Latest / Curiously Guided Podcast / Ep.118 | Staying Human on Your Spiritual Path: Every Identity Has an Expiration Date with Victoria Nielsen, Identity Transformation & Energetics Mentor

Transcript

Ep.118 | Staying Human on Your Spiritual Path: Every Identity Has an Expiration Date with Victoria Nielsen, Identity Transformation & Energetics Mentor · Curiously Guided Podcast

• 0:07
  Mariah: Welcome to the Curiously Guided Podcast.
• 0:10
  Shay: We're your hosts, Mariah.
• 0:12
  Shay: And hey guys, I'm Shay.
• 0:14
  Shay: We're two online business consultants passionate about rewriting the rules to success within both life and business.
• 0:20
  Shay: We believe that curiosity is our superpower.
• 0:24
  Shay: And trusting the nudge is a muscle that's meant to be strengthened.
• 0:28
  Mariah: Especially if we want to create a life that feels good from the inside out.
• 0:33
  Mariah: So if you're ready to open your mind and let curiosity guide the way, let's get into the episode.
• 0:40
  Shay: All right, friends.
• 0:41
  Shay: Today we are sharing with you a good friend of ours named Victoria.
• 0:45
  Shay: You guys will hear how we met her and how we were just magnetized to her at first impression.
• 0:51
  Shay: She is just a cool ass bitch.
• 0:53
  Shay: If you guys don't follow her on social media, you will after this episode.
• 0:57
  Shay: She has some, I want to say revolutionary ways of talking about things.
• 1:02
  Shay: Mariah and I are both.
• 1:04
  Shay: We're not the girliest bitches.
• 1:11
  Shay: You know, like we kind of have talked about this idea of having an episode of feminine and masculine energy for a while, and we couldn't really nail down what we wanted to say.
• 1:20
  Mariah: Even the words make our eyes roll into the back of our head.
• 1:23
  Mariah: And I know that they're very common in like the spiritual community.
• 1:26
  Mariah: And like Victoria is very active in her little pocket of the spiritual community, but like it's tough for us sometimes.
• 1:35
  Shay: Yeah.
• 1:35
  Shay: Yeah.
• 1:35
  Shay: Like we are definitely open-minded, open to the mystery, but and we're spiritual bitches.
• 1:40
  Mariah: I think spiritual bitches are not.
• 1:41
  Mariah: That's one of the toughest things, I think, is like I consider myself an extremely spiritual person, but I don't portray myself as that.
• 1:51
  Shay: It's more of like an internal game.
• 1:53
  Shay: Yeah.
• 1:54
  Shay: And there's all, I mean, we follow, I'm sure you think of a few examples as I'm saying this, but there's a lot of like the airy, spiritual uh girly out there that's kind of off in the clouds.
• 2:05
  Shay: Mariah makes a joke about doing things with your period blood, you know.
• 2:08
  Shay: Like, there's just like sometimes that feels a bit ungrounded to us.
• 2:12
  Shay: Whereas Mariah and I are a bit more data-driven, two feet firmly crunched on the ground type gals.
• 2:18
  Shay: So what we love about Victoria is somehow she has managed to find this wonderful balance of being feminine, being spiritual, but she's got both feet on the ground.
• 2:29
  Shay: Like she is a delight to talk to.
• 2:31
  Shay: I love the way that she's talking about, you know, um balancing masculine and feminine and cycles.
• 2:37
  Shay: And I actually, you know, we brought her on and we're like, let's just have a chat.
• 2:41
  Shay: It'll be so interesting just to record our conversation.
• 2:43
  Shay: And I came in with like 10 questions and just grilled her.
• 2:46
  Shay: And to be honest, they're kind of selfish.
• 2:48
  Shay: They're questions that I had, and hopefully they'll be questions that you guys have too.
• 2:51
  Shay: But she is just, if you guys are kind of also like us, where you're kind of walking this line of like, I'm spiritual, I want to explore that side of me, but also, you know, I like, I like the business side, I like the data, I like being grounded.
• 3:04
  Shay: She is just a very cool person that has found that balance in a way that I've never found before with anyone else, to be honest.
• 3:11
  Mariah: Yeah.
• 3:12
  Mariah: And I think that that's what was so attractive when we first met her, too, is like we heard about what we did.
• 3:18
  Mariah: And at first, you know, it's like when you meet somebody in person, you hear about what they did, and then you have preconceived notions, right?
• 3:25
  Mariah: You have some ideas popping up, and you're just like trying to forecast where this conversation's gonna go.
• 3:29
  Mariah: And it's like, okay, so we're gonna go here.
• 3:31
  Mariah: And then it was like, wait, what?
• 3:33
  Mariah: And the way that she carried herself, like it's funny.
• 3:39
  Mariah: I was thinking about this intro a couple hours ago before we were recording, and I was like, how do I say she's just a down ass, like she's a sick bitch, like without only leaving it as like she's a sick bitch.
• 3:51
  Mariah: You know what I mean?
• 3:52
  Mariah: Because it's like, I don't wanna reduce her to those um just a couple of words.
• 3:57
  Mariah: But I think you're gonna hear in this conversation, it's gonna be really, really, really fucking refreshing if you come from a similar journey that me and Shay have.
• 4:09
  Mariah: I think it's gonna be really refreshing to have conversations with somebody that under understand the spirituality side of things, the bigger mystery of life, the universe, God, like all of that, while also being like, damn, my fucking husband is annoying, or just like holy and like just being a human and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater because that happens so much on both sides of the coin.
• 4:34
  Mariah: On the side of the coin where it's like the business, and then people forget about the energetics, and then on the energetic side, people forget that you just can't manifest things while sitting in a white robe in your backyard staring at the sun all the time.
• 4:46
  Mariah: Like you need discipline, you need to take action.
• 4:48
  Mariah: And so the way that Victoria communicates that is unlike anybody I've ever met.
• 4:58
  Mariah: She communicates these esoteric, I want to call them theories, but they're but they're not really theories, like these esoteric ideas, thoughts, perspectives in a way that goes, oh yeah, duh.
• 5:11
  Mariah: Like, yeah, that makes sense.
• 5:13
  Mariah: Like that type of thing.
• 5:15
  Mariah: And that's really hard to find sometimes.
• 5:17
  Mariah: Okay, so enough about teeing you up for the episode.
• 5:21
  Mariah: We should just get into the episode, but here's a Victoria's bio.
• 5:24
  Mariah: So Victoria Nielsen is a TEDx speaker, energy healer, and guide for women at the threshold of who they're becoming.
• 5:31
  Mariah: She works with women who have built lives that look good on paper, but can feel deep down that something more is asking to be lived.
• 5:39
  Mariah: Through embodiment, intuition, ritual, ancient wisdom, and unapologetic truth telling, Victoria helps women stop outsourcing their knowing and start building authentic lives.
• 5:51
  Mariah: All right, let's get into the conversation.
• 5:54
  Shay: And one quick thought if you guys love this episode, we did a part two with Victoria on her podcast, which comes out the week after this one is released.
• 6:03
  Shay: If you're curious about Mariah and I's spirituality and how we approach it and how we've developed it over time, um, she asked us some really fun questions that I have enjoyed answering and reflecting on since then.
• 6:15
  Shay: So make sure to go check that out too.
• 6:17
  Mariah: Oh shit.
• 6:17
  Mariah: Yeah, I totally forgot.
• 6:18
  Mariah: We do have a part two and Victoria's podcast.
• 6:21
  Mariah: You can either click the link in the show notes below this episode wherever you're listening, or you can search for her podcast, flip the script with Vic, or you can head over to her website.
• 6:32
  Mariah: It's linked right in like her main navigation menu.
• 6:34
  Mariah: We love a very lovely user experience on websites.
• 6:38
  Mariah: Okay, now for real, for real.
• 6:40
  Mariah: Without further ado, let's kick it into the convo.
• 6:42
  Mariah: Ooh, what's up, y'all?
• 6:45
  Mariah: We got a really fun episode here today.
• 6:48
  Mariah: So this one's, I feel like a little extra special because we met Victoria, me and Shay, both of us in person, which we only get together, I don't know, once a year, sometimes twice a year if we're feeling lucky and spicy.
• 7:00
  Mariah: And so we actually got to meet Victoria in person, and we were both super impressed with the way that she combines her spirituality and like her humanness.
• 7:14
  Mariah: I feel like usually when you meet people in person or like in the business space specifically, it's either one or the other.
• 7:22
  Mariah: They're either very like strategic, very business focused, very ROI type situation, especially because we met at a business conference.
• 7:29
  Mariah: Or if they're like more on the spiritual side, it's like I just manifest everything I've ever wanted.
• 7:34
  Mariah: And then it's almost like, can I just like have a real fucking conversation with you type situation?
• 7:40
  Mariah: And Victoria is just an incredible person that instantly impressed us with the way that she just naturally blends her spirituality and her groundedness, and she's just like a fucking human, and it's just so nice and it was just so refreshing.
• 7:56
  Mariah: So, Victoria, thank you for saying yes, and thanks for coming on the podcast.
• 8:00
  Victoria: Yay! What an introduction.
• 8:02
  Victoria: I'm stoked because I believe every identity has an expiration date, and I can't wait for us to talk about all the fucking lives we've lived until this moment.
• 8:10
  Mariah: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:11
  Mariah: It's it's pretty wild.
• 8:12
  Mariah: The human journey is really cool.
• 8:14
  Mariah: And speaking of human journey, how did you like how did you get here doing what you do and offering the things that you offer in the way that you do?
• 8:26
  Mariah: Like, I feel like me and Shay have, you know, our own spiritual journeys, our own business journeys, and they inter, interwoven, interweaven, interway themselves.
• 8:38
  Mariah: I don't know words.
• 8:40
  Mariah: Um, they're like interwoven in like different ways.
• 8:44
  Mariah: And so, like hearing your journey of just like how you've gotten here, I think would be very lovely because I don't think we ever even talked about this in person.
• 8:52
  Victoria: You know what?
• 8:52
  Victoria: I don't think we did either.
• 8:53
  Victoria: But I the fact that I have a spiritual business and I'm spiritual at all is hysterical because if you had known me even six, seven years ago, like you would have laughed at that thought.
• 9:04
  Victoria: Like I ran from spirituality, I ran from all of that.
• 9:07
  Victoria: My mom was the intuitive one, I was a party girl.
• 9:10
  Victoria: Like, there's no way.
• 9:12
  Victoria: And honestly, having kids is what brought on my first spiritual awakening.
• 9:16
  Victoria: I had a miscarriage in 2018 and it left me reeling just because I don't know about you guys, but growing up, I was told like you look at someone and you can get pregnant.
• 9:25
  Victoria: And I never even thought that a miscarriage was something that could happen.
• 9:29
  Victoria: And so when it did, it just like completely threw me off, you know?
• 9:32
  Victoria: And I had all these goals and plans.
• 9:34
  Victoria: It was gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna be a director at 30 and I'm gonna have this big corporate career and I'm gonna be a boss babe.
• 9:41
  Victoria: And instead, I had this like big question to ask myself of like, who am I if I'm not gonna be a mom in seven months?
• 9:49
  Victoria: And then the baby came and I was like, oh fuck, like my identity really is shifting, my priorities are really shifting.
• 9:56
  Victoria: And it was COVID, you know.
• 9:58
  Victoria: I think everyone kind of had a bit of a spiritual awakening during that time, but I jumped feet first into a business container without realizing it was a business container and without even having a business.
• 10:09
  Victoria: And I have to believe that something in my soul just led me to it.
• 10:14
  Victoria: And being part of the program showed me what was possible.
• 10:17
  Victoria: It was very Kundalini yoga focused.
• 10:19
  Victoria: And so I got like really into Kundalini yoga and spirituality and just realized, like, oh, I can make a business out of this.
• 10:25
  Victoria: Like, oh, these Akashic Records readings that I've just been doing for myself as a way to heal from my miscarriage can actually be something I share with other people.
• 10:34
  Victoria: And that's where it started.
• 10:36
  Victoria: And now, I mean, I left my corporate job last year.
• 10:39
  Victoria: I could never imagine going back.
• 10:41
  Victoria: And I know that building a spiritual business and raising my family in this uh alternative way, but in the modern world, right, is like what I've been meant to be doing all along.
• 10:52
  Victoria: And it's really fucking freeing.
• 10:54
  Victoria: Um, but I had to have misfortune for that to happen.
• 10:57
  Victoria: And I feel like most people I know, most clients I have, like that's what happens.
• 11:01
  Victoria: You have to have like a destabilizing event to get you to wake the fuck up.
• 11:07
  Mariah: So you joined a business program without having like we're we're gonna get to the other shit.
• 11:13
  Mariah: But like, what do you mean you joined a business program without having a business?
• 11:17
  Victoria: So I all I really noticed was the Kundalini and the community.
• 11:21
  Victoria: And then once I got on the calls, it was like, oh, we're gonna talk about the foundations of business.
• 11:27
  Victoria: Like, we're gonna talk about your marketing.
• 11:29
  Victoria: And I was like, what?
• 11:30
  Victoria: But weirdly it felt right.
• 11:33
  Victoria: Like I didn't want to leave and like completely jump ship.
• 11:36
  Victoria: I was like, oh, okay.
• 11:37
  Victoria: So then the first couple of months, like, I think just being in the energy, I was like, oh, this is possible.
• 11:43
  Victoria: Because again, I had been like a corporate girly.
• 11:45
  Victoria: I always thought I was gonna climb the corporate ladder and like that was what was gonna happen.
• 11:49
  Victoria: And it opened me to this idea of like, oh no, I could be in business for myself.
• 11:53
  Victoria: And so my first business, Spirit Mamas, was very ingrained in what I was going through at the time, like becoming a new mom, questioning myself, questioning the world around me.
• 12:02
  Victoria: And I started it with a good friend.
• 12:05
  Victoria: I will say she was like the only spiritual person I knew at the time.
• 12:08
  Victoria: And so I kind of like latched on wholeheartedly.
• 12:11
  Victoria: And we had a great business and it worked well for a while, but I can I can readily admit that like she was literally the only spiritual person I knew.
• 12:18
  Victoria: And so I was like, Oh, you're gonna come on this journey with me.
• 12:21
  Victoria: Okay, thanks.
• 12:24
  Shay: I want to backtrack even farther, though, because I was stalking you before this interview.
• 12:28
  Shay: Your background, you had a food blog, right?
• 12:31
  Shay: And so, and then you were working for Food Network.
• 12:33
  Shay: Like, what I'm the question that's pinging in my head is like, talk about an identity shift.
• 12:38
  Shay: Like that that to me seems like night and day.
• 12:40
  Shay: Did that all happen around the pregnancy or like what was going on during that transition time?
• 12:44
  Victoria: No, so that was like a whole nother life, I feel like.
• 12:47
  Victoria: But yeah, I went to University of Florida, I went to school of journalism.
• 12:50
  Victoria: I was gonna be a magazine editor, a magazine editor.
• 12:54
  Victoria: And I was right out of college, I got a job at Food Network magazine.
• 12:57
  Victoria: I had an office at the network, I had an office at the magazine, I moved to New York City, I was like living the dream.
• 13:03
  Victoria: Uh, but that's when like the drugs came on really hard.
• 13:07
  Victoria: And your girl was having way too much fun in the city.
• 13:10
  Victoria: And it got to the point, I was there about three and a half, four years, and uh the drugs were like really bad.
• 13:18
  Victoria: And I could see that I was getting to a point where like I could either continue down this path or I could make like a completely different choice.
• 13:24
  Victoria: And actually, I candy flipped one night, which is when you take like LSD um and ecstasy.
• 13:31
  Victoria: And by the end of the night, I just knew my college boyfriend and I were done.
• 13:35
  Victoria: Like we were gonna be broken up.
• 13:37
  Victoria: I needed to get out of New York City, I needed to move somewhere different.
• 13:41
  Victoria: Um, and the it was Halloween.
• 13:43
  Victoria: And then by January of that year, I was living in Birmingham, Alabama.
• 13:48
  Victoria: So I like literally jumped ship and ran.
• 13:52
  Victoria: And at the time it was the only place that I could find another job in magazines.
• 13:56
  Victoria: But I I really believe that when you take a big leap of faith, like the universe rewards you.
• 14:02
  Victoria: And I met my now husband a month into living there.
• 14:06
  Victoria: And we lived in Birmingham for a year together, and then we've been in Atlanta ever since.
• 14:10
  Victoria: But I I mean, I never would have met him, and I would never have the babies I have, the life I have, any of it, if I hadn't made that scary choice and like looked at myself in the mirror and was like, is this really what you want to do?
• 14:22
  Victoria: Is this really the path that you want to take?
• 14:24
  Victoria: And actually the question or the thought that I had all the time was like, I was raised better than this, and that I was a better person than this.
• 14:32
  Victoria: And that kept pinging through my head, being like, you're not this person.
• 14:36
  Victoria: Like the drugs have taken over.
• 14:38
  Victoria: You you need to make a different choice.
• 14:40
  Victoria: And so thankfully, and you know, luckily enough, like I wasn't so deep that I I couldn't do it, but I look back and I'm like, man, that was kind of a scary time.
• 14:51
  Shay: It's interesting.
• 14:52
  Shay: You made a joke about the uh party girl to spiritual girl pathway, and I I relate to that.
• 14:59
  Shay: I do think some of my first like profound realizations came through drugs.
• 15:04
  Shay: And so it's interesting you had that like kind of a positive um moment of clarity of like I need to get everything out, I need to get out of here, start something new.
• 15:14
  Shay: So you met your husband, you guys traveled all around, you had this uh COVID happened, you know, you joined the Kundalini school, you built the first business.
• 15:23
  Shay: The question I have been dying to ask you, Victoria, is how does one start a mystery school?
• 15:28
  Shay: Like, where did that idea come from?
• 15:30
  Shay: What does it even mean?
• 15:31
  Shay: How do we just go about starting one?
• 15:33
  Shay: I'm very curious about that.
• 15:35
  Shay: I love that.
• 15:36
  Victoria: I know.
• 15:36
  Victoria: I I get asked all the time, like, what is a mystery school?
• 15:39
  Victoria: So it was something that I kind of came to me in meditation as my spirit Brahma's business was ending, and I was like really trying to think about like what did I want to happen next.
• 15:51
  Victoria: I kept visualizing a temple, like in the jungle, and like women kind of walking around this temple.
• 15:57
  Victoria: And I was like, okay, that can't mean like a real physical temple somewhere.
• 16:01
  Victoria: And so I had seen mystery schools, you know, online, other women hosting them.
• 16:06
  Victoria: Um, and they talked about like the divine feminine mysteries.
• 16:09
  Victoria: And I was always so intrigued by that.
• 16:12
  Victoria: Like, what, you know, what does that even mean?
• 16:14
  Victoria: And like, what is the history there?
• 16:16
  Victoria: And you know, the very first thing that I found at like the start of my spiritual awakening was a goddess workbook.
• 16:21
  Victoria: And I kept coming back to that where I was like, this idea of the goddesses working with their energy, with their archetypes, and I started just kind of like doing it on my own.
• 16:30
  Victoria: And then my now business partner, Daphne and I, we went to a retreat together and she kept seeing butterflies everywhere, and then they started coming to me in meditation.
• 16:41
  Victoria: And after one of the temples, for lack of a better term, where really it's just like a women's circle and you're coming together to do ritual and to do like breath work and movement and things like that.
• 16:52
  Victoria: Um, both of us were like, there's something here where we're supposed to start something together.
• 16:56
  Victoria: And she was like, Monarch, I don't know, what does it have to do with the monarchs?
• 16:58
  Victoria: And I was like, monarch mystery school.
• 17:00
  Victoria: And I think both of us at the time didn't really even know what a mystery school meant either.
• 17:04
  Victoria: We were just kind of like, okay, like that sounds kind of cool.
• 17:08
  Victoria: Why not?
• 17:08
  Victoria: And as we've done into it, it's really about remembering, remembering who we are, where we've come from as women.
• 17:16
  Victoria: Again, coming back to those goddesses and kind of the teachings, right?
• 17:19
  Victoria: There's like a there's a fable and there's a metaphor in so many of their life stories.
• 17:24
  Victoria: And how can we embody those traits, those characteristics in our everyday life to be the most like empowered version of ourselves, to build our empires, right?
• 17:34
  Victoria: To build our businesses from this more divine feminine place, meaning we're following our natural cycles, we're listening to our intuition, we're doing that weird witchy shit in the backyard, right?
• 17:45
  Victoria: Like maybe we're pouring our blood out every month, you know, as a ritual, giving it back to the earth.
• 17:50
  Victoria: Like all of that really, really spoke to me and was so weird and so far from like how I was raised and what people in my communities talked about.
• 18:00
  Victoria: And I will say it was really weird at first to kind of talk about it on the internet because I kept being like, I do I even know what I'm talking about.
• 18:09
  Victoria: But the more that we have put together the curriculum of the school, the more that we have learned, the more that I'm like, yeah, we absolutely can because we embody all of these things.
• 18:20
  Victoria: And why the fuck can we not start this random mystery school?
• 18:23
  Victoria: Because we feel like it was a divine, you know, mission given to us.
• 18:27
  Victoria: And it's something I feel like we've done in previous lifetimes together for sure.
• 18:39
  Mariah: All right, y'all.
• 18:40
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• 19:51
  Mariah: It's so funny because I remember when you introduced yourself at the conference and I think you're like, yeah, I run like a mystery school.
• 20:05
  Mariah: And I was like, like murder mystery, like on a boat where it's like we're eating dinner, and I have to find out like, did Mr.
• 20:13
  Mariah: White kill Mrs.
• 20:14
  Mariah: Peacock with the candlestick?
• 20:17
  Mariah: And you're like, funny, I've heard that before.
• 20:20
  Mariah: Um, no, and then like the way that you explained it, it makes so much like even if you're looking at this from like a logical strategic lens, life is mystery, right?
• 20:36
  Mariah: Like we're all kind of walking around thinking that the only thing to life is the physical and what we can pick up.
• 20:47
  Mariah: And then we remember that there's so much more.
• 20:53
  Mariah: And then you start diving into energetics, but not energetics.
• 20:58
  Mariah: I don't want to say not energetics from like a manifestation place because like there is like science that like comes down to that, but like there's science that backs this shit up that like literally everything is energy.
• 21:08
  Mariah: And like I remember when I went in, I was in physics class in college, and my physics teacher was like, Yeah, the force that you are pushing on the wall, the wall is pushing back at you.
• 21:18
  Mariah: And I'm like, sir, that makes no sense.
• 21:20
  Mariah: Like, this wall is not fucking pushing back at me, like absolutely not.
• 21:24
  Mariah: But like there is so much science and like it's mathematics, like that's essentially what it is.
• 21:32
  Mariah: And I think that like when people get too, or like they'll they'll hear spirituality and they instantly kind of like ignore it, or they hear like mystery school, and they're just like, no, this is kind of like bullshit.
• 21:43
  Mariah: And it's like, no, it's mathematics.
• 21:45
  Mariah: Like that's is that's essentially what it is, and like being able to ground it.
• 21:50
  Mariah: And I really like your approach and like especially how you explain things because it's not just like wishing and hoping, it's really just like embodying and Just like becoming more of who you are in whatever way that means for you.
• 22:04
  Mariah: Because I've heard diving into the spiritual community before, it's like becoming whoever you're meant to be.
• 22:10
  Mariah: And it's like, and then you think that who you're meant to be is like this spiritual version of who everybody else is meant to be.
• 22:16
  Mariah: And like you said before, where it's like you have this like white cape on, or like you're walking around, and I'm just like, so if I'm spiritual, I have to spend a thousand dollars on crystals and like walk around with a tarot deck and like uh buy a crown.
• 22:26
  Mariah: Like I and join a cult, like and like that's not me.
• 22:30
  Mariah: You know what I mean?
• 22:31
  Mariah: And so, like just having this different perspective, I feel like is just really, really helpful.
• 22:36
  Victoria: Well, thank you, because that was definitely not always the case.
• 22:38
  Victoria: And I think everyone, when they start their spiritual journey, they drink the Kool-Aid, right?
• 22:43
  Victoria: Like you want to learn how to do it right, quote unquote.
• 22:46
  Victoria: You want to follow all the rules, you want to know what the rules are because you want to fit in.
• 22:51
  Victoria: You want to, again, like not be doing it wrong.
• 22:54
  Victoria: And I think it becomes there's a difference between like learning spirituality and really embodying it.
• 22:59
  Victoria: And I think there's a lot of people that are walking around spouting shit and you know, acting spiritual without really embodying what it means to them.
• 23:08
  Victoria: And I think you have to let yourself figure that out and you have to let it be different than everybody else.
• 23:13
  Victoria: And, you know, I did wear white for a while.
• 23:15
  Victoria: I did, you know, have kundalini meditations every single morning.
• 23:19
  Victoria: Have I done that now in weeks?
• 23:20
  Victoria: Like, no.
• 23:21
  Victoria: Uh, but I've come to realize that for me, spirituality is in the clothes I wear.
• 23:26
  Victoria: It's how I adorn and dress my home, the energy of my home.
• 23:30
  Victoria: It's how often I'm playing, how often I'm dancing.
• 23:34
  Victoria: You know, like that's really what it comes back to for me.
• 23:37
  Victoria: But I almost feel like I had to learn all the rules to then like unlearn and break them.
• 23:41
  Victoria: Um, and I think everyone goes through that path.
• 23:43
  Victoria: So, like if you're in that space right now, no shame like at all.
• 23:46
  Victoria: But you've got to start having discernment and thinking for yourself because I think this happens in like the business space so often too.
• 23:52
  Victoria: It's like you learn from these teachers, wonderful.
• 23:55
  Victoria: Well, then you try and like emulate them, like almost to a T.
• 23:59
  Victoria: And it's like, that's not how you're supposed to embody this.
• 24:02
  Victoria: Like, that's not how your business is supposed to work.
• 24:03
  Victoria: That's not how things work for you.
• 24:06
  Victoria: And until you can start to trust yourself enough and learn about yourself enough, you're always gonna follow what someone else says versus like your own intuition and guidance system.
• 24:17
  Shay: You know, I really love that you brought up the idea of play.
• 24:20
  Shay: One question that's been popping up to me as I've been spending time with myself recently is like, what if play is the path?
• 24:27
  Shay: And like, what if the more I'm in play, the more I'm in my purpose?
• 24:31
  Shay: And I think there's something powerful there, especially for women.
• 24:34
  Shay: Um, you talk a lot about like the exhausted mother, like stereotype, right?
• 24:39
  Shay: And and most of the women in my life are very busy, very run down, very exhausted.
• 24:44
  Shay: So this idea of play is almost radical.
• 24:47
  Shay: And we've actually talked quite a bit about it this season.
• 24:49
  Shay: I'm curious, like what I know you have children, like what does play look like for you in the day-to-day?
• 24:56
  Victoria: You know, for a while before I became pregnant again, it was microdosing.
• 25:00
  Victoria: It's so funny how we come back to the drugs, but in a happy way, like or in a more embodied way, I should say.
• 25:05
  Victoria: Microdosing really shifted a lot for me and made me see where I was still being really uptight.
• 25:11
  Victoria: And I will actually microdose with my kids around.
• 25:14
  Victoria: It's a small enough dose, right?
• 25:15
  Victoria: It feels like a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, like you're not totally out of it.
• 25:19
  Victoria: But I remember a couple of years ago, like I started like climbing the trees in front of my house with my kids.
• 25:24
  Victoria: And I was like, this is fucking crazy.
• 25:26
  Victoria: When was the last time I climbed a tree?
• 25:28
  Victoria: But just that utter joy of doing something to do it, I think is really profound because so many of us have been taught that you have to do something to be good at it.
• 25:36
  Victoria: You have to do something for it to become your job.
• 25:39
  Victoria: You have to be good so it produces something.
• 25:42
  Victoria: And the world as it was before the industrial revolution, before capitalism, like we didn't do stuff in that way.
• 25:50
  Victoria: We did stuff for the joy of it.
• 25:51
  Victoria: We did stuff because it brought more happiness to ourselves, our families, our lives.
• 25:57
  Victoria: And so I come back to that a lot.
• 25:59
  Victoria: Play for me is also dancing.
• 26:00
  Victoria: Like I love just putting on a song and dancing around the kitchen and like being silly.
• 26:04
  Victoria: And I'll do that a lot.
• 26:06
  Victoria: Like if the kids are having a bad day, if I'm having a bad day, like music is always a great way for me to transform the energy because it is changing the energy of the home.
• 26:15
  Victoria: Um, I also like I really just like be being like my sassy silly self and going on side quests with friends that have no other purpose than just like us enjoying ourselves.
• 26:28
  Victoria: And, you know, maybe that means we're going shopping, maybe that means we're just going for a walk together.
• 26:33
  Victoria: But like making time for that play and connection beyond just with myself too, but with others in community has also been like a real game changer because I almost feel like sometimes when you're in community with others, it allows you, I don't know, it gives yourself permission to like play even more.
• 26:48
  Victoria: Like there's an ecstatic dance um here that I like to go to in Atlanta called Soul Dance.
• 26:54
  Victoria: And the last time they had one, I was literally like on all fours shaking ass on the dance floor because a friend of mine, you know, like she dared to do it.
• 27:02
  Victoria: And so I was like, shit, I'm gonna do it too.
• 27:04
  Victoria: When was the last time that it like I let myself do that?
• 27:07
  Victoria: High school, middle school, maybe, you know?
• 27:10
  Victoria: Um, so I come back to that a lot too of like, what would my high school or middle, you know, middle school self find to be fun?
• 27:17
  Victoria: What would she want to do?
• 27:18
  Victoria: Because we forget, um, or we think it's not important because again, it's not like producing something, but you're right, Shay, play is the path to your purpose.
• 27:26
  Victoria: Play is going to, I find, unlock more in you than hours of meditation or learning or you know, any of these like quote unquote spiritual things could ever do.
• 27:38
  Shay: Yeah, that's so good.
• 27:39
  Shay: I love that.
• 27:39
  Shay: And kind of on that same path, you brought up that idea of ritual, which is something else I've kind of been playing around with, especially women.
• 27:47
  Shay: Why do you think it's important for women to participate in ritual with other women?
• 27:52
  Victoria: Oh my God, to be witnessed by other women is so profoundly healing.
• 27:57
  Victoria: Like, I mean, yes, I love my husband.
• 28:00
  Victoria: Yes, he can see me in certain ways, but to have another woman like look you in the eyes and see you, the real you, that heals something so deep.
• 28:10
  Victoria: Like so many of us have witch wounds, you know.
• 28:12
  Victoria: I really believe that, you know, in reincarnation and that so many of us that are drawn to spirituality in this life were witches in past lives.
• 28:19
  Victoria: We were probably all burned at the stake together.
• 28:21
  Victoria: But back then we were telling on each other, you know, we were trying to save ourselves and in turn sacrificed our sisters.
• 28:29
  Victoria: And so I think in this lifetime, the more that we can see and witness our sisters in one another and realize that like you are me, I am you, like we are all the same.
• 28:39
  Victoria: It heals so much of that deep, like energetic wound in many of us.
• 28:44
  Victoria: And ritual in particular, the alchemy of it is it's it's science.
• 28:49
  Victoria: Like Mariah said, like, you know, your brain can't comprehend some of these esoteric, unseen things sometimes.
• 28:56
  Victoria: So ritual brings it into the physical.
• 28:58
  Victoria: You're literally watching something burn in front of you.
• 29:01
  Victoria: You are seeing an alchemical process that is mimicking the alchemical process within you that you can't see.
• 29:08
  Victoria: And that does something to your brain, right?
• 29:10
  Victoria: It's like almost like confirmation bias when you're like, okay, I can see it, I can believe it before it actually happens.
• 29:16
  Victoria: And rituals also just fun because I mean, I like to burn shit and like you know what I mean?
• 29:23
  Victoria: I like to be a little girl in the woods that's like pulling cards and um making wishes.
• 29:29
  Victoria: And I have seen the power of rituals to move things like in your life, in your business, because everything is energy.
• 29:37
  Victoria: Um, and nothing is, you know, created nor destroyed.
• 29:39
  Victoria: So you may be carrying energy from previous generations.
• 29:42
  Victoria: I mean, they've proved it.
• 29:43
  Victoria: It's in epigenetics, right?
• 29:45
  Victoria: That like you've experienced the energy of your mother and your grandmother because you were a little egg in your mother inside of your grandmother.
• 29:52
  Victoria: And those bonds or that energy has to be moved and put towards greater, better things.
• 29:59
  Victoria: And you can do that with ritual and you can do that in community.
• 30:02
  Victoria: And community also amplifies the energy.
• 30:04
  Victoria: So if there's anything you ever want to like manifest, bring about, like bring it to a group of women and watch it happen way faster than if you ever did it on your own.
• 30:13
  Mariah: I feel like there's so many different ways that we can take this.
• 30:16
  Mariah: I had so many emotions come up when you were just talking for like three minutes.
• 30:20
  Mariah: At first, you're just like being witnessed by another woman.
• 30:23
  Mariah: I was like, is horrifying.
• 30:24
  Mariah: And then you're like, and then we're moving through in like the the the epigenetics.
• 30:32
  Mariah: I was thinking about that because, like, currently at the time of this recording, I'm pregnant with a little girl.
• 30:37
  Mariah: And like, what do you mean that I have my grandchildren are currently like in my uterus?
• 30:45
  Mariah: Like, the idea of that is absolutely mind-blowing.
• 30:50
  Mariah: And then I have had um, I don't personally at this time have like a ritual that I have consistently.
• 31:02
  Mariah: I was finding when like when I was pretty deep into spirituality, it was like I needed to do a full moon ceremony, I needed to do a new moon, and then it was basically just like this thing that I forced on my to-do list, and then I wasn't getting any joy from it.
• 31:13
  Mariah: But I like what you're saying about just like the ritual, it allows intention.
• 31:17
  Mariah: And I think that we forget that like energy flows where intention is placed.
• 31:22
  Mariah: And like that's not witchy, like that's science, that's energy, like that's just the way that it works.
• 31:28
  Mariah: It's the same thing where if I say a yellow Volkswagen and you're thinking about that, now you're gonna notice the yellow Volkswagens, like it's just the way that it operates.
• 31:37
  Mariah: And so it's really interesting because I remember when I was doing these full moon rituals and these new moon rituals and yada yada all the time.
• 31:46
  Mariah: I would make my friends, my in-real life friends, do them with me.
• 31:48
  Mariah: And I used to host them at my house.
• 31:50
  Mariah: And all of my friends were like little weenies about it.
• 31:53
  Mariah: Like nobody wanted to like share anything.
• 31:55
  Mariah: Like people would like write down their thoughts, or like we would do whatever, and it'd just be like sharing your thoughts on X, Y, and Z, or just like, what do you want to call in?
• 32:03
  Mariah: And everybody was just like so afraid to like do that and to like share what they were thinking, or like I've had friends like I'll do some tarot card pull sometimes at parties because I have like a fuck ton of decks because I'm the person that it's like I'm spending a thousand dollars on crystals, I will buy every Oracle deck, like I'm I have everything.
• 32:21
  Mariah: And so like I'll still do them and like pull the cards, and I'll literally just be like, oh, like this is the card that we pull, the magician card.
• 32:28
  Mariah: I'll read the explanation and like I'm not reading, quote unquote reading anybody.
• 32:33
  Mariah: I'm literally just saying what the card means.
• 32:35
  Mariah: And it's almost like people like start word vomiting like from the mouth, like how they're feeling like things that they've been holding back.
• 32:44
  Mariah: And I had a friend literally like just start word vomiting her biggest dreams in life.
• 32:50
  Mariah: And she was like, Yeah, I've talked to you about this.
• 32:52
  Mariah: I was like, no, bitch, you haven't.
• 32:54
  Mariah: Where did this come from?
• 32:56
  Mariah: And why are you holding that all of it, like all of that inside of you?
• 33:00
  Mariah: And like I've really noticed that through being in community with women and lately being pregnant with a girl, it's like I have been sitting with like this lineage of like my mother's side of the family and my grandma and like all of the trauma that they had to endure.
• 33:17
  Mariah: And just like I started getting emotional thinking about like what a gift that I get to raise a girl raised by somebody who isn't gonna be perfect, but isn't where my mom or my grandmother was, and like how healing that's going to be through them.
• 33:32
  Mariah: And it's almost like these things feel so separate.
• 33:34
  Mariah: That's what I'm getting at.
• 33:35
  Mariah: Like these things feel so separate, like these little tiny separate experiences, but they're all deeply connected to like how you see yourself, how you feel within you.
• 33:48
  Mariah: It's and and me showing up and like doing the full moon ritual, and like even though I don't feel the need to do that now, it's like it was this example of like, oh, you can share your thoughts and your feelings, and we can get deeper than talking about like the Kardashians episode last week.
• 34:03
  Mariah: Like we can actually talk about like the thoughts that are in our brain, and like the same thing with my mom.
• 34:08
  Mariah: It's like through me going through this and like developing deeper relationships with the females in my life or like my friends and like that type of thing.
• 34:15
  Mariah: I've been able to hold space for my mom.
• 34:17
  Mariah: And then I see like how she's now a little bit more open and receptive to things.
• 34:21
  Mariah: And like there's something about women, dude.
• 34:25
  Mariah: Like, there really is the more that like we can see and embody instead of sit in our head.
• 34:32
  Mariah: If I sit in my head too long, I get judgmental.
• 34:35
  Mariah: Do you know what I mean?
• 34:36
  Mariah: And that's that's like a really quick angle that like women tend to take a little bit more often, at least in in my experience.
• 34:44
  Mariah: And so it's it's just interesting to see like how when you get more intentional about where your energy flows, how it literally trickles into like every single relationship that you're surrounded by.
• 34:54
  Victoria: Yes.
• 34:55
  Victoria: And you don't have to try so hard.
• 34:57
  Victoria: Like, I think that was something when I first started my spiritual journey.
• 35:01
  Victoria: I wanted my husband to be super spiritual with me.
• 35:03
  Victoria: And I was like, What do you like?
• 35:04
  Victoria: You need to do the kundalini with me.
• 35:06
  Victoria: You need to do all the things.
• 35:07
  Victoria: And like, no, that's never gonna work.
• 35:10
  Victoria: That makes them run for the hills.
• 35:11
  Victoria: Like, you have to be the example, and like you have to embody those things.
• 35:15
  Victoria: And I love that you're seeing the shift around you because it's so true.
• 35:18
  Victoria: It happened with me as well, where my mom like comes on my retreats with me.
• 35:23
  Victoria: Like, my mom, you know, asks me to read her Akashic Records.
• 35:26
  Victoria: Like, we have healed so much in our relationship, even to the point where my grandmother, who is Christian, like asked me to read her Oracle cards the other day.
• 35:34
  Victoria: And I was like, Oh well, what?
• 35:37
  Victoria: Like, you know, and she's like, she's let me give her Reiki.
• 35:40
  Victoria: And like I think it's just about talking about it and and showing people, right, what's possible and that they have permission to do it.
• 35:47
  Victoria: Because you're right, we're quick to judge.
• 35:49
  Victoria: And I have a theory about that, that we judge others around the things that like we have not yet given ourselves.
• 35:56
  Victoria: So I tell this story all the time, but like during the pandemic, Sahara Rose, the you know, like uh internet famous um kind of spiritual guru, she used to do all these like twerking videos and stuff online.
• 36:08
  Victoria: And I used to be like, ugh, who is she?
• 36:10
  Victoria: Like, that's so gross.
• 36:11
  Victoria: Bitch, it's because I wanted to be twerking on the internet, but like, let's be honest, you know?
• 36:15
  Victoria: And so, like, I think judgment's actually a really beautiful thing because then it shows you like where you're not expressing yourself, but we don't know that as women, and then we get sucked into that cycle of judgment, and then we begin judging ourselves instead of realizing that, hmm, we should be curious instead and be like, well, where is that taking me?
• 36:34
  Victoria: Like, where am I not letting myself do that thing that I actually really want to do?
• 36:38
  Victoria: Because as women, we're so disconnected from our desires most of the time.
• 36:42
  Victoria: Like, we are so we've been taught to act like little men, and we're not.
• 36:46
  Victoria: Like, we are our own goddesses, we have our own energy.
• 36:49
  Victoria: Like, it's very, very different.
• 36:51
  Victoria: And I think that's another powerful part of being in community with other women is that you can finally see that that like we don't operate the same way as men and we're not meant to.
• 36:58
  Victoria: And that's okay.
• 37:00
  Victoria: Like, but start working with your own energy instead of fighting against it.
• 37:04
  Shay: Yeah, that was really a breakthrough for me was starting to realize, you know, you learn about men's 24-hour cycle and starting to pay attention to my own cycles and starting to plan my life around my cycles was a really big game changer.
• 37:18
  Shay: And then I kind of that opened the door for me of just like how much of our world is really set up for men.
• 37:24
  Shay: I mean, the Barbie movie is a silly example, but that like men's world they show, it's not far off, you know.
• 37:31
  Shay: Like if you start to research like medical, the medical system, the medicines that we have, it all researched on men, not until the 90s were women even required to be in studies.
• 37:41
  Shay: So there's this big gap in medical knowledge.
• 37:43
  Shay: And there's I I'm just learning more about my body, not from places that I thought I would.
• 37:49
  Shay: And it's been profoundly impactful.
• 37:52
  Shay: Uh I'm getting kind of weird about the cycle planning stuff.
• 37:54
  Shay: I'm we're shooting content now.
• 37:56
  Shay: I'm only shooting content in my good part, my ovulatory right in front of it, you know?
• 38:02
  Shay: And it's killing it.
• 38:03
  Shay: And then then I now I'm leaving editing for when I'm quieter and I don't want to be with people.
• 38:08
  Shay: Last week I scheduled a podcast on the day I knew I was starting my period and it was not great.
• 38:12
  Shay: And I'm like, Shey, how many times do we have to learn this lesson?
• 38:15
  Shay: But there's an Instagram post that you had.
• 38:18
  Shay: Mariah and I have talked about this idea of like cycle syncing and syncing up with your cycles.
• 38:22
  Shay: And I think it gets when you get online, I think people are kind of taking it and perverting it a bit or making it too complicated, right?
• 38:30
  Shay: You gotta be eating this seed and this week, and you gotta be, and in a lot of people's cycles aren't really perfect in the 20 to eight-day window.
• 38:37
  Shay: So then they're feeling like ostracized by the whole system because they don't perfectly align with these nice four weeks.
• 38:43
  Shay: And you made a post about like it's not really that complicated, ladies.
• 38:47
  Shay: Do you mind breaking down like the four weeks and like how you think about them?
• 38:50
  Shay: And if you aren't, maybe you're in menopause, like how you would adjust for that.
• 38:54
  Victoria: Yeah, I it really is like ever, I think everyone really overcomplicates it.
• 38:58
  Victoria: Like when you're bleeding, rest.
• 39:00
  Victoria: That's it.
• 39:01
  Victoria: Rest.
• 39:01
  Victoria: And I get in the modern world that's not always easy, but I love that you're planning your calendar that way, Shay, because you should.
• 39:07
  Victoria: Like when you're bleeding, don't make any commitments.
• 39:10
  Victoria: Let yourself be more fluid, let yourself, you know, be in the flow.
• 39:14
  Victoria: Like you're an oracle during that time.
• 39:16
  Victoria: Like you're gonna be receiving, you know, new bits of information.
• 39:19
  Victoria: And you have to be open to letting yourself have that happen.
• 39:23
  Victoria: And you can't if like you're constantly doing in your follicular phase or your inner spring.
• 39:28
  Victoria: That's when you do.
• 39:29
  Victoria: That's when you're planning all your tasks.
• 39:31
  Victoria: That's when you're like getting yourself organized, your energy is ramping up, right?
• 39:34
  Victoria: Like your hormones are coming towards ovulation.
• 39:37
  Victoria: Ovulation is when you should be doing all of your content patching.
• 39:41
  Victoria: It's when you should be like going out and hanging out with your friends, it's when you're most magnetic, right?
• 39:45
  Victoria: It's when you're fertile, it's when um you're most attractive, not just to the other species, right?
• 39:50
  Victoria: But I feel like even as another woman seeing a woman ovulate, you're like, damn, there's something about you and your energy.
• 39:56
  Victoria: That's literally science.
• 39:57
  Victoria: They said that, right?
• 39:58
  Victoria: Yeah.
• 39:58
  Victoria: Exactly.
• 39:59
  Victoria: And like your luteal is, I say receiving time because it's it's the time when people say it's PMS, but again, that's just information.
• 40:08
  Victoria: Like, what is causing pressure, tension, stress, and friction in your life that makes you want to burn it all down?
• 40:13
  Victoria: So like receive that as information and let yourself make plans to adjust accordingly, like when you get back to that next part of your cycle.
• 40:21
  Victoria: And if you're in menopause or your cycle doesn't exactly sink, you know, 28 days, you can also follow the moon.
• 40:28
  Victoria: So I, when I first started tracking, would track where I was in my cycle, but then also where the moon was.
• 40:34
  Victoria: And uh the phases of the moon correlate to the different cycles, right?
• 40:38
  Victoria: So uh a new moon is when you're bleeding.
• 40:41
  Victoria: As you're waxing, that would be your follicular phase, your inner spring.
• 40:45
  Victoria: Full moon is summer, you know, waning is luteal.
• 40:48
  Victoria: But again, it's personal to everyone.
• 40:50
  Victoria: So I have clients like track for a month to say, you know what, maybe you don't actually resonate with the moon.
• 40:56
  Victoria: Maybe you're opposite.
• 40:57
  Victoria: Maybe you're actually like bleeding when it's a full moon.
• 40:59
  Victoria: And you need to know that because then you're also gonna have to be not fighting against the natural energy, but like you just may feel different because the moon is full and you know, our bodies are what, 70% water?
• 41:10
  Victoria: Like you're gonna be affected by the pull of the moon.
• 41:14
  Victoria: Um, and you start to know that about yourself.
• 41:16
  Victoria: You start to know, like, oh, okay, this is what I'm experiencing at this time.
• 41:19
  Victoria: And it can be that simple, you know, it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
• 41:23
  Victoria: I think, you know, if you want to start eating certain seeds, if you want to start doing all that kind of stuff, like go right ahead.
• 41:28
  Victoria: But it's pretty much rest, do, um, plan or rest, plan, do, receive.
• 41:36
  Victoria: There you go.
• 41:37
  Shay: Yeah.
• 41:37
  Shay: I really liked what you said.
• 41:38
  Shay: What resonated with me about Ludial phase was such a good way to say that.
• 41:42
  Shay: Like, I have always felt like my PMS and then it gets demonized.
• 41:47
  Shay: I feel like I have the most clarity.
• 41:49
  Shay: Like I have like negotiated crazy high salaries when I was PMSing.
• 41:53
  Shay: Like, I am just not in a mood for bullshit.
• 41:55
  Shay: And I liked what you talked about.
• 41:57
  Shay: Like, that is your time to be aware of what is irritating you right now.
• 42:01
  Shay: That's a cool data point that something is off in your life, but it may not be the right time to act on it.
• 42:06
  Shay: I like that nuance.
• 42:08
  Shay: It's like, okay, during this week, I'm gonna be aware what's getting me riled up, but maybe I can just sit with that information as I bleed and as I rest.
• 42:16
  Shay: And then that's something I can plan for next month and adjust.
• 42:19
  Shay: Like that, I just love that way of thinking about it because it can be a really powerful time.
• 42:23
  Victoria: It is, and it's been demonized, you know?
• 42:25
  Victoria: It's like, oh, she's bitchy, oh, she's cranky.
• 42:28
  Victoria: Like, no, it's collie energy.
• 42:29
  Victoria: It's like, I'm gonna burn the world down.
• 42:31
  Victoria: And you can harness that.
• 42:33
  Victoria: Like, I'm such a big believer in harnessing your energy for positive change, especially like when you're feeling that pressure, tension, stress, or friction.
• 42:41
  Victoria: Um, because yes, I mean, we're not supposed to be like 100% aligned in our everyday life.
• 42:46
  Victoria: We're always interacting with our environment.
• 42:48
  Victoria: And as we shift, it needs to shift.
• 42:50
  Victoria: Um, you know, again, coming back to that like first idea of like every identity has an expiration date, you're gonna start to notice that in your luteal.
• 42:58
  Victoria: Um, and if you start to take that in as information, then you can again make conscious change when you get to your inner spring or your follicular.
• 43:05
  Mariah: I think that this is just a beautiful example of like, can we make time to fucking check in with ourselves?
• 43:13
  Mariah: Because I know it's like when I started learning about this, and then I'm an A plus student, right?
• 43:18
  Mariah: So then I'm writing these things.
• 43:19
  Mariah: It it became another thing on my to-do list, another thing for me to check off of a list, for me to double check, I gotta record this, I gotta do this, I gotta no, I can't make dinner for you tonight because I'm follicular today.
• 43:31
  Mariah: Like I just it just became an excuse for me, which is then taking it to a place that it's like the complete opposite of the entire fucking point of it, right?
• 43:43
  Mariah: And it's like if we just break it down, like I love the the language and the words that you are using in terms of like rest, plan, do, and then I forget the other one, but receive.
• 43:54
  Mariah: Receive, yeah.
• 43:55
  Mariah: It's that makes it so much easier.
• 43:58
  Mariah: And it's like, even if you don't Track your cycle, have a side, like do whatever, regardless.
• 44:04
  Mariah: If we can just hold those four words, and maybe can we just use them as curiosity points of reflection points?
• 44:11
  Mariah: Where it's literally just like in my day-to-day, like I'm fucking annoyed, I'm pissed, or like, hey, I'm really happy.
• 44:17
  Mariah: Hey, why am I really happy?
• 44:18
  Mariah: Because we tend to not really reflect when we're happy.
• 44:22
  Mariah: We tend to really only reflect when like we're feeling a negative emotion or emotion that we're trying to escape from.
• 44:29
  Mariah: But instead, it's like, can we use those words to kind of just like ask ourselves these questions of like, oh, what's happening right now?
• 44:35
  Mariah: Oh, it's because I'm playing.
• 44:37
  Mariah: Things feel easy right now.
• 44:39
  Mariah: Maybe that's why I feel this type of way.
• 44:41
  Mariah: Or it's like, uh, like right now, I'm not having a cycle.
• 44:45
  Mariah: I'm creating a baby over here.
• 44:46
  Mariah: And it's like, I found that I got really frustrated the other week.
• 44:50
  Mariah: And I'm like, why am I so frustrated?
• 44:52
  Mariah: It's like, oh, because I literally keep putting other people before myself.
• 44:57
  Mariah: That's why.
• 44:58
  Mariah: Like I keep thinking that I have to fit everything in, that I have to do X, Y, and Z.
• 45:03
  Mariah: And it was just a really good reflection point of like, I get to make decisions that align with how I want to feel.
• 45:11
  Mariah: Obviously, there are outside circumstances, there is the economy, there are social structures.
• 45:16
  Mariah: We have all of this, I know.
• 45:17
  Mariah: But like the things that we can control, we have a lot more control in our decisions and like the things that we choose to do, the way that we choose to be and how we choose to think.
• 45:30
  Mariah: We have a lot more control over that.
• 45:32
  Mariah: And that just plays so much into like our day-to-day.
• 45:36
  Mariah: It's literally like the difference between like I'm taking a shower and I'm rushing.
• 45:40
  Mariah: I'm rushing through.
• 45:40
  Mariah: I'm like, fuck, I gotta take the dog out.
• 45:42
  Mariah: I got another call.
• 45:42
  Mariah: I got a fucking podcast episode, yada, yada, yada.
• 45:45
  Mariah: And I'm just like, what if all of it was perfectly fine?
• 45:49
  Mariah: What if I'm allowed to enjoy the shower right now?
• 45:52
  Mariah: And like I'll get out just in time to take the dog out.
• 45:56
  Mariah: And just like the slowing down of it.
• 45:58
  Mariah: We live in this very busy state.
• 46:01
  Mariah: And to be honest, I don't even think it's set up for men.
• 46:04
  Mariah: I don't think this shit's set up for fucking anybody.
• 46:07
  Mariah: Like, this is not set up for humans.
• 46:09
  Mariah: This world that we are living in is set up for robots that have no emotions and no needs.
• 46:14
  Mariah: And so it's like, nope, whom is thriving in this?
• 46:17
  Mariah: No normal human being is thriving in the systems that we have created because they are too quick.
• 46:26
  Mariah: And it's like, how can we slow down?
• 46:29
  Mariah: And it feels so lame, right?
• 46:31
  Mariah: It feels so simple.
• 46:32
  Mariah: What do you mean that's all I have to do is slow down?
• 46:35
  Mariah: Ask myself a question.
• 46:36
  Mariah: Do I need to plan?
• 46:38
  Mariah: Do I feel like I want to plan?
• 46:39
  Mariah: Oh, did I give myself some space to even think that that was an option?
• 46:44
  Mariah: Like, yeah, I think that it just gives us some really good language to be able to sit with ourselves because that's that's how we find the intention, right?
• 46:55
  Victoria: Absolutely.
• 46:56
  Victoria: And I the slowing down feels revolutionary for people like myself.
• 47:01
  Victoria: I don't know about you ladies, but like chaos was the norm growing up.
• 47:05
  Victoria: And so, like, if it wasn't chaotic, it was like, oh, something's wrong.
• 47:08
  Victoria: Then like I've got to, I've got to create the chaos.
• 47:11
  Victoria: And actually, that slowing down is such a beautiful gift.
• 47:14
  Victoria: Um, because all of us these days want to optimize everything and like how efficiently and how quickly can we do it?
• 47:20
  Victoria: No, I want to be like, how slow can I do this?
• 47:23
  Victoria: How long can this take me?
• 47:25
  Victoria: You know?
• 47:26
  Victoria: And I feel like as women too, we take on unnecessary burdens.
• 47:29
  Victoria: We feel like we have to be the one to do it all.
• 47:32
  Victoria: And I hate that because I feel like that was like propaganda forced upon us when we were little that, like, you can have it all and be it all.
• 47:39
  Victoria: Like, no, you can't.
• 47:40
  Victoria: You can't.
• 47:41
  Victoria: Like, I'm sorry.
• 47:42
  Victoria: You're always gonna be dropping the ball on something.
• 47:44
  Victoria: And I used to like have multitasking as like a point of pride.
• 47:49
  Victoria: Now I hate, I absolutely hate it.
• 47:50
  Victoria: Like, if you want to ask me to multitask, I'm gonna tell you, fuck you.
• 47:53
  Victoria: Like, I want to do one thing at a time.
• 47:55
  Victoria: I want to focus on it and I want to do it well because no one's getting my best when I'm multitasking.
• 48:00
  Victoria: And like, especially as a mom, like, no, absolutely not.
• 48:05
  Shay: I'm laughing, Victoria, because we were like, come on the podcast.
• 48:08
  Shay: It's just gonna be a nice conversation.
• 48:10
  Shay: And now we're just like grilling you, but I have like a bunch of questions.
• 48:14
  Victoria: I love it though, because you guys inspire me too.
• 48:16
  Victoria: Like, I'm so lit up.
• 48:17
  Victoria: I'm like, yeah, we can change the world, we can do things differently, you know.
• 48:22
  Shay: Well, so I don't want to date the episode because this is evergreen and people could listen to whatever, but in popular discourse right now, there's a lot going on with women, and I think there's a lot of rage.
• 48:34
  Shay: Like, I think like I I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling mad.
• 48:38
  Shay: Um, I've talked with a lot of women who are angry about a lot of things.
• 48:41
  Shay: Like, it's not just this, but there's just a lot.
• 48:43
  Shay: And I feel it is a cool time.
• 48:45
  Shay: Like, there is this like power bubbling.
• 48:48
  Shay: But I'm curious in the mystery school, how do you help a girl out with rage?
• 48:53
  Shay: What's she supposed to do with all this rage?
• 48:54
  Shay: Because I think that women don't we get angry, we have that feeling, but we're not taught like what to do with it.
• 49:00
  Shay: It's like not safe to be angry.
• 49:02
  Shay: So, do you mind sharing a bit more about that?
• 49:04
  Mariah: Can I jump in here really quick?
• 49:06
  Mariah: I'm just laughing because me and Shay have had this conversation, like solo dullah.
• 49:10
  Mariah: I've literally come to Shay and asked her when I was like trying to deal with things.
• 49:13
  Mariah: I was like, So how do I be mad?
• 49:14
  Mariah: And she is like, What?
• 49:16
  Mariah: And I was like, I have like a wooden spoon that I can like hit with the couch, like, should I just hit the couch?
• 49:22
  Mariah: Like with a wooden spoon?
• 49:24
  Mariah: And she was like, Do you want, like, do you want to do that?
• 49:27
  Mariah: Like, does that feel like that will feel good for you?
• 49:31
  Mariah: Like, and so it's funny that we're like, yeah, Victoria, give us some other ideas here, girl, because like I can break some plates and I can like, you know, I broke the spoon over my couch, and that felt really good, but like, well, what do we do about this?
• 49:45
  Victoria: I love this question because your rage is sacred.
• 49:48
  Victoria: And I think Shay, you hit the nail on the head.
• 49:50
  Victoria: We have been taught it's not safe, it's not safe to express our rage.
• 49:54
  Victoria: And it to me is actually a very powerful tool to help move through whatever negative emotions you have and create positive change with it, right?
• 50:05
  Victoria: So maybe for you, harnessing your rage can look like calling your local senator, can call like putting together a, you know, parent co-op coalition against X, Y, and Z.
• 50:16
  Victoria: Maybe it's literally just screaming into a fucking pillow.
• 50:20
  Victoria: Okay.
• 50:20
  Victoria: And I know for some people that might be like, that's really strange.
• 50:23
  Victoria: Uh, don't knock it until you try it.
• 50:25
  Victoria: Okay.
• 50:25
  Victoria: Because we have this like primal anger within us.
• 50:30
  Victoria: And I'm a Latina, like, we're just naturally angry, fiery people.
• 50:34
  Victoria: And for a long time, I used to put myself down about it and be like, oh, I should, I should be less angry.
• 50:40
  Victoria: Like, I should be less spicy.
• 50:41
  Victoria: No, I need to harness that into the change that I want to create in the world, into the cycle breaking that I want to do for my family and my community, for those around me.
• 50:51
  Victoria: So I do a lot of rage dancing also, where like I will put on Lincoln Park, my kids are like, oh, mommy's angry music is on.
• 50:59
  Victoria: And I'm like, yep, mommy's angry music is on.
• 51:02
  Victoria: And I will let myself feel it because I've come to find when if you actually let yourself like really let out all of that like anger primal rage within you, there's like a little hint of pleasure at the end.
• 51:15
  Victoria: Like a little tiny bit that's like very satisfying.
• 51:18
  Victoria: And if you can get to that point without stopping yourself, without judging yourself, without cutting off that flow of anger, that is like magic.
• 51:27
  Victoria: I feel like that's like pure creation energy to fuel you for whatever comes next.
• 51:33
  Victoria: And I feel like as women too, we've been taught, again, not to feel these feelings, to cut them off at the head when they come up.
• 51:39
  Victoria: And I think we're doing ourselves such a disservice that like you have to feel it to move through it, to then harness it, to then use it.
• 51:47
  Victoria: Um, and again, it could be, you know, something tangible for your community, like campaigning, or it can literally just be punching a pillow, screaming, putting on a song, and letting it move through your body.
• 51:57
  Victoria: I remember after I got my big chest tattoo, I let out this like crazy primal scream that I have never in my life done.
• 52:06
  Victoria: And maybe because I was like in the woods in Cornwall, I felt safe enough to like scream bloody murder.
• 52:11
  Victoria: But it was so cathartic.
• 52:13
  Victoria: But it also opened up like within me even more.
• 52:18
  Victoria: So that's the thing.
• 52:19
  Victoria: I think sometimes people get scared because you open the door and then you're like, How do I close it?
• 52:23
  Victoria: How do I close it?
• 52:24
  Victoria: And I do think you have to learn to gently shut the door so that it's not always raging and always open.
• 52:31
  Victoria: But if you don't ever let yourself experience it first, like you're you're never even gonna get there, if that makes sense.
• 52:39
  Shay: You guys don't sleep on a primal scream.
• 52:41
  Shay: Like I my whole house is primal screaming.
• 52:44
  Shay: You've got everybody involved.
• 52:46
  Shay: It is the when I started doing it during COVID.
• 52:49
  Shay: I was doing breath work and my facilitator, we were all online.
• 52:52
  Shay: So she was like, get a pillow and scream your heart out.
• 52:54
  Shay: And it was the most healing thing I have done.
• 52:57
  Shay: Like it's insane.
• 52:58
  Shay: It sounds silly.
• 52:59
  Shay: I know I think Raya, we've talked about doing it in the car before.
• 53:02
  Shay: Like, if there's something cool about just like letting your body release in an uncontrolled way, because we have to be so like controlled and put together all the time that it's just like cathartic is a great word.
• 53:13
  Shay: It is so healing and it sounds so simple, but like we're doing it all the time over here.
• 53:19
  Victoria: Yeah, and do you cry afterwards, Jay?
• 53:21
  Victoria: Like, do you almost feel like you get to the other side where like you let all out and you're like, oh fuck, there was sadness underneath all of that anger.
• 53:27
  Victoria: So it's it'll be either sadness or it'll be like extreme joy.
• 53:31
  Shay: I'm just like, oh, I decided to do that.
• 53:33
  Shay: And now I'm like ready to giggle and play and laugh, right?
• 53:37
  Mariah: Yeah, yeah.
• 53:38
  Mariah: I agree with that too.
• 53:39
  Mariah: It's usually either well, there can sometimes like that satisfaction that you brought in.
• 53:46
  Mariah: If it's not like joy or sadness, it's like this, damn, I really needed that.
• 53:51
  Mariah: And it's interesting how the looping stops, right?
• 53:53
  Mariah: Now I'm not trying to sit here.
• 53:55
  Mariah: I remember when I first started really allowing myself to like get mad.
• 53:59
  Mariah: And you know who was a fantastic example is my husband.
• 54:03
  Mariah: He is arguably too quick to anger, but it was a beautiful example of like, wait, you can just be mad.
• 54:11
  Mariah: And I'm looking at him and he's handling a situation, and like, let's say, I don't know, somebody did something where it was like he's a very grounded, values-based, fair person.
• 54:22
  Mariah: And when you live in a world that is not fair, and a lot of people are not values-based, there's quite a lot of opportunities for you to get a little angry.
• 54:32
  Mariah: And so I seen him the one time, like, I don't know, we were like renting a car or something, like, some dude was like trying to take advantage of it, and he got like like fucking mad and like angry, and he's telling this dude, and he's not being like unfair and calling him names or like taking it too far, but like you could hear the sternness in his voice, and you can hear like him expressing himself, and I'm just sitting there.
• 54:52
  Mariah: And at first I was like, shut the fuck up.
• 54:54
  Mariah: Like you're just like, you're making it fucking awkward here.
• 54:56
  Mariah: And then I was like, no, this dude is literally treating us like a piece of shit.
• 55:00
  Mariah: Like he deserves to have some anger at him.
• 55:03
  Mariah: And then I'm just like sitting there, I was like, you can just be mad, like you can just be angry and like let people know that they did you wrong in the moment without feeling guilty about it.
• 55:17
  Mariah: And like he was just such a great example.
• 55:20
  Mariah: And even on the car ride home, I literally was like, You just be mad like that.
• 55:23
  Mariah: And he was like, Well, it's unfair to me for me to bottle all of this up and then it ruins my day.
• 55:30
  Mariah: So he's like, either the option is that person gets, I mean, like they they were in this communicate, we collaborated and created this together.
• 55:41
  Mariah: And it's like they get the brunt of it because of how they were treating somebody, or I I bottle it up and then it ruins my day, it ruins my week.
• 55:50
  Mariah: And he was like, and I don't deserve that because I didn't create this.
• 55:53
  Mariah: And I was like, you can just do that?
• 55:57
  Mariah: Like, what the fuck?
• 55:59
  Mariah: And it was just such a beautiful example, and then we get into the oh well, my grandma wasn't allowed to be mad.
• 56:06
  Mariah: Oh, well, when my mother was mad, what happened?
• 56:09
  Mariah: She turned it into like a psychosis.
• 56:12
  Mariah: She ended up being suicidal, like she took it like uh way too far.
• 56:16
  Mariah: She was the crazy person, nobody wanted to hear her, yada, yada, yada.
• 56:20
  Mariah: And it's like there is something about I don't want to say intentional anger or like integrated anger, but like rightfully deserved and just like and not taking it too far because like the examples that I saw with my father in comparison to my husband, my father was when he was angry, was go for the throat.
• 56:41
  Mariah: It was nasty, it was personal.
• 56:43
  Mariah: And it was like, so I saw these two sides of my parents who were kind of quick to anger, and I wanted neither of them.
• 56:49
  Mariah: And I thought that they, those were the only options, either be so angry that you then become depressed, or you be so angry that you become nasty.
• 56:57
  Mariah: And I didn't want to take any of those in.
• 57:00
  Mariah: And so it's cool that like this rage conversation is coming up where it's like, no, this is actually like a form of creation.
• 57:07
  Mariah: This is how we change things.
• 57:09
  Mariah: And if you use it properly and you're coming from like a good place with a good heart, and obviously we're gonna fuck up.
• 57:15
  Mariah: We're gonna, we're gonna push things past the line that they they deserve.
• 57:19
  Mariah: But being in community or just like seeing how you interact with people, I just find that I learned so much through relationships with other people because I don't think that I would have been able to untangle my thoughts and my feelings about anger without my husband or without having a conversation with Shay or like without listening to conversations with other people because like we were never talking about these uh deep and intense emotions that are human.
• 57:50
  Victoria: Yes.
• 57:51
  Victoria: I I love the point though of the the relations, you know, and those around you.
• 57:56
  Victoria: I feel like it is key, right?
• 57:58
  Victoria: That like, what is it, the five people that you're closest to are like the ones that you're most like or that you learn from, and that's why it's important to surround yourself with good people.
• 58:07
  Victoria: I feel like I have learned more about myself in my marriage than anything else.
• 58:15
  Victoria: I learned more about myself with my relationship with my kids.
• 58:19
  Victoria: Like it's wild.
• 58:21
  Victoria: Like they say business is like personal development on crack.
• 58:24
  Victoria: No, no, no, just get a relationship, have kids, like have great female friendships.
• 58:30
  Victoria: That's the best way that you're gonna learn about yourself and see the shadow side of yourself too, and see what you've been carrying that isn't yours or what you learned, right, from your parents that you're like, ooh, I don't, I don't like that.
• 58:41
  Victoria: Like, right, you're gonna see that there's gonna be shit that comes out of your mouth with your kids that you're like, where the oh my god, I sound just like my mom.
• 58:49
  Victoria: Like, what the fuck?
• 58:51
  Victoria: And then you're like, I don't want to do that, and then you're like, how do I change that?
• 58:55
  Victoria: And then it'll start by trying to change them, and then you'll realize, nope, point the thing, you're back at you, babe.
• 59:01
  Victoria: Like, it's gotta change with you.
• 59:04
  Victoria: I say this last night was a rough night with my oldest, so I'm talking to myself here, but it's very true.
• 59:12
  Shay: There's a comedian named Bill Hicks, and he's got a quote which I've been trying to find, and I can't quite find it now, but we'll put it in the notes if I can find it.
• 59:19
  Shay: But it's all about paying attention to what pisses you off as a guide for your passion, your purpose in life.
• 59:27
  Shay: You know, we talked earlier about like jealousy and judgment can be signs of what you want, your desire.
• 59:33
  Shay: And I think that anger, for those of us that have trouble kind of connecting, with like, what's my point here?
• 59:39
  Shay: What's my purpose here?
• 59:40
  Shay: What should I be doing?
• 59:41
  Shay: What pisses you off?
• 59:43
  Shay: Like, I've had a really big wake-up call these past few weeks.
• 59:46
  Shay: I'm like, I'm fired up about this in a way that I haven't been.
• 59:49
  Shay: And I'm like, there's something here, like this is like a signal, you know.
• 59:53
  Shay: So I really like this conversation around like, let's not villainize, let's not demonize these very human things.
• 59:59
  Shay: You know, how could we alchemize them and use them for something productive?
• 1:00:03
  Shay: And that kind of takes me to the next thing I wanted to talk to you about, which is you've brought up this idea of identity.
• 1:00:09
  Shay: And I love your perspective of identities are meant to be changed.
• 1:00:14
  Shay: Identities are meant to be shifted.
• 1:00:15
  Shay: I think that's one of the things that we get so rigid about is our identity.
• 1:00:18
  Shay: I draw it at 18 years old and I'm not going to change it.
• 1:00:21
  Shay: And so you had a post about like, we're talking about villainizing and demonizing things, the midlife crisis.
• 1:00:28
  Shay: I have a feeling that all of us listening are in about this middle point in life and how much have we heard growing up of the crisis of it all.
• 1:00:37
  Shay: And you had such a refreshing spin on the idea of the crisis.
• 1:00:40
  Shay: Do you mind like sharing that with us?
• 1:00:42
  Victoria: Yeah, I think it's a midlife awakening.
• 1:00:44
  Victoria: It's a midlife reawakening, a rebirth.
• 1:00:47
  Victoria: You know, I don't think it's a bad thing.
• 1:00:48
  Victoria: I think it's an opportunity to, like you said, Shay, like revisit what is my identity now, what matters to me now, what's lighting me up now.
• 1:00:57
  Victoria: And I think we forget sometimes that we came to Earth to experience the full spectrum of emotions, good and bad.
• 1:01:03
  Victoria: And that that's the only way we get to experience them, right?
• 1:01:06
  Victoria: When we're a little ball of light floating around in the sky, like we don't have emotions.
• 1:01:10
  Victoria: And so we tend to, yes, of course, you want to stay more neutral, stay more in the middle, right, throughout your life, but you need to feel those extremes.
• 1:01:19
  Victoria: Because when you feel those extremes, that's often when you're moving the needle in your identity, moving the needle in your purpose, in your passions, in who you are as a person.
• 1:01:29
  Victoria: And I think as a society, we've been taught that change is bad.
• 1:01:33
  Victoria: And, you know, it's hard to change, right?
• 1:01:35
  Victoria: When we have Facebook that reminds us of the girl in high school that, you know, used to be X, Y, and Z, or they still think that we are that person from high school.
• 1:01:44
  Victoria: You know, it makes it really hard to shift.
• 1:01:46
  Victoria: But I think it's it's a radical, radical idea to let yourself awaken over and over and over again.
• 1:01:53
  Victoria: And it's the people that do that are gonna have the most joy in life, I believe.
• 1:01:58
  Victoria: Because when you're clinging to those old identities, those old ways of being, you're like white knuckling it.
• 1:02:03
  Victoria: That's when life gets really hard.
• 1:02:05
  Victoria: That's when life like it feels like everything is crumbling around you.
• 1:02:10
  Victoria: I see with my clients all the time, they'll come to me and they'll be like, all of a sudden life feels really fucking hard.
• 1:02:14
  Victoria: And I'm like, it's because you're having another awakening, you're going through another phase of your journey.
• 1:02:20
  Victoria: And it's okay to let go of those pieces of you that got you where you are.
• 1:02:24
  Victoria: Chances are that woman that got you where you are, like, doesn't get to come with you.
• 1:02:28
  Victoria: And we weren't taught to ever grieve that version of ourselves.
• 1:02:31
  Victoria: We were taught, like, okay, let's move on.
• 1:02:34
  Victoria: And I think sitting in that fertile void that like in between is one of the best places you can be because it's a place of infinite possibility.
• 1:02:42
  Victoria: You can become whoever you want, you know, and we think it's a crisis because we don't like being uncomfortable.
• 1:02:47
  Victoria: We don't like sitting in that unknown space.
• 1:02:51
  Victoria: We want to label everything.
• 1:02:52
  Victoria: We want it, we want to know what it is.
• 1:02:54
  Victoria: And that's okay.
• 1:02:55
  Victoria: That's our humanness, right?
• 1:02:56
  Victoria: That's part of who we are.
• 1:02:57
  Victoria: But if we can quit the rushing, if we can slow down, if we can let our sit, ourselves sit like in our own becoming, sit in our own juices, if you will, like there's some magic that can be had there.
• 1:03:09
  Victoria: And we don't do it enough.
• 1:03:11
  Victoria: Um, we want to label it as something bad when I don't think it is.
• 1:03:15
  Mariah: And also, doesn't this kind of like full circle to like the divine feminine that you talk about?
• 1:03:20
  Mariah: It's like we are literally creation, no?
• 1:03:23
  Mariah: Like we are like that's that's what we are.
• 1:03:27
  Mariah: We are meant to be intuitive and energetic and in tune with ourselves.
• 1:03:32
  Mariah: And so I would assume that a crisis or an uncomfortable something, it's like the more that you ignore it, it's probably even more deeply troubling for us as women, maybe than for other people, because like we're meant to flow a little bit more.
• 1:03:51
  Mariah: That doesn't mean that we're like, I think when you hear like divine feminine, it's like I have to wear dresses all the time.
• 1:03:57
  Mariah: And I have to, I remember like I got a reading from a medium that is like now one of my really good friends, and she was like like something, something feminine.
• 1:04:05
  Mariah: I was like, how do I be feminine?
• 1:04:07
  Mariah: I was like, all right, I'm gonna go get my nails done.
• 1:04:10
  Mariah: I'm gonna go get my nails done.
• 1:04:12
  Mariah: I was literally Googling, how the fuck do I become because I it's not talked about in this way that's like can can be strategic, can be like so much more than like just this wearing pink, getting your nails done, and like wearing a fucking dress.
• 1:04:32
  Mariah: Like, sure, if that's your definition of femininity, then by all means like go deep in the paint with it.
• 1:04:38
  Mariah: But like that's not even close to what it is.
• 1:04:43
  Victoria: No, it's I feel like it's following your intuition, your innate urges, innate urges, your innate knowing.
• 1:04:50
  Victoria: Because we, as that creation energy, like if you have a womb, you have creation energy, and you are meant to, I mean, yes, create life, but like create businesses, create new ways of being in the world, create new things.
• 1:05:07
  Victoria: And I think sometimes, I know sometimes we forget that.
• 1:05:11
  Victoria: And to your point, Mariah, like everyone's been taught, like, oh, it's bows and it's pink, and yes, it can be, but it can also be fierce as fuck, and also be standing up for yourself and also like being in the flow of life is really what I think it is.
• 1:05:27
  Victoria: It's letting yourself move from moment to moment without judgment, letting yourself be the natural observer in your own life.
• 1:05:33
  Victoria: Oh, that's curious.
• 1:05:35
  Victoria: Oh, that's interesting, and then taking a softer, more empathetic approach and allowing yourself to feel that full spectrum of emotions, perhaps before you make a decision, before you move forward strategically, that like you're leading from the heart.
• 1:05:50
  Victoria: That to me is the most feminine thing is leading from a heart led place and not just the mind.
• 1:05:56
  Victoria: And then actually, when all three come together, when your heart, or your heart as it put To my head, your head, your heart, and your womb space.
• 1:06:03
  Victoria: When those three things are in like aligned, oh my God, watch out.
• 1:06:07
  Victoria: Like that is the most powerful version of femininity and of a woman that I can think of, because you are connected with all that is and with the most powerful energetic generators that you can.
• 1:06:19
  Victoria: You know, everyone thinks that um, you know, the brain is the most like consumes the most energy in the body and it does, but your heart, I think I believe it's like 60 times more electromagnetic than like any other part of your body.
• 1:06:32
  Victoria: So what do you mean?
• 1:06:34
  Victoria: Like you're not gonna think with your heart and have that lead the way and then cause this ripple effect of energy to everything around you.
• 1:06:40
  Victoria: Like, oh my God, what an underrated tool.
• 1:06:44
  Mariah: I just want to emphasize the fact because this is something that really sticks out to me, is like femininity is standing up for yourself.
• 1:06:54
  Mariah: And I don't think that any of us have ever heard that.
• 1:06:59
  Mariah: We've heard the opposite.
• 1:07:01
  Mariah: It's being, what is it, docile?
• 1:07:03
  Shay: It's being like submissive, passive.
• 1:07:06
  Mariah: Yeah, and it's like, no, femininity is I got a little taste of that in my recent OB appointment, fighting with a midwife about something.
• 1:07:15
  Mariah: And um, I was just like feeling rage because I she was smug, wasn't answering my questions.
• 1:07:22
  Mariah: I was curious about something and like the way that she kind of handled it.
• 1:07:26
  Mariah: And then I'm like driving home and I'm getting fucking pissed.
• 1:07:29
  Mariah: And I was like, oh, this is the this is mama bear.
• 1:07:33
  Mariah: Like I get it now.
• 1:07:34
  Mariah: Like this is mama bear.
• 1:07:35
  Mariah: And like we almost don't think about that until we have to.
• 1:07:40
  Mariah: And then we feel like we're am I being a bitch?
• 1:07:42
  Mariah: Am I being difficult?
• 1:07:43
  Mariah: No, I'm fucking standing up for myself.
• 1:07:45
  Mariah: This is absurd.
• 1:07:46
  Mariah: And like that is also femininity and feminine, like it's it's all of it.
• 1:07:52
  Mariah: We get to be all of it.
• 1:07:53
  Mariah: And I feel like if there is only one thing that you take away from this conversation, like let it be that.
• 1:07:59
  Victoria: Yes, we are all things, we are multidimensional.
• 1:08:03
  Victoria: We were never meant to be one thing, one label, one point in time.
• 1:08:08
  Victoria: And hell yeah.
• 1:08:10
  Victoria: Thank you for that like reminder, Mariah.
• 1:08:13
  Shay: This is something Ryan, I kind of struggle with a little bit off the record.
• 1:08:17
  Shay: Like, we're talking about masculine and feminine energy all the time.
• 1:08:21
  Shay: We're talking about I think it's a bit infantilizing.
• 1:08:26
  Shay: Like the way that we talk about women, and like that's feminine energy.
• 1:08:31
  Shay: And we're seeing a lot online about the soft girl era and be a soft girl.
• 1:08:35
  Shay: And Ryan and I are kind of like tucked stuck in this weird place where it's like, all right, I'm not girl bossing.
• 1:08:40
  Shay: I've realized that that is not serving me.
• 1:08:43
  Shay: I'm burned, I'm so burnt out.
• 1:08:45
  Shay: But then this like soft girl, I get it, I get it.
• 1:08:48
  Shay: It sounds nice, like, oh yes, please take care of all of my needs and I can be soft girl.
• 1:08:53
  Shay: But what we're learning, we've been talking a lot about nervous system regulation this season.
• 1:08:57
  Shay: And a regulated nervous system is not someone that's just chilling meditating all the time.
• 1:09:02
  Shay: It's someone that can respond appropriately to the situation and then bring themselves back when at the time is right.
• 1:09:08
  Shay: And that is what this conversation about divine feminine is reminding me of.
• 1:09:12
  Shay: Like when I hear feminine, I'm rolling my eyes.
• 1:09:15
  Shay: Even when you first said divine feminine, I was like, ugh.
• 1:09:17
  Shay: And if you say the word yoni around me, like I get so triggered.
• 1:09:21
  Shay: Like I don't know why.
• 1:09:22
  Shay: Like a lot of this language is not great for me.
• 1:09:24
  Shay: But phrasing divine feminine as this multifaceted being that has these emotions and these powerful reactions and is a change maker, a creator, like a force to be reckoned with.
• 1:09:36
  Shay: Like, I'm like, hell yeah, I can buy into that.
• 1:09:38
  Shay: Like that's something I want to be a part of.
• 1:09:40
  Shay: So I just kind of want to reflect what Raya said.
• 1:09:43
  Shay: It's it's the way you're talking about this is instead of feeling infantilizing, it feels very empowering.
• 1:09:48
  Victoria: I love that.
• 1:09:49
  Victoria: And I want to remind everyone too, you also have masculine energy.
• 1:09:52
  Victoria: Everyone has feminine and masculine energy.
• 1:09:54
  Victoria: And I think that soft girl era comes from feminine energy without structure.
• 1:09:59
  Victoria: And you need structure.
• 1:10:00
  Victoria: Okay.
• 1:10:01
  Victoria: I understand we all swung the one way with the boss babe era, but that's what allows feminine energy to flow is to have the masculine structure.
• 1:10:09
  Victoria: So, you know, as a business owner, for example, I tried the like complete soft girl era where I was like, I have no schedule.
• 1:10:17
  Victoria: I'm doing whatever I want.
• 1:10:19
  Victoria: Like, no, like nothing ever got done.
• 1:10:22
  Victoria: And so I had to put structure in place around my business.
• 1:10:25
  Victoria: Like, when am I recording my podcast?
• 1:10:27
  Victoria: When am I creating my content?
• 1:10:28
  Victoria: When am I doing this, this, and this?
• 1:10:30
  Victoria: And you can rebel against it a little bit at first, but like then it feels really nice.
• 1:10:34
  Victoria: Then you can relax into it.
• 1:10:36
  Victoria: Then you can realize like you're cradled by that masculine structure.
• 1:10:40
  Victoria: And that's just one example, right?
• 1:10:42
  Victoria: But you need both.
• 1:10:44
  Victoria: And I think we've done women a disservice when we say, like, oh, femininity is soft girl era, running around in a field with flowers and dresses, and it's yes and because you you need both.
• 1:10:56
  Victoria: And you can't forget about that other part of yourself just because it did you dirty for a while, you know?
• 1:11:02
  Victoria: Like, I think all of us were far too in our masculinity for a long time.
• 1:11:05
  Victoria: And the pendulum does swing, right?
• 1:11:07
  Victoria: But then you come back to that middle ground of like, okay, no, I need to embody both.
• 1:11:11
  Victoria: And throughout my day, I need to have moments of both to be in balance.
• 1:11:16
  Mariah: And it just comes back to like seasons, right?
• 1:11:18
  Mariah: It's seasons.
• 1:11:20
  Mariah: Sometimes I'm being a fucking soft potato girl, like after this fucking baby shower I hosted this weekend.
• 1:11:27
  Mariah: Like for the next week, I am doing my business, but like my feet are gonna be up on a wall, and I'm probably gonna order takeout, and I'm gonna be soft potato girl hanging out.
• 1:11:36
  Mariah: And then it's like, and then it's almost like we allow ourselves to gather the energy to then then become in balance because once you learn, and I feel like you go through the pendulum so many times, you're literally just like, it is not black and white.
• 1:11:49
  Mariah: Nothing is black and white, right?
• 1:11:50
  Mariah: Everything is nuanced, everything.
• 1:11:53
  Mariah: And we've just been tossed into this system that makes us think that there's only either one right way or one of two right ways, and that's not the way that it is, and we are all individuals on our own timelines with our own multidimensional gifts and shadows, and like we are complex and yet so simple, and that's kind of the magic of it all is like when it all comes down to it, all of this, the entire conversation, all of these little nuances and these little buckets that I feel like we could talk about for 95 hours.
• 1:12:29
  Mariah: It's really just like what do you need right now, girl?
• 1:12:33
  Mariah: Can you give yourself that?
• 1:12:35
  Mariah: Can you be honest about it?
• 1:12:37
  Mariah: That's it.
• 1:12:42
  Victoria: And episode over.
• 1:12:43
  Mariah: Boom, no, and we're good.
• 1:12:46
  Mariah: Okay, so wrap up.
• 1:12:47
  Mariah: No, but like that it really is like that's that's it.
• 1:12:52
  Mariah: And the human experience is like continuing to remember that over and over and over and over again, and that we have the power to decide.
• 1:12:59
  Victoria: Yeah, because what you're not what you're not changing, you're choosing.
• 1:13:03
  Victoria: So your power that's confronting.
• 1:13:06
  Victoria: I know, I know it is a little bit, but like you have the power every day with the decisions that you make and where you place your energy.
• 1:13:14
  Victoria: And I think a lot of this spiritual path is confronting, and you know, you've got to be ready for it.
• 1:13:20
  Victoria: It's not easy, but I think if you're listening to this podcast, like you're on it, you're ready to be curiously guided, you're ready to do things differently.
• 1:13:27
  Victoria: And I hope this episode just gives you permission to do that.
• 1:13:29
  Victoria: And that if you need to crawl in your hole and be a little potato because you don't like what has been confronted, like that's fine.
• 1:13:35
  Victoria: But um, make sure to come out the hole again, you know, and like learn from the experience because you have the power to choose.
• 1:13:42
  Victoria: No one else does.
• 1:13:43
  Victoria: And we give our power away so easily all the time with our likes, with our scrolls, with our time, with our money, with our energy.
• 1:13:52
  Victoria: And it's time for us to pull the power back, ladies, because it's ours.
• 1:13:57
  Shay: Where are you?
• 1:13:58
  Shay: Where are my power leaks?
• 1:14:00
  Shay: That's like a really great question.
• 1:14:01
  Shay: Like, where am I letting power slip away?
• 1:14:03
  Shay: That that's really resonating with me right now.
• 1:14:05
  Shay: Thank you for sharing that.
• 1:14:06
  Shay: I want Victoria while we have you.
• 1:14:08
  Shay: The reason we had you on the episode today, and this is a loaded question, but how does one stay so grounded and be so spiritual at the same time?
• 1:14:17
  Shay: Because I'll be honest with you, like Maya shared before we hopped on, we've met a lot of spiritual people.
• 1:14:22
  Shay: And like you immediately felt like a friend, and I know you have that reaction from a lot of people, but like you're somehow up here in the spirit, remembering, you know, the unknown, all the cool stuff, the mystery.
• 1:14:36
  Shay: But then you're also very just grounded, human mom, shooting the shit, talking about our party girl lifestyle.
• 1:14:43
  Shay: Like, tell me how do you navigate that?
• 1:14:45
  Shay: I know it's a big question, but what pops into your head?
• 1:14:48
  Victoria: So I think it's taken time and integration and embodiment of all of the things that I have learned that I let myself stop being in my healing era.
• 1:14:59
  Victoria: Like, I don't think you always need to be healing.
• 1:15:01
  Victoria: Actually, you shouldn't.
• 1:15:02
  Victoria: That if you're always doing that, you're never gonna stop and integrate the lessons.
• 1:15:05
  Victoria: And so actually integrating the lessons, getting out and playing and like all of that is just as healing as all of the quote unquote spiritual work.
• 1:15:15
  Victoria: And I do think there are times when you're more connected than others, right?
• 1:15:18
  Victoria: Like I do tune in before a podcast or before I'm creating a piece of content.
• 1:15:23
  Victoria: Am I always the most conscious as a mom in certain moments?
• 1:15:26
  Victoria: No.
• 1:15:27
  Victoria: But I give myself a lot of grace.
• 1:15:29
  Victoria: And I also just think the key is like not taking life or yourself too seriously.
• 1:15:33
  Victoria: Like it it could be the end of the world, or you can let yourself feel like it's the end of the world, but like, is it really like no?
• 1:15:42
  Victoria: You know, like you're gonna get up again.
• 1:15:44
  Victoria: You're gonna, you're gonna have another good day, you're gonna have another bad day.
• 1:15:47
  Victoria: Like, life is gonna continue.
• 1:15:49
  Victoria: And I actually have a Robert Frost tattoo on my back, uh, the whole poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay.
• 1:15:54
  Victoria: And it's just a reminder that, like, when life is good, appreciate it, because it's gonna get bad again.
• 1:15:59
  Victoria: And then when it gets bad, like you're gonna get through it and it's gonna get good again.
• 1:16:03
  Victoria: And if you can just take the mentality that life is happening for you and not to you, I think that helps a lot also.
• 1:16:12
  Victoria: And also, like, actually ground your energy energy, you know, like go outside and touch some grass and shit.
• 1:16:17
  Victoria: Like, you gotta make sure to do that too.
• 1:16:20
  Mariah: It's the simple things, right?
• 1:16:22
  Mariah: Yeah, I think that that's so important.
• 1:16:24
  Mariah: It's like we didn't get put on this planet to heal forever.
• 1:16:28
  Mariah: We got put on this planet to experience and to be and to learn and to have fun and to play and to all of the good things.
• 1:16:36
  Mariah: I feel like, especially when you can get wrapped up in social media or like you're not right here right now when you're not grounded.
• 1:16:42
  Mariah: It's very easy to become extremely pessimistic and like focused on like everything that you have to do, everything that you have to become, everything that you're not.
• 1:16:52
  Mariah: But it's like, and then we're missing the 80% of like the juice, the 80% of like everything that I've am and everything that I've created.
• 1:17:00
  Mariah: And like there's so much optimism in that, and there's so much joy if you allow yourself to be able to witness it.
• 1:17:09
  Mariah: This conversation has been so, so good.
• 1:17:12
  Mariah: And if you guys have made it to the end, there's gonna be a part two.
• 1:17:15
  Mariah: We're gonna put it in the show notes after it launches over on Victoria's podcast as well.
• 1:17:21
  Mariah: So definitely tune into that.
• 1:17:23
  Mariah: We're excited.
• 1:17:23
  Mariah: We have no idea what part two is gonna say because we're gonna record it tomorrow, which is like after we record this.
• 1:17:29
  Mariah: So we are all gonna be surprised, but we're gonna have it linked in the show notes below.
• 1:17:33
  Mariah: So you're definitely gonna want to check that out.
• 1:17:35
  Mariah: And then Victoria, where can our listeners find and connect with you?
• 1:17:39
  Mariah: I know you have a whole bunch of different options for them.
• 1:17:42
  Victoria: Yes.
• 1:17:42
  Victoria: So please listen to part two on flip the script with Vic.
• 1:17:45
  Victoria: It'll be coming out next week.
• 1:17:47
  Victoria: And then Instagram is always the best place to find me.
• 1:17:50
  Victoria: I'm Victoria Margot Nielsen, M-A-R-G-A-U-X.
• 1:17:54
  Victoria: And that's the same with my website, victoriamargo.com.
• 1:17:57
  Victoria: You'll always get the latest and greatest uh with Monarch Mystery School, with my one-on-one work.
• 1:18:02
  Victoria: I'm always hosting something if you're here in Atlanta.
• 1:18:05
  Victoria: Um, I run the Zodiac Mixer every single month.
• 1:18:08
  Victoria: I also love to go on retreat and travel the world in community with other women.
• 1:18:13
  Victoria: So drop me a line, give me a follow, say hi.
• 1:18:16
  Victoria: I love making new friends.
• 1:18:18
  Victoria: And thank you guys so much for having me.
• 1:18:20
  Victoria: This has been like, this is the best.
• 1:18:22
  Victoria: I could do this all day with you guys.
• 1:18:24
  Mariah: Yeah, we really like this.
• 1:18:25
  Mariah: And it's funny because I would Victoria does like new friends.
• 1:18:28
  Mariah: So, like, don't be afraid to reach out and to really just like drop her a line.
• 1:18:34
  Mariah: She's incredible.
• 1:18:35
  Mariah: And then before we let you go, we have one question that we ask every human on the podcast.
• 1:18:40
  Mariah: So, what's been sparking your curiosity lately?
• 1:18:42
  Mariah: Beekeeping.
• 1:18:44
  Victoria: I really want to join um this like beekeeping temple, for the lack of a better word, in January, where she teaches you how to not only keep bees, but like be a steward of the earth.
• 1:18:56
  Victoria: She has like womb and mystery school teachings, but yeah, I'm really curious about it.
• 1:19:02
  Victoria: And I really want to start keeping bees in my backyard.
• 1:19:05
  Shay: That's such a good answer.
• 1:19:06
  Shay: I love that answer.
• 1:19:08
  Shay: Um, I'm always surprised with what people say, and that one definitely surprised me.
• 1:19:11
  Shay: You're reminding me, Victoria.
• 1:19:13
  Shay: I saw something recently.
• 1:19:14
  Shay: Someone was sharing some advice, and they said, for everything I have to do, I started asking myself, what if I did this for fun?
• 1:19:20
  Shay: Like, even like before the podcast today, I was like, what if this was for fun?
• 1:19:24
  Shay: And it kind of like takes the seriousness out of things, you know, like what if the grocery store later was for fun?
• 1:19:28
  Shay: What would that look like?
• 1:19:29
  Shay: And this idea of bringing fun and play and joy and creativity into the world is our gift, right?
• 1:19:37
  Shay: And we could be sharing those gifts with other people.
• 1:19:39
  Shay: And that's really the juice of all this life.
• 1:19:41
  Shay: So thank you for this incredibly energizing episode.
• 1:19:44
  Shay: It was wonderful.
• 1:19:45
  Shay: And thank you, friends, for sticking around this long.
• 1:19:47
  Shay: We will share all of Victoria's links and information in those show notes.
• 1:19:51
  Shay: So please go check that out.
• 1:19:52
  Shay: Remember, I think we're ready to shut this down.
• 1:19:55
  Shay: So you guys please remember, especially after this episode, you have the power to create whatever the fuck you want.
• 1:20:00
  Shay: Follow the nudge, ask questions, and let curiosity guide the way.
• 1:20:04
  Shay: We'll see you in the next episode.