain.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: So I feel this, to use the word calling again.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: I really feel this towards mentorship, and that will also be very soon in a format that I'm still imagineering and dreaming about.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So that's on my bucket list.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: And then I have another book, which I hope to release this year, which is connected to the poetic glossary and also totally different.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: It's a book of words that I've invented Ah cool New language to describe moments of awareness where I'm engaging with someone or something and I'm realizing in that moment, or I've most of the time I realize it.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: After I don't realize it, I'll start to feel the inner conflict come up and then you know, through various avenues, figure out that I was abandoning self for the sake of pleasure, security, comfort, et cetera, safety.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: So I've invented about 70 words that are meant to be like a handbook for savvy people in relationships.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Ooh, that's cool.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Again like three words quick yes, yes, Ooh, I like that.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: That's exciting to me, and those are the next things.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: All big things.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and all very creative and all that tie into writing, because I was going to ask you if you missed the writing after writing every day for a month.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do, I really do miss it.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I do, I really do miss it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: And it also takes a different kind of creativity and brain energy to then share a book and show up publicly to the world whereas the writing is such internal right, the internal process, and so I do miss it.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: And I was actually just thinking today I'm going to weave it into my mornings again and have that as part of my creative time before anything else happens, right?
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm working on doing that.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 30 days is plenty of time for it to become like a serious routine and ritual in your life, so that when you stop it it almost feels like something's missing.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: It does, yeah, absolutely, which is exciting.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, good for you, and I am going to have you read from your book, but before I do, I always like to ask my guests if there's a book that they can recommend to our listeners that's impacted them either personally or professionally since Book Chains Live other than your own book, which we will tag and have all the good links and all that stuff in the show notes.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: So, is there a book that you'd like to recommend everybody?
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm very excited about this book.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I read it a few months ago.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: It's also a newly released book and I'm rereading it.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm listening to the audio now.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: It's called the Power of Enough.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: It's by Elizabeth Husserl and she's a friend of mine, actually, and I've known her for years, so I've known about her work for a long time.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: She's a financial advisor, but she really goes deep on the relationship to wealth and money and really debunks all of the conditioned beliefs and ways of interacting with wealth and money that so many of us have.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Her book has been very timely for me because I'm at a point in my life where I have a lot of financial freedom that I worked so hard for, lot of financial freedom that I worked so hard for and I'm really wanting to align everything that I invest in, including my time, my energy and resources and what I build creatively, to be able to have the most impact.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And so it's really wonderful and rich to dive into her book at this intersection of my life.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: And what I love about her voice is that she approaches both the practical and tactical as well as the deeper relationship with wealth and money, which I really appreciate.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: So I highly recommend that book.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: It's giving me such rich food for thought at another era of my life because I worked with her.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I was her client in 2017.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I was just seeing I had done one of these exercises.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: She has a concept about talking with money and creating a relationship with money that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: That was very it's been very powerful for me, and so it's so wonderful to see how she's brought this rich body of work into one condensed book.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I am a hundred percent getting her book.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: It's a subject I am fascinated by just because I struggle with it, and struggle with it my entire life, my relationship with money, my entire life and having money not define my worth or my value.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: And I can't wait.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: I'm going to maybe listen to it first and then, if I listen, I also buy the print version, because I tend to like to highlight and fold pages down and stuff like that.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: But sometimes I find it easier to consume a lot of content by listening because I can do it in the car or while I'm doing other things.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: But then I do tend to go back and actually read and fold down, or vice versa.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: If I'm reading, I very often will do the audio book afterwards also.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do the same thing.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I love having the hard copy and then listening as I walk or drive or do something.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Do the dishes Totally.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, All the time while I work out.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that one, all right.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Well, she sold another book because I'm going to go buy her book, so thank you very much.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: So I have one question for you, and then I want you to read a poem.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: So Raya, what does Raya mean?
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Does Raya mean anything?
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Or like, where did that come from?
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: What is that?
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Because on your book you're actually, I'm assuming, krista is your birth name and so Krista is the name on your book but I'm assuming that Raya is not accidental.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that question.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Raya is a name that came through meditation, and my close friends all started calling me Raya when I had this experience with Raya, which I'll share in a moment, and so it's really been a very meaningful name for me.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: It happens to mean queen, but I didn't know that when I was connecting with it in a meditation.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: So basically three years ago, 2021, when I was also going through many other changes in my relationship and also selling a business that I'd worked really hard to build, I was meditating with friends and I was asking what is my soul name?
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: We were kind of experimenting with this as a group and we would all ask for our soul names and for me it was just fun.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I was never looking for another name.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I love my birth name, krista Kouyat.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: It's gotten me so far in life.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I feel connected with the name.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: But when we were sitting there and meditating and I felt this burst in my heart and it was an energy of such freedom and, oh my God, it makes me, it moves me to remember.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: It was such freedom and unbridled power of of sharing my voice, sure, and the image that came with it was like this soulful singer, like taking up so much space in this huge canary yellow dress, and it was just so incredibly liberating and freeing and I felt it was an expression of all that I am.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: That's always been there.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: It was just a whole other level and so my friends who I was with, they all started calling me R and it felt so incredible when they called me Raya.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I remembered and connected to that feeling every single time.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah sure, everybody's reminding you of it.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And then I started ordering my coffee at Starbucks saying Raya, and it felt so good when they wrote Raya on the cappuccino, which you know and, and it was an honoring of this.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Who am I on a soulful level?
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: That is still difficult for me to put words to, but with that one name and with interacting with that name with friends and new friends, it just I have that expansive feeling inside and it just feeds it and nourishes it.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: So that's what the name means for me and I always invite people to call me Raya because I delight in the joy of that connection and I also use I made the decision not to change my name, so I I also use.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I made the decision not to change my name, so I, you know, built so much under Krista Kouyat and I include that as part of who I am for sure.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: So for my longtime friends who know me as Krista for years and years, and they all know my story of Raya and yet they still call me Krista sometimes too, and that's also equally as welcome, of course.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Yes's also equally as welcome, of course yes, thank you for that question.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: I love that, though there's so much power as you describe it, I can see it.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Now I have a whole different appreciation for the name Raya.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I really do.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: I can visualize it, I can feel it, I can see it.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: I can see the power, the fact that it means queen.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: As soon as you said that my daughter sometimes calls me queen, she's 18.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: And there's like some like coolness to the word queen, and every time she does I'm like yeah, yes, I am.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I was like okay, good, I love it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Every once in a while that word comes out I'm like I did something right.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Even by the 18-year-old said I did something right, so it's really powerful.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: So I love that.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing that, because now I kind of look at Raya a little bit differently, as a lot more just, soulful and powerful.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: And I am here Like I am here, I am stepping into me and I am here to share my voice with the world and to make a difference, which is really powerful.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: So thank you for that.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: So I want to end the show with you reading, let's say, two poems that are impactful and important to you, because I would love for you to be able to share your book, because we talk about poems and I speak about this because I've read the book, but I think there's so much power in someone hearing how you actually are writing something, because I think your book is very powerful.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: So I would love if you would pick two that you would read for everybody and we can close the show on that.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, I would love that.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you for that opportunity.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I'll, let's see.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of identity.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Identity has such a strong role in my life.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, now that I've just shared my story about Raya, identity, I think, is a really good one that connects with that.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I'll just find it in my book.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Good thing it's in alphabetical order, Okay.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: Well, and identity is also a good one, because so many of us struggle with what is our identity.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that's a good one, that's a powerful one.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be quiet now, okay.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Identity is a constellation of habits.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Identity is the first thought upon waking and the final thought before drifting into slumber.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Identity is selecting which belongings to shove into a backpack when the fire alarm goes off.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Identity is choosing the most fitting avatar to represent your insides.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Identity is having an idea of who you think you need to be in order to be yourself.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Identity is realizing we are more shaped by the cult in the word culture than we realize.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: What I know about identity is that defining ourselves in order to be ourselves is not always necessary.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: What I know about identity is that it shatters in the eye of the storm and shreds through the eye of the needle of the storm and shreds through the eye of the needle.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: What I know about identity is that, when it dies, it swallows every belief and offers a forgiving blank canvas to begin again.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Love Touches my soul and I remember reading that one, because I remember the second line that you said about the first thing you wake up in the morning and the first thing that you think about.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: I talk about environment.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: What's the first?
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: thing you see, what are the first things that your senses experience?
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: And I talk about that from a design perspective all the time, but from a mindset perspective it's so important to think about.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: What are the first things that you do in the morning and what is your morning routine?
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: And you know, I very often just have a routine where I'll put my hand on my heart and my hand on my stomach and I'll talk about things I'm just grateful for.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: I'll just think in my head what I'm grateful for or what I positive about your day or yourself personally, as a way to kind of wind down your thoughts to something that's very positive, as opposed to our natural inclination, which is to kind of like beat ourselves up because we didn't do enough or it's too late, and on and on and on.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, so that your second one was so powerful.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: I remember reading that last night.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, for me too.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you for filling me in on the inner life that you had as you were connecting with it.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I so agree with the first thought and the last thought, and gratitude being so helpful.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, such a helpful friend, so helpful Correct yes, okay, poem number two, word number two Okay.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: So I would like to read Surrender because I feel it's so connected with identity and the moments where I've had many moments where I've needed to let go of my identity to become something new.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: So to surrender.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: To surrender is an essential daily supplement.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: To surrender is to release from the pattern of doing and allow the next step to reveal itself.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And allow the next step to reveal itself.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: To surrender is to let grief erupt, knowing it's a measure for how greatly you've loved.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: To surrender is to let all the scaffolding constructed around security come tumbling down.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Surrender is to realize friendship with the unknown is in reach.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: To surrender is trusting the matrix of life has your back.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: To surrender is to let bliss bring you to the edge of the cliff, where a gushing waterfall carries you into surprising thrills.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: What I know about surrender is that, even when you think you've let go of control, you can still find yourself holding your breath.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: What I know about surrender is that it makes your heart softer, your eyes more forgiving and your smile more sincere.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: Beautiful.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: We all need to surrender more and trust in a lot of things.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: So thank you, Raya.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: This has been truly a gift to spend time with you.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: You are so creative, so talented.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: You're a beautiful soul.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Your energy is amazing.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: I truly love your book.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I will help promote your book.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: When this episode comes out, I will share it with friends and family.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: It is really.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: It is a beautifully written book.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing it with me and for sharing your time with us as well.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: We really appreciate it.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much for your time and space to have a little deep dive on beauty and soulful beauty.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: I so appreciate you.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, I love it.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much and we will definitely stay connected.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: We'll talk soon.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely All right.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for another episode of the House of Germar podcast, where wellness starts within.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: We appreciate you being a part of our community and hope you felt inspired and motivated by our guest.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review and share it with friends.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Building our reach on YouTube and Apple podcasts will help us get closer to our mission to empower 1 million women to live all in.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: You can also follow us on Instagram at House of Germar and sign up to be a part of our monthly inspiration newsletter through our website, houseofgermarcom.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: If you or someone you know would be a good guest on the show, please reach out to us at podcast at houseofgermarcom.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: This has been a House of Germar production with your host, jean Collins.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you for joining our house.