Latest / Curiously Guided Podcast / Ep.08 | Examining Subconscious Beliefs Through the Untangling of Stories with Ronna Detrick

Transcript

Ep.08 | Examining Subconscious Beliefs Through the Untangling of Stories with Ronna Detrick · Curiously Guided Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to the Curiously Guided Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: We're your hosts, Mariah and Jay, two intuitive business strategists exploring the intersection of entrepreneurship, spirituality, and the subconscious mind.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this week I am totally nerding out about our guest.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Rana Dietrich, and she is a coach for women, and her background and expertise is all built around the power of story.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I uh I've always just been fascinated by story and how it impacts us as humans.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I've learned about this quite a bit this past year.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our brains are actually hardwired to try to shortcut and do things in the easiest possible way.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one way that our brains really interpret the world and process information is through story.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So story throughout all of human history has been such an important piece of our existence.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it really, the subconscious stories that we tell ourselves on a day-to-day basis really drive our decision making and our actions and how we show up.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so Rana has kind of taken this and evolved it, where, you know, um, if you're familiar, there's a lot of people out there like Carl Young and Joseph Campbell that have really examined archetypes and stories that are common across all of humanity all the time, but they've really focused only on men.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I have never really considered that about how all of these stories that influence me, but also the society I live in, are really focused around male and masculine archetypes throughout history.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so Rana is doing something really cool where she is building the story of women and that feminine archetype and how that, you know, she actually has an incredible TED talk all around Eve and rewriting Eve's story and how this idea of story really affects us as women, how the stories that we have heard about what it means to be feminine and a woman are really not empowering in what we need to do to really take stock of um the stories and how they're influencing our own lives and how we could rewrite them into something much more powerful.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I am just so excited about um Rana's work.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I really am excited to get her out into the world even more.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you're listening to this as it comes out, she actually has this really incredible offering called Sacred Readings, where she will pull um and kind of channel one of these um female archetypes specifically for you and kind of bring out some lessons that you know you can kind of take and reflect on in your own life.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I would definitely encourage you to check that out.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna buy a whole bunch of Christmas gifts.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But really, um, you know, if you resonate with what Rana's got going on, I think her message is very cool and powerful.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something for everybody in this episode.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about it.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: And as you're listening, you're gonna notice that towards the end, she gave us just like a little taste of the sacred readings, and she ended up pulling a card for me and Jay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: And like you guys can't see her face, but like once she read the card, we were like, it was just so on point.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, this conversation was literally everything that I didn't know that I needed to hear.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, it was just it was really healing for me.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_03: It brought a lot of different perspectives that I'm not used to analyzing or like taking a look at.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, yeah, it was just it really did blow me away.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was boxing Shay after the episode and just like, oh my God, it's so incredible.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I hope that you guys really, really feel that energy of Rana and just like the nourishment of the conversation itself.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: So just like a really quick background on Rana.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Her career has been human resources, higher education, the learning and development space, and entrepreneurship.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: She has been a senior executive with two different organizations, given multiple keynotes, trained thousands of people, and even has given a TEDx talk on the story of ETH.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: So she holds a bachelor's degree in business and communication and a master's of divinity.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: 12 years ago, Rana founded her own business, ronadietrich.com, where she does everything in her power to honor and empower women.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: She writes, she speaks, she coaches, and she provides spiritual direction.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: She creates unique ways for women's stories, both past and present, to be understood as a powerful and sacred source of wisdom, encouragement, and hope.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, we are super excited to share this conversation with you.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: Let's get into the episode.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Rana, we're so excited to have you here today.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I have watched the TED Talks, I've seen a lot about your uh approach and your philosophy.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that I was so excited about was, you know, you really built this specialty and business all around story, which I love, uh, but in particular women's stories.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've always been really fascinated by the power of story.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, as humans, we really retain information and can pay attention to things in story form.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It like works on a brain level.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: But um I'm a fan of like Joseph Campbell and the power of myth.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, there's all of these studies of old story and how they affect us, affect our society.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel I've I've personally felt it's men's stories and it's like ancient men's stories.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been hungry for, yeah, well, what about the women's perspective, you know, and what about wisdom we can learn from, you know, the ancient feminine and all of those stories as well.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: It and the the darker side of that, you know, there's certainly like an empowering angle and a disempowering angle.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I am so thrilled to dive into the power of story, but specifically women's stories, um, how that affects us today.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't mind, as much as you're comfortable, will you share with us your story?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: From what I understand, you have a pretty interesting, you know, process of really learning to trust yourself, listen to intuition, and then pivot and build something that really aligned with, you know, what you felt called to be here in this life.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So can you start us with the origin story?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I want to first say that the fact that you say that you feel like it's mostly men's stories is actually a truth.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just something you feel.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's a reason you feel that way because that is actually what is true.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um so gosh, such a long story.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to know where to start.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that uh if I were to kind of bucket this into categories, I grew up in a world of stories, certainly.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in the church, and so I was constantly learning all of the stories that went along with that.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you are right, for the most part, those are all stories about men.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: The understanding of the divine is masculine, the leadership in the church is masculine, and I didn't think about any of this.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just what you're in.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like you, I don't think we recognize until we do that we're actually in a story.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, just from my perspective, I feel like I don't know, like just listening even to the intro of this.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm literally just like, holy shit.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: And just like the examples of like the stories, especially in, you know, religion and like in the church.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm just like, I never really sat with all of that before.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: There, I mean, the way I talk about it is I I just think all of that's just in our DNA and uniquely as women.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And unless we can see it, we can't do anything about it.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're just almost victim to the larger story that's being told.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing that makes me insane for myself as well as just across the board.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the process for me of beginning to recognize the story that I was in, which I was just unconscious to, right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just living my life and I'm making decisions, I'm making choices, I'm being who I need to be based on the way that I was taught, right?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Primarily uh be obedient, be submissive, be good, uh, don't make waves, don't upset anybody, keep everything copacetic and calm at all times.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: How much of yourself should you give in order to make sure that everyone else is okay?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, what that looked like when I was in high school looked different when I was a young adult and looked different when I got married at what was I 30 when I got married, I guess, 31, something like that.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I think my marriage was really the place in which I began to feel the tension of stories because I was just going along with all of the things I'd witnessed before, anything that I'd learned or known, uh, and a deep belief, and I see this in lots of women, that my value is based on how other people experience me, right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: My worth is going to be determined by whether or not you're okay with me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so when my marriage began to um cause me pain in the smallest of ways to begin with, and then over 15 years, much deeper and more significant ways, um, a couple of things happened.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: One is that I started going to seminary uh and was working on my master of divinity degree at the very same time I stepped into therapy for the first time ever.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: Can I just ask what is seminary?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Seminary is uh where people, for the most part, traditionally, this is less and less true, but traditionally it's where people would go to to become pastors.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's where you get the degree to be able to step into leadership in the church.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, cool, cool.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So usually they are owned by or run by a denomination, like there are Catholic seminaries, there are episcopal seminaries, there are Southern Baptist seminaries.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: The one I went to was none of those things.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so you kind of choose where you want to go based on your belief system.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, in that context, I began actually thinking about again in therapy, in classes, I'm studying all kinds of things.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I start thinking more about this idea of story, the larger narratives that have shaped my life.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And when I began to see what they were, then I'm like, oh hell no.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, uh what?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like, even unpacking what I said at the beginning, this idea of divinity always being male.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm this is what I'm studying now, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And all the language I'm hearing is that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I wouldn't normally think to argue with it.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: It just is until I'm like, hey, wait a minute.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: That that's not like that doesn't like where why?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: What's happening here, right?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, it was this very existential space for me where I started to see at a real um like cultural level what was going on in terms of our the way that we live as women based on the beliefs and the systems and this larger story that's being told.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: My marriage is in trouble at the very same time, and I'm seeing how these two things are coming together.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this larger story that I've been a part of without being aware of it is what's creating this pain because I don't like this story anymore.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can't speak out, I can't use my voice, I can't say what I think, because if I do, everything's gonna go to hell in a handbasket.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I keep going back to the marriage, but it really was the catalyst for me where I began to recognize that there's a there's a tape plan in my head.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I can hear what I need to say, what I really feel, what's pissing me off, what isn't okay with me, what I deeply desire to have be different.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then I could watch the person I was on the outside not saying those things, not living those things, not actually bringing those things into sync.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the broader that gap got, the more clearly I could see it.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that was when I went, okay, Rana, you this isn't sustainable.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like you, I have to be able to bring these things together.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: My inner voice and my outer actions have got to come together, no matter what it costs me.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can tell the specific story, but let's just cut to the chase.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I ended the marriage, and it was a very cataclysmic sort of moment for me where I literally heard this voice inside me that said, You either say what you actually mean and think and feel, or knock this off.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have agency, you can choose right here.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it's gonna get messy and it's gonna be hard and it's gonna be difficult for your daughters, and it's gonna be cost, all that.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Still, it's true, Rana.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Tell the true story.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I did, ended the marriage.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in the process of that, oh, I should have mentioned I was married to a pastor.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this is all very messy as it relates to the spiritual system and the beliefs and all the things that go along with that.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but shortly thereafter, um, left the church, I've not been back since, uh, and uh graduated from seminary, had my Master of Divinity degree, and really started working more of the stories of women.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: My final project while I was in school was taking one of those stories and trying desperately to find other writers or thinkers who had considered the story through a feminist lens, who had looked at it from the perspective of the woman herself, instead of all the applications and lessons that we've made out of her story.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't find anything.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that set me on this path then of saying, well, that's not right.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: We should have a way of looking at these stories through the woman's lens.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we were to imagine Eve's story through her perspective, how would we have told it?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: If we were to imagine the story of Sarah or Rebecca or Rachel or Mary Magdalene or any of them through their voice, then what would we have come up with?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if I go back to story, that radically changes the story, the lens or perspective through which it's told, totally changes it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what I began to see was that let's use Eve as an example.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the story itself, it's the way it's been told that's caused us all the problems.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've been told that story in a way that says her choice, her trusting her own wisdom and intuition, basically cast the whole world forever and ever, amen, into the pit of hell.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, awesome, no pressure, women.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we might think, oh, it's an ancient story, it doesn't really matter, it's not that big of a deal.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: But when we look at it closely, it has defined the Western world, particularly, but I would say all of the world because of our influence.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: But huge philosophic systems that turned into politics, that turned into the social systems that we do or don't have available for women today, all comes because we look back at that story and say, look at how dangerous women are.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Look at how they can't be trusted.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: We we can't let them earn money, we can't let them make decisions, no, they can't vote, no, they have no power.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Look at how they entice men.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like it, I could just go on and on.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the story that we're in, and we don't know it.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's what's shaped our whole culture.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's shaped, it's it is patriarchy, basically, embedded in the story of Eve and then the countless ones that follow.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So when I could see all that, then I could look at my own story and I could say, Oh, this is me just replicating the story the way that it's been told.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, how do I want it told?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: What do I think is more true?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what would that look like if I lived that out?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I can keep wandering here, but it's all that put together then that I started thinking about as it relates to my business.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not the only person who knows these stories.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And even if you've never heard the stories, every one of you are influenced by them.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, what does it mean for us to start untangling ourselves from stories that don't serve us, that are actually shaping us, that don't do us any good?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: How do we pay attention to the stories that we that have nothing to do with religion necessarily, but that are inbred in us because of our family of origin or our cultural background, or the part of the country that we grew up in, or the politics that our family associates with, like all of that is within us.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And unless we can name the story, we can't begin to change it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's painful for us as women in particular when we when we can't see that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when we live a story we don't know we're living.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love that language you used around that tape that's playing in your head.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us have the tape.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, step one is becoming aware of the tape, and then step two is how, okay, now the unraveling begins, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I really appreciated it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh Rana has an incredible TED Talk, which you should go see on her website.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you talked about that idea of Eve.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I had never really thought about, yes, of course, it's affected me growing up in the church, but it's also even if you don't have that Christian background, it's a seed that is in literally everything we see and all the businesses and all the government structures, you know, that there's this story that we have all had or been influenced by other people holding on to.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I grew up with the same thing you did of it's not safe to trust myself.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not safe to listen to that inner wisdom.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I need to rely on other people to tell me what to do because I cannot trust myself.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, this journey has sounded, it looks a lot like yours, where there's this like gap that starts to happen of what's expected of me versus who I feel like I'm here to be.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at some point that gap grows and grows and grows.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're listening to the tape, letting it all fall out, and it gets to be unsustainable.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that is like that pivot that you made is amazing.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was your whole life.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was everything, you know, your church is your community, and that that was a big leap of faith to make.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's incredible.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk us through like a little bit more?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: How did you start?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: To me, I always say this as like a practice and building trust with yourself, almost like a muscle.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: How what did that do in the reps?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And how did you build that muscle to make such a dramatic shift?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that you you use that as the metaphor because that's exactly how I think about it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's how I talk to women about it now.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I first recognized this gap between what what I felt and knew, like, like I wouldn't have called it intuition or inner wisdom at the time.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know that that's what it is, but it was, you know, you hear it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I say it about this this all the time.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: All women, I believe, have this know that I know that I know voice within.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: You already know what to do, you already know the answer, you already know what's right or wrong.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is trusting it.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the problem is actually taking the action, right?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's gonna cost us.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: There are risks, there are consequences.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's where this gets muddy.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a question of whether we have wisdom.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't trust it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I feel like it's like one of those, like something like you hear it in your head, but also you feel it in your body.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: You start to feel heavy, and then you you start to to question like, is it my food?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_03: Am I like not eating right?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why is all of my energy being completely zapped?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: Why am I uninspired?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Why am I unmotivated?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Why are the things that used to make me happy literally making me want to poke my eyeballs out with a fork?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is this resistance?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I just I took a note, as you were saying, of just like, I kind of see that as like following the resistance, like noticing the gap, noticing getting it bigger.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: You feel it getting heavier and heavier.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like my body, my my spirit is telling me.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Something and I need to get curious about this resistance because, like you said, this is insanely unsustainable.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_03: And like I can't move forward living like this.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yet we do, right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we that's how we cope.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And many of us learned to cope in those kinds of situations where there was dissonance within, but that couldn't be expressed.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: That can't, that's not allowed.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we've all come up with strategies to be able to manage that kind of resistance or dissonance.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean we should, but we we have, we're good at it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're very whether we shop or we drink or we dissociate or whatever we do in order to not have to acknowledge what's going on.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, when I noticed this, and I could feel and hear the distinct difference between what was going on inside and how I was showing up outside, what I was saying, what I was expressing.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: What I said to myself was, okay, Rana, just one time today you have to tell the truth.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's all.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Just one time today, which might mean when he says, Do you want this or this for do you want this for dinner?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: That I say, No, I actually want X.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it could be the smallest thing.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just one time today, I have to bring these two things together.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: What I actually am hearing in my head or feel, I have to actually express.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what I noticed over time, pretty quickly, was that hardly ever did the ceiling cave in on top of us, which is of course what I was afraid of, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like the whole thing's everything's gonna implode if I say anything.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Hardly ever did that happen.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Almost every time that I said what I actually thought, everything was fine.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, this is me.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm the one who's been making up the story in my head.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's not that disastrous.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I was building a muscle.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: As I started saying more, the roof did eventually cave in.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there were really hard places before the whole roof caved in, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what I noticed over time, and this was years, like this was like a five-year window from the time that I began to recognize this till the time that I ended the marriage.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was not like, you know, a uh, you know, 30 days or anything nearly that glamorous or easy.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was long and arduous.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: But what I actually felt like I was building a muscle because then I could go, oh, look, you told the truth yesterday, the day before that, the day before that.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Here you are.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing horrible happened.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: You actually felt slightly more heard, slightly more seen.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: You understand a little bit more now about what is gonna work and what isn't gonna work.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that the day that I did finally say, I'm done, didn't actually feel hard at all.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because it's like that whole time you were collecting, me and Shay like to say, like data points, but like examples that like this is safe.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: I can do this.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, look, the house didn't burn down.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like nobody came with like a pitch fork to like attack me.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm good.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: I can trust myself in oh shit.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, this resistance, once I start to speak what's on my mind, what's on my heart, the resistance seems to dissipate a little bit and it starts to feel less heavy.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I say all the time when I'm working with women, like just because we have clarity, courage, the capacity to actually step into the story that we want to step into does not mean in any way, shape, or form that the risks and costs and consequences go away.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is the problem that our culture tends to replicate.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the story that it tells us.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you're brave, if you're courageous, um, if you honor your own truth, everything's great.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's shitty and hard.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we try to like do a runaround or a workaround.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I see, you know, we see lots of models of this, I think, in in entrepreneurial, business, women-based context.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here's the workaround so that you don't have to bear the costs, consequences, and risks.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think that's naive.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's part of that's part of the story, to be sure, but it's also part of the growth.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I have to be honest about what this is gonna cost me.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the answer is I can't bear that cost yet.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can't take that risk right now.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: That I can't.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or if I or that, and that's the conversation, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we now need to talk about.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: So now we've got two conflicting stories.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: How are we gonna transition into the one that you actually want to be in?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is redemptive, that is empowering, that makes you feel like it's yours, like you're actually writing, telling, and living it instead of feeling stuck in one that you're having to react and respond to.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um it but it's hard, it's hard work.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's glorious and it's amazing and it changes everything, but it isn't, it's not smooth.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one thing I really loved about what you just said, and this is popping up for me a lot right now, taking the opportunities to speak honestly and be seen.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and when you say that, you're like, it sounds like, what do you mean you're not speaking honestly?
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you walking around lying?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not it.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of up until this point, I have not felt safe to show up in my true form without the mask on.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It has not felt safe to feel visible because I'm afraid one idea you brought up, I think in the TED talk was of being too much.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm like, oh, if I show up and if I connect with my desire and then I articulate those desires, no, people can handle it.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be too much.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm too wild, you know.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I really I've been asking myself, is this an opportunity to speak honestly?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that really is a rep.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is how you build that trust, you know, just seizing, we always try to find the technical, like, how could I do this today?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Look for opportunities in your life where you probably don't even realize it, but where you default into people pleaser mode and don't really speak up for what you need and what you want.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that gets back to worthiness, you know.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think this idea of practicing being seen without the mask on is really the route to building that muscle.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think, you know, if I were to use a different example, like when I was working in corporate, uh, the the behavior trait that I began to see show up in me was what I would call compliance.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, compliance and compromise would be the two words that I would use to describe it.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I was in a senior leadership position.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had the ability to use my voice, I'd been hired to do to do what I knew how to do.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And when conflict showed up, when things, when pressure went up, when uh the when the risks felt stronger, what I watched myself do was step into compliance.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: I put my head down, just do my work.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, fine.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna like I just am not gonna take that battle on.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not speaking up in the meeting.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's just too controversial.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not even worth it.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you hear?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not lying, but I'm also not telling the truth.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not being truthful, I'm not in integrity, I'm not being honest.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not actually being myself.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm being a version that I think you can handle.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when I saw that, I'm like, oh again, hell no, this is not sustainable.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: I am not, I didn't work so hard 20 years ago or 15 when I left my marriage to do this over again.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the same thing shows up in our businesses as entrepreneurs, right?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, am I gonna hit publish on that post?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna put things out in the world that aren't perfect or that are strong opinions that I automatically know are gonna cause people to unfollow, unsubscribe.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, well, I don't want to do that.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure that people like me and I need to have as many followers as possible.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And like we get in this looping that again, we're not lying, but we're not actually able to just say what we want to say and be who we want to be.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and that just wears us down.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's exhausting.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's exhausting.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: I feel that, yeah.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm just having so many light bulb moments of like the connections.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like I've gone through something similar, especially in my relationship over the past year, where it was like when I first got into that relationship, I was doing this consistently to where I wasn't speaking my truth because I didn't feel like it was safe and I didn't realize that that was the case.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then we hit a brick wall, and I was what is my initial reaction to avoid conflict?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: Let's just break up.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do it, I can't do it, I gotta go.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you're not meant for me, I'm not meant for you.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: I literally like want to hide under the covers.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: And like I can't, my the story was like, I can't do this part of the thing.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: But really, what happened as I started strengthening that muscle, he was able to step up to the plate to see where he was wrong and to be able to hold space for me, which really allowed me to gain this insane confidence in like my voice in expressing my emotions.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like now we have this beautiful relationship where he actually calls me out and he's like, I can literally feel like you're not saying something.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like the mic is yours.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, please speak up because I can feel it.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: And my voice gets shaky.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: And like we joke around because I cry instantly.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: I just start crying and he's like, why are you crying?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then I'll start laughing.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, you're like, this isn't a big deal.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's just, I've never realized that this is all kind of connected in in the way that you've kind of explained.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: I thought it was just a me thing, which most of us do because like we're the hero of our own story.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: We're living our lives in this perspective of our own brain.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_03: And we're just like, oh, this is a me thing.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: This is a me thing.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: And as you're talking, I'm like, holy shit, no, it's not a me thing.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's an us thing.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's an us thing, and it's a cultural thing, and it's a it's certainly uh an issue for women in particular, right?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not, I mean, one of the ways I talk about this is we we are no longer the protagonist in our own story.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: We we are living a story that is is controlled by, written by, narrated by everybody but us.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we're a bit player, we're in the story, but we're watching it happen to us instead of being the ones who are demonstrating the agency and actually creating it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, it's a it's a big issue.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to go back to something you said, Shay, like this idea of being too much.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's a one story that I think most women tell is I'm not enough.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Which comes, I could go all the way back and we could figure out exactly where that comes from and how that's been replicated through the centuries, and how our grandmothers and mothers and like it's over and over and over again.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not enough, I'm not enough.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then we add the beauty industry on top of this and capitalism and consumerism and colonialism and like every ism possible, and it's everywhere.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're not enough.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: So work harder, lose more weight, buy more clothes, get the right cosmetics.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know this, it's like everywhere, right?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I actually thought a few years back to myself that that's what we think our story is as women.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not enough.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that's a cover-up for the actual story, which is I'm too much.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I think the story, I'm too much, is alive from the pit of hell.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't actually think that any of us are too much ever.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: But we are afraid that we will be because we're not the protagonist in our own story.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're afraid that if we were to really say what we thought or really step forward or really honestly acknowledge our emotions, that nobody else could handle us.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is way too black and white, but if the people in your world actually can't handle you being completely yourself, this is a new problem.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's important to know that I am functioning barely in a family system or a partnership or a job or a uh culture in which I can't actually show up because I'm too much.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, that's not acceptable that I'm not too much.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: I need to be fully myself and let people be with me who can handle me.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: To your point, Mariah.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how beautiful that he says, here's the space, show up.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: You have the mic.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's so rare and so beautiful, and that's what we all deserve.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of how do I turn the mic down enough that you can hear me and allow me to be present?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: So a piece of this is um, you know, build the muscles to speak honestly.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then another piece is who are you surrounding yourself with?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And are you surrounding yourself with people that create a safe space for you to take off the mask and be yourself?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: That that realization honestly was one of the biggest pivot points for me was I looked at who I'm around.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are they building me up?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are they holding me back?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do they make me feel energized?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do I feel like I can share my ideas and my too muchness with them and they hold me in starting to shift who I'm not saying break up with everyone in your life, but no, the priority, who are you spending the most time with?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's like a pie chart, ideally a majority of that is with people that really lift you up and see you and let you be yourself because they're that is so empowering, or was for me to feel that support.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I took it to the next level of starting to connect with female lineage and female lines.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing you talk about is these women, they have something to say.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, they have wisdom for us.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was like the next level of empowerment for me of like, I have this whole support team here, you know, in real life, but also in the bigger scheme of things.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of helped me, along with me trying to build my own muscles, like feel safe enough to start.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was building my own business.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and actually I'd love to dive in here, if you will.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that story you touched on coming up in a corporate world, talk about a place that is influenced by the old style.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I certainly went through that myself.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: You start to hit this wall and again that gap.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can't show up here, I can't be myself.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just have to sit here and listen and nod and smile.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not really this is not letting me do what I think I'm here to do in the world.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us about that shift.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Again, another big shift you made, and that's a scary one too, because you're leaving everything you've been told is safe and stable to the wild world of entrepreneurship.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you kind of talk us through that transition?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I've made this transition twice, and both times, um, to be completely transparent, it was under massive duress.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is not as though I was sitting back going, Oh, wouldn't it be awesome to have my own business?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think it'd be really great if I could be an entrepreneur and talk about what I want to talk about.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, the first time uh I got laid off in 2009 and uh didn't see it coming.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, I I was completely blindsided.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was only recently divorced.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: My girls were really young.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, wow, now what?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um I had a bit of severance, so I had a little bit of time, and it was in that context.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: I won't even go through all the serendipitous and bizarre and amazing things that happened, but in that process, I launched a business, like oh like within about 24 hours.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, okay, well then this is what I guess I need to do.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so it was an uh how would I even describe it?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: It felt to me like a glimmer of possibility.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: What I could actually like get paid, maybe to do something that feels like it's mine.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's try that.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I did, you know, all the stuff that you do when you start a business.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: It yeah, let's not even go down that path.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's craziness.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what I discovered in that process, which I I don't think I would have known otherwise, I mean, my default and the larger story would be then go get another job.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: You need to go get a job so that you can make the house payments and support the kids and all those kinds of things.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I did have a side gig that I picked up really quickly that was helping cover the gap, because that would have been insane to think that I could completely support all of us with what a business makes, to begin with.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's just not happening.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's a huge story in the online business space so often is that when people transition from the nine to five, you know, regardless of how the situation or the scenario comes up, it's like they put so much pressure and so much shame ends up coming out of it in guilt if they don't end up replacing that full-time income right away.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: But like you can't why put so much pressure on yourself to do it?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like there is no shame in having a side gate, a side hustle.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was bartending for a bit while I was building my business.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then I also like wasn't an intern for some company and like it was a paid internship.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: But it's like you you piece together these things, but it's more so about like where is the majority of your energy?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: And like, can I have something on the side that supports me financially, but also leaves me with enough energy that I'm still excited about the thing that I'm doing.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, this is another entire conversation, but I do think from a career development perspective, we would be better served as a populace if what we were more committed to was work that allowed us to live our lives the way that we want to, instead of feeling like we have to find work that is our passion.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, that's great when that happens.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the hope, certainly in an entrepreneurial space, but that assumes that I don't have to do all the hard administrative, detail-y stuff that is part of it as well.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to keep my mind and sights set on what's the life that I want to be living here and what's gonna get me there, not how can I find work that is in alignment with me.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's it's so much, it's way too much pressure.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Woof.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I've I had side gigs all the way through my business the first 10 years that I was in it, and um I didn't like the work.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't care about the work.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was not my calling or my passion, but I was good at it.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I could do it quickly, it wasn't very hard, and it gave me benefits and cash money.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I could write and I could have clients and I could create programs.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and of course, you always want the scales to tip.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: That was always the dream, right?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get to the place where the income from the business is enough that I can let this other stuff go?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, in the first iteration, I didn't ever get there.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like the side gigs were the thing.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I got to a place where they were about 50-50, which was awesome.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then this corporate opportunity presented itself.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I went into this senior position for three years in a corporate context.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then again, this was just a little over a year ago, leadership changes took place.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: I started seeing the compliance thing going on, and the ceiling caved in yet again, uh, just a different context.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and when I came out of that experience, I thought, all right, now I'm gonna do this business thing again because I know what it felt like to do it before.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: I now have, I know how much time I can go without having to earn money.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: If I must, I know how much time I have.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: 100%, Rana.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Dive.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do this.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Go all in instead of this scared part of you that feels like you need to keep every, you know, like find out what's next, figure out plan B and C and D and E.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm still in that space.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm just a little over a year back in after being gone for three.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it feels it's very different than it was even three years ago, four years ago.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's scary.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great big wide open space that feels very crowded and very noisy.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's no guarantee that you know you're gonna be able that we can make enough to support ourselves that we can.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Be heard and seen the ways that we want to be that translate into cash, you know.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if I go back to even some of the things I was talking about before, this necessity of knowing that I'm not too much, of feeling seen, heard, honored, acknowledged, being truly myself.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: I get to do all of that in my business every damn day.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean automatically that I am making enough money to support myself?
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Those two things are two totally, those are two totally different things.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: I want them to come together.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: It would be my deepest desire that they will continue to merge together, but one doesn't cancel out the other.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: I still get to fully be myself.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: So to your point, Mariah, like if I make the decision six months from now that I need to pick up another side hustle in right in order to balance all of this out and to be able to get on a plane to go visit my daughters who no longer live near me, um, then okay, because I still get to be me.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: I still get to express and speak and write.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the part I'm not willing to lose.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's the story I will keep telling.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, actually, in two episodes ago in our interview with Ash, we talked a lot about the different seasons of life.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some seasons are entrepreneur seasons, and then some seasons are I need structure and I'm gonna take this job seasons.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then some seasons are I'm coming back to entrepreneurship.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, you know, God willing, we have a long life.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: We get to um do this the way that feels most supportive.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: There is no right or wrong.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in this space, a lot of us get caught up in, I made six figures my first year.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you hear all those stories and then you shame yourself, and then your mental energy is spent in that downward spiral.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: When really, in my experience, the people that businesses have to be babies.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to my clients about this a lot.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: You have to honor that your business is a newborn, and you would not trust the newborn with a whole bunch of responsibility.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you have to give it some time to grow and mature and get its legs, you know, and that may look like keeping a side hustle for now, and there's no shame in that.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let the business be a baby.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you have the nine to five, how wonderful that you have the stability and you can do this on the side.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: And just being honest.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that honesty of starting something new is hard.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of stories, stories keep coming back in the online community about what it should look like to be successful.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you don't hit that, all those worst issues start to pop up, right?
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like lighting, compounding.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that's an important thing to think about.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like the story that we're often told as women in the entrepreneurial space is the make six figures your first year, or just make six figures, period.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: No matter how long it takes you, this is the goal, right?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: That you should be at the six-figure mark.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, I think to myself, that's a story, sure, but it isn't the story I care about.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't need to make six figures in order to have the life that I want.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm if I am making that awesome bonus, icing on the cake.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the story I'm actually committed to for me currently is sustainability and ease.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Man, sustainability and ease.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if those are the priorities, if those are the pillars of the story that I'm trying to tell and live and construct and step into and build in my business, that dollar amount only has to provide me sustainability.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: I do not need my ego, does not need.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need more than that.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want any more than that.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um that is a di that's a different story that I would much rather tell.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like there's, yeah, there's so many levels to this and layers.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: And it's kind of like it always comes back to getting to know yourself, getting to trust yourself, because like alignment gets thrown around so often.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: And we kind of talked about that in Natasha's episode.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_03: And alignment in business, like if it feels aligned for you to grow a business where it's multiple six figures, seven figures, like, hell yeah, run, go, do it.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_03: But if that is not the season that we're in, if that is not what feels good, that feels nourishing, if that goalpost is stressing you out, we need to change the goalpost.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_03: We need to redefine what success means for you.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned something that me and Jay talk about quite often is like lifestyle design.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_03: Start with like what life do you want to live?
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then how can we allow and create and form and offer services and help people and create offers and packages in a way that supports this bigger desire of life?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because so often in a business world, it's like we have a business, we are business owners, and that becomes our identity.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: And uh Taylor Coyne of Cake Money Consulting just mentioned not long ago.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_03: She was like, I'm gonna be honest with y'all, like my business is my side hustle.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like my life is my full business.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like I beautiful.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_03: Love my life and like my business then supports this bigger idea of like, what do I want my life to look like?
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: How do I want the day-to-day?
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_03: What is in alignment?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_03: What feels good?
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: What is my body craving?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_03: What is my family craving?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I just love that perspective shift because like if the money feels good to go for it, by all means run with it.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_03: If it doesn't, let's change the goalpost.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think when I keep thinking through this lens of story, I should say that, Mariah.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think like it it another way to say this is I get to choose the story that I'm gonna live.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: I am the one who has the agency and the capacity to actually choose it.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's when I start feeling victimized or pulled or uh like circumstances are happening around me.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm no longer the person that's that that is, I'm not, I'm not writing my own story anymore.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: And there's lots of small stories within the larger one, right?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's the story of what it means to be an entrepreneur, there's the story of what it means to be a mom, there's a story of what it means to be older.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's all these stories, and we have to, that's going back to where we started.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like I need to know what those are so that I don't get sucked into the ones that do not serve me, that I don't actually believe in anymore, so that I'm choosing the one that does serve me and that serves hopefully more than just me, serves my clients, that serves the larger world, that serves across the board.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: And that just brings me to kind of a follow-up question here is like, is this something that you help your clients with?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like dig in, find their story.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something that you kind of like help people navigate, figure out?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_03: Because like I guess for me, when I think about like the story and like unpacking all of this, it's kind of like I've kind of realized that like having a story or like explaining my personal story, it's a weak point in my business.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: It is like I have this gap, and I I keep getting the knowledge it's been happening for like over a year now, where people are like, share your story, share your story.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's how I usually get like a lot of my intuitive hits is kind of like it comes from people, which you know, a lot of our synchronicities do.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_03: People say something and then you're like, what is the theme here?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: And the theme seems to be like show up and share your story.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: But then that brings me back to like, what fucking story?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like my whole life is a story.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: How do I, how do I narrow down?
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_03: How do I navigate?
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: How do I know what story to tell?
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what is my story?
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: How do I carve this out?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is that what you help people with?
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like your perspective would be lovely.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that you're you're naming it that way.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I probably back into it a little bit differently, but this is what we would get to is an understanding of the story that is mine, both the parts that I maybe wish weren't true and the lessons that those have taught me, and the ways in which I'm choosing to show up today in the story that I want to live.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's weaving all of that together.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think to go back to what we were talking about at the beginning, a lot of what I'm doing with clients, at least initially, is to help you identify what the stories are that actually are shaping you, that you don't realize are.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: So what are those, right?
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can go back and look at the family that I grew up in and the world that we lived in and the messaging that was so predominant, and it helps me understand why my default behavior is often shame-based.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can hear that in the client, right?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: When I hear self-contempt, when I hear I can't do that, or when I hear, oh, nobody can handle me, or I'm not enough, or I'm too.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter, whatever it is, it traces back to some deeply held belief.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we've got to untwist first, right?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are the stories that you were told?
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, here's a great example I've often talked about.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's even let's not even talk about Eve or religious stories.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at the story Cinderella.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure we heard other ones.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my daughters heard the paperbag princess, right alongside Cinderella.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we had other stories, not just Cinderella, but what are the big takeaways from Cinderella?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I need to be rescued, I couldn't possibly save myself.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: Some form of magic is gonna be required in order for me to actually step into my fullness.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna take a man to make that happen.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, I have to be beautiful.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't have to believe any of those things.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: I can critique that story, but you cannot tell me.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think many women can say that they've not been influenced by those beliefs.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: That story has become, it's moved from one that we were told to one that we tell ourselves.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: What are the stories you're telling yourself?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not pretty enough.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: I need to be rescued.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the magic pill, the silver bullet, the the the perfect thing that's gonna make all of this work for me?
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like a fairy godmother's want.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's we know that it's just a fairy tale, but we still live it out.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's so step one is what are the stories you've been told?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: Step two, what are the stories you're telling yourself?
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then now what's the story you want to tell?
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how are we gonna change those stories from the past and the ones that you're telling in the present into the ones that actually are gonna make a difference and are gonna shape the trajectory of how you show up in your world, in your business, in your relationships, in life.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: And over and over again.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like it's a one-time deal, right?
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I all the time am like, shit, there's that story.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't thought about that one.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: That one that tells me that the more that the harder I work and the more that I suffer, the more value I have.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's a story of mine.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Ugh, I thought I had like exercised that one.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that one was out of my system.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: There it is again.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just it's a life's journey, I think, for all of us.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think it's a very distinct one for women that deserves great attention and kindness and grace and care because we've lived in a world that hasn't been listening to our stories.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's good.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to kind of transition into okay, story as a disempowering force, turning into a story that lifts us up and is empowering.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: I really like that.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I really like what you just said about it's really in the maintenance in the day-to-day.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I've noticed is I'll think um I've made some progress on an issue, for example.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, a month later, I've I've done, I've worked through that.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: An issue pops up, and all of a sudden it's back.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, I've already worked through this.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to work.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already healed.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, already my mind is changed, my subconscious is clear.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I had a coach actually help me frame it as like, really, life is like a video game, you know, and what happens in a video game?
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: You start the level, you're really, you don't have your armor, you don't have your skills, you get knocked down a couple of times, but then you build the muscles, you get stronger, and you beat that level.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then what happens again?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: You start over in level two.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the same thing with these issues of these stories, you're not just gonna deal with it once and retape your tape, and then it's all jolly.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna pop up and they're gonna pop up in different evolutions.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it even gets a little bit more challenging and a little bit more challenging every time.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you have the opportunity to embrace it and think of it as a moment of like, all right, I'm strengthening my armor, I'm building my muscles, or spiraling back to square one, which I struggle with because I'm just like frustrated that oh, I've already done so much work around this.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here you are again.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is this really popping up again?
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so can you dive, take us into what shifting the story looks like and really stepping into that more empowered place and then keeping, you know, keeping the faith on track.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first thing I really want to acknowledge and what you're saying there, Shay, is there's a difference between not even being aware that we're living that story and you now being able to say, I thought I'd gotten through that.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know it now.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: You spot it immediately.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas 10 years ago, 20 years ago, even two ago, you wouldn't have even spotted it.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that is massive progress when we can actually name, uh, there's that thing again.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because we never named it before.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Which means now we can move past it or through it or allow it or work with it or however we want to talk about that, with way more awareness and intention than the arduous, long, often therapeutic work it took for us to heal some deeper wound or deeply held belief.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh now we spot it.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's massive progress.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think it as I spend time with women and certainly in uh with clients, like when I can hear them say, Ugh, there I am doing that again, I'm like, yeah, but when we started talking, you would have never been able to say, There I am doing that again, because we didn't know that you you didn't know that you were doing it.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that's evolution, that's massive progress.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love that reframe.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really, really good and important.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I think if we talk about the disempowered stories to the empowered stories, um for me, uh the work that I've done around these ancient sacred stories like Eve's, I am not naive.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: I am very clear that all of the reframing, retelling, reimagining of their stories has really been mine.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like the process that I've applied to those texts has been on my behalf because I've needed my story to be retold and empowering instead of disempowering.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if I even take Eve as an example, you know, the predominant lessons we get out of that are don't trust your wisdom, don't trust your intuition, your choices uh are always going to breed disaster.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like these are the things that we've learned to believe.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the empowered version of that story would be uh you can totally trust your wisdom.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: Your desire is good.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: You are created in the image of the divine.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's how awesome and amazing you are.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: When I read when I turn the story around and think about it through Eve's voice, or like I said, Mary Magdalene, or doesn't matter, I can use any of them.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: What I get is new wisdom that undoes the old tapes.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it it's it's the muscle, it's the process when I find myself feeling like I can't trust what I want, like it's too dangerous for me to actually hope that my business would support me.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then I'm like, oh no, no, no, no.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that Eve says?
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: Your desire's good, Rana.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: Follow that.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's the wisdom that I want you to hold on to.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's the wisdom that we need.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: And in it at a huge pullback sort of level, it's what we talked about at the very beginning.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have these stories of women.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've not grown up hearing deeply powerful and empowering words spoken from women, about women, by women.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, think about it.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like we go back to quotes that mean a lot to us that are within the last 50 years, right?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: And part of this, of course, would be when we have printing and books, and I understand that, but you think about the lore of stories and myth and all the stories that have been going on for forever.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: We go to stories of men.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the and the hero's journey, even like I could even take this on, right?
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like Joseph Campbell, like I don't disagree, but it's all stories of men.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's all men and it's all men, it's the hero's journey, right?
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it's called, the hero's journey.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, what we deeply need, and I believe have access to, it's not like it's not available to us, but what we desperately need is the wisdom that comes from women.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, I've had to go back in time to the stories that have profoundly shaped me, and I believe have shaped most women and our culture.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've said, well, what if I just tell it a different way?
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's again, it's not the story, it's the telling that's gotten us into trouble.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, what if I just tell it a different way?
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: We come up with new wisdom from that story, and then I let that shape how I'm gonna understand myself.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's the messaging that I'm gonna take in, and that's empowering, not disempowering.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: I need those stories.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: I need that wisdom.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: We need, I just think we all do.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: We just so deeply need to be able to hear women's wisdom spoken over us to remind us of who we are.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that's a huge reason why we feel so passionate about this podcast.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_03: Is like having having the space to like have amazing, beautiful, transparent, intellectual, creative, funny, like wisdom-filled stories with people that are walking the walk and talking the talk and staying curiously guided in order to come back to their authentic self so that they can tell their story.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_03: And we're so blessed and grateful to have a space where like we can, we will, we want to.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I feel like this is this, it feels like so, so very aligned.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel really, really grateful that you reached out to us about being a guest here because like this is this is amazing.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if I were coaching you, Mariah, I would say that thing you said right there about what the podcast affords you, the opportunity to hear and honor other women's wisdom, to have real, transparent, safe conversations, all of that, that's the thread I'd be looking for from the beginning of time in your story for you to be able to tell it.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very grateful that this is recorded.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm just gonna go back and listen to it.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: So, like, very feeling blessed.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Rana, will you tell us?
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have a question for you.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: What's the difference?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're going into business, you've been at it for a year now in the second iteration.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing differently this time?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: How does the business look?
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what I'm doing differently this time, uh, I would say, um, yeah, one more than one thing.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the predominant thing that I'm doing differently this time is that I'm leading with this conversation around these sacred stories.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: In the past, what I've done is I've known that I do this work, that I rewrite these stories, that the book that I'm writing is about these stories, that my own story's been shaped by the stories, like, but it's been like kind of under the surface.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: This time I've pushed that to the front.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels risky to me.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: It feels, and again, this could all just be my story that I'm making up in my head, but uh it feels uh what's the word I want?
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um vulnerable, it does feel vulnerable and it feels uh the thing I fear, let me just say it that way, is that you won't actually understand what I'm doing.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a deep story for me that I won't be understood.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, that's that's clear in there.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of giving any power to that, that my fear of being misunderstood.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: This time around, I thought, you know what?
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I talk about.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I know better than pretty much anything else.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I have written and researched and worked on for 20 years now.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: What if I just led with that?
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: What if I just blatantly talk about what I talk about?
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't like it, then you shouldn't keep listening.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not too much, right?
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's that whole thing.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's been one thing that I've done differently in terms of just messaging and branding.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: But if I were to pick another thing, I also am hardly offering anything.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: I used to, I better come up with another program.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: I need another e-course.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_01: I need to, like, you know, every three weeks I'm creating something new, launching something else.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because surely if I just land on the right thing, then the gates, the the, you know, the floodgates will open.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: This time around, I'm not doing that.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just staying the course.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: I do coaching, I do spiritual direction, I do these readings.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's it.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I do.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, because this is what I am best at, and it's what I want to do.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to trust that that is more than enough.
• 1:07:08
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of constantly chasing every possible activity that I could take on in the hopes that it'll be the golden goose, which doesn't actually exist.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's just another story.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of wisdom in that, you know, in abandoning the shiny object and really committing the idea of commitment in my business, is also something I'm working through right now.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate you sharing that.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but actually, I want to talk about one of your offerings right now, it's called Sacred Vid Sacred Readings.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about how you came up with the idea for that and a little more about it?
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: So years ago, when I very first started working with these sacred stories, uh, I was having dinner with a group of friends.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: They came to my house, women.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can always know that this was before divorce or after divorce based on how much time I was spending with other women.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I know this was after the divorce because they were all at my house and my daughters were little and they were kind of wandering around the edges of these conversations.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I was talking about these stories and how irritated it makes me the way that they've been told throughout time and how women are always the bad guys or they're always shamed or silenced.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I said, you know, what I wish I could do sometimes is like I could just make a deck of cards, like tarot cards, but they're these women's stories instead.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I could like just draw a card for somebody and do a reading.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you we pay for all of us at the table.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: We've all paid for tarot readings, we've all paid for astrological readings.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: I should just be doing readings like that.
• 1:08:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we all laughed, drank more wine.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then somebody at the table said, You should totally just do that.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, I'm going to.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna see what happens.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I I called like six or eight women that I knew, and I said, Hey, I'm just experimenting.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if I draw a card for you of one of these women's stories that I work with, can I just like send this to you?
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they're all like, Absolutely.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have to tell me, like, does it speak?
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get anything out of it?
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_01: Does it matter to you?
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so amazing.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was so amazing who showed up, which card, which woman, which story, what wisdom.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that then I just I've been doing them now for almost 10 years, I think 10 years now.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I do them all the time, but this time of year I offer what I call New Year's sacred readings.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm doing readings for you.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, Shay or Mariah, if you were to have one of these, I would like I have the my cards, right?
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would think about you and you know, light the sage and the candles and all those kinds of things.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would think to myself or ask who's the story that is gonna best speak to you for the year to come.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, as example, you want me to draw one just so you have an idea?
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll draw one for us for today.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if it's backwards or forwards for you, but this one is uh Vashti, Queen Vashti.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know this story.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and honestly, I don't think people have to know the stories in order for this to still apply, right?
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, what you would imagine if you got the reading from me, it's like a 15-page document that does actually tell you the story and the cultural history and how it's been told badly and what it actually offers us from an empowered perspective.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the wisdom you would have going into 2022 would be this if we had this one for you.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes no is the right thing to say.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would write a whole bunch about what that looks like, why that's hard, how that's risky, all the costs, all the consequences.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do it anyway, do it anyway, do it anyway.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, do not compromise.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And number three, choose yourself always, no matter what.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that resonates so much with me, especially even the word queen.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when you said queen, I was like, this is our card.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's so awesome.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we like vox back and forth, and for a while we were like, Yeah, this is we're just sitting in like this queen energy.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like everything is queen, and we are queen energy.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_03: So, like the fact that like that card came up, it just it resonates so much, even just the name of it.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's so great.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I do then.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I draw the card for you.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_01: And this, what you're saying, this makes me so happy because this is exactly what happens, right?
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't have mattered on some level which one I drew for you.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know it would have spoken because I believe that it's true and that it, but how awesome, and this is what I've watched happen for 10 years now.
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably done, I've done thousands of these now, where I draw the card, I send it out then to you, right?
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right before the end of the year, I send the reading to you so that you have it to step into the new year.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: It comes with a blessing, it comes with journaling prompts, it comes with specific ways you can apply this, kind of a how-to.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: How would you walk with this woman on a daily basis?
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: How would you actually trust that, like your ancestral matrilineal line, she actually walks with you?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like this isn't just some esoteric, it is kind of woo-woo.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: But like I actually feel like, believe that these women are part of my matrilineal line.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_01: They are constantly championing on my behalf.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_01: They are the ones who say to me, Rana, what did you just see this morning?
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes knows the right thing to say.
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And they remind me, like they're like advocates.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, you get one of those, right?
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like a story that chooses you, basically, is how I think about this.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and all of the wisdom that is present in that and the specific blessing that you can repeat as mantra, and um it's a companion.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: It gives you wisdom and perspective for the year ahead.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: So they're awesome.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I usually charge$200 for these, but in the holidays, starting uh end of November through December 20th, they're only$100.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I have a couple people who buy like eight or 10 of them to give to their mastermind group or to give to their clients.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_01: What a great idea.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or your book group or something like that, which I've loved.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've heard about women who've then got together and talked about theirs, like, or families, like two the sisters and the mom, and they all get on Zoom and talk about who they received.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it they're they're awesome.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I love them.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love being able to give them.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_00: What a cool offering that is so needed in the world.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I feel like you're the person I can talk to about this.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just recently embraced cards.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I had the story that tarot was evil in what invite invite the devil into my life.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_01: But um I'm exactly true.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not true, but it is what we all thought, yes.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time, very recently.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's wild.
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have a goddess deck, and it's always it was my first one.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's always been my favorite because of what you just said.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the female stories.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you have created is just incredible and missing.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't, I I'm just so excited for you to get your work even bigger out in the world.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I really think you're filling this gap that is huge in terms of there's we've been benefiting from the ancient wisdom from these male stories for a long time, and we're totally missing half of the equation.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just think there's so much power here, and I'm so thrilled that you have embraced it and taken it up and are now sharing it with us.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel so excited for you.
• 1:14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Shay.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I think we're about ready to start wrapping it up.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_00: We always like to finish by asking a question.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So can you tell us, and it can be about business or life or anything, what has been sparking your curiosity lately?
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think what is sparking my curiosity the most lately is an internal question that I'm asking myself from a place of curiosity rather than like a demand or accusation, uh, which is what would it look like, Rana, to be even more transparent, even more vulnerable, even more uh, and again, not because I'm not being those things, but I think what I'm curious about is what it looks like and means and feels like to be a woman who is incredibly powerful and strong, and simultaneously incredibly tender and vulnerable and transparent, that the two are not mutually exclusive.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_01: What I want and what I gravitate toward, um, what the books I love reading, are any places where I see these things come together.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible power and strength and courage and bravery and honesty, and this beautiful tenderness.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I just I want that for myself, I want that for the women I love and those that I work with, I want that for our world.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so it's sort of like, you know, it's like what is that thing called?
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: The the thing, you know, once you say pink elephants, that's all you can see.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's kind of like that, right?
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where are those?
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Where do I experience that?
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where am I where do I have invitation to that?
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Where do I spot it?
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_01: This combination of tenderness and strength.
• 1:16:37
  SPEAKER_01: So curious about that for myself, to be sure.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, what a great answer.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I love everybody's different answers with this question.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like some people say, yeah, like more physical, more spiritual, more emotional.
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's just interesting to see how different people like which light bulb path they choose to go down.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I bet it is.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so interesting.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, and I wanted to reflect uh really quick before before we kind of close this down, is that you mentioned that your fear of being misunderstood when bringing story to the forefront.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I just wanted to let you know that like that is what we got so excited about when you reached out about being on this podcast.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like Jay was geeking out about the fact that like you wanted to talk about a story and like what story means and like bring all of these ancient stories to life and like empowering and disempowering.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_03: And like, so I just wanted to reflect that like we understand, people care, we give a shit.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_03: We think that this is insanely important and powerful.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_03: And we're just really grateful that like you took the leap and you reached out to us because like this conversation was amazing.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I just wanted to reflect that like you're already doing it and it's great.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that a lot.
• 1:18:05
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Rana, is there anything else on your heart that you're feeling called to share before we wrap things up?
• 1:18:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think the only other thing I would say is is just uh an expression of gratitude.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I honestly do not think there's anything better on the planet than really provocative conversations with women.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, if I if I thought that I could make a business out of just saying you should pay me because you get to have provocative conversations as often as you want, I would because that's really what I love more than anything else.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they shape us, right?
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_01: They totally change who we are when we get to be with women who see us well and that we get to see and mirror back in response and talk about important and smart things.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um I just am really grateful for what has it been, like more than an hour of being able to be in beautiful, provocative conversation with really beautiful, smart women.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing better.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for that.
• 1:19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Can you tell our listeners where they can find and connect with you?
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my website, rana detrick.com.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is there.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Rana Dietrich on Facebook and Instagram as well and LinkedIn if you care.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll have all those links in the show notes along with links to the sacred readings and any other resource that, like maybe Joseph Campbell or other things that have popped up in this episode.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we're gonna close this episode down.
• 1:19:33
  SPEAKER_03: If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to share it with somebody that you think would love it or on social media.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_03: And then don't forget to tag us in those shares and let us know what you loved about the conversation.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_03: Also, definitely DM us, literally, any of us, with questions or feedback or whatever you're feeling because we seriously love connecting with you guys.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, thank you so much for listening and for your support.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Consider subscribing to this podcast or leaving us a five-star review so we can all continue to grow together.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, remember that you have the power to create whatever the hell you want.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the nudge, ask questions, and let curiosity guide the way.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you in the next episode.