Latest / Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman / Nikól Rogers – 13

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Nikól Rogers – 13 · Destination Unlimited with Victor Fuhrman

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My name is Victor Furman. Some call me the Voice. I've always been
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fascinated with human nature, spirituality, science and the crossroads at which they meet.
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Join me now and we will explore these topics and so much more with
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fascinating guests, authors and experts who will guide us to destination unlimited. We
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know the number thirteen to be traditionally viewed as an unlucky number, but for
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Nicole Rogers, it turned out to be the most transformative number of her life.
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Nicole Rodgers as a speaker, writer, and empowerment coach who helps people
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reclaim their confidence, expand their perfect audience, and bring their fearless vision to
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life. She's taught her Zen Read method globally, which teaches you how to
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reframe how you think, feel and act from a place of power rather than
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from fear or limiting beliefs. This has helped her clients become more confident versions
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of themselves and in alignment with their true purpose through her signature course, Powerful
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Presence. With a twenty year professional performance career that includes kicking eye high as
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a roquette, Nicole has stood on countless stages. Her work is greatly influenced
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by her Zen practice, Chikong, nonviolent communication, and her decades of experience
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as an artist. Nicole teaches that the heart of transformation lies in discovering who
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you are. It is the journey that unlocks a person's greatest power and allows
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you to manifest a life you love. Her website is Nicole Rogers dot com
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and she joins me this week on Destination Unlimited to share her path and new
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book thirteen, One Woman's Sacred Journey to Discovering her Greatest Power. Please join
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me in welcoming to Destination Unlimited, Nicole Rogers. Welcome, Nicole. Oh
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my gosh, Victor, thank you so much for having me. And I
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have to say for the audience that Victor and I have already literally come up
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with about ten synchronicities in our life. So I'm just so excited that I'm
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here and that we're having this conversation, and I can't wait to see where
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it goes. Nicole. I am grateful that you're joining us and sharing your
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message, So thank you, thank you. Nicole. You share that as
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a toddler you would walk around with two things, a blanket and a bucket.
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What was the significance of these items and how did your early path unfold?
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Oh my gosh. So my mother said that I would not come out
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of the delivery room or come out into the delivery room unless the lighting was
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right, so they knew. And also I was named after a very close
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friend of my mom's named Nicole in high school who was a performer. And
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so because my first career was as a performer, that's where all this is
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going. But as a toddler, it's true, I had a blanket in
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a bucket. When I wasn't sitting in the bucket with the blanket because I
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loved my blanky. Then I was standing on top of the bucket in front
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of the TV with my arms up in the air giving speeches. Wow.
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So I wanted to be a performer from the time you were a toddler.
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I did. It was it was in me. It was innate. You
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know. It began with dance and then some community theater and when I you
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know, I have such gratitude for the really good teachers in my life.
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Now I know I can say this to this audience that we have teachers across
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the board right even in terrible situations, those people that we encounter are teachers.
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For us. There is always something to learn. But when I think
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about being shaped in confidence, there are teachers that really stand out for me,
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and one of them was this amazing ballet teacher dance teacher. I went
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to this arts and academic magnet school when I was fourteen, and my father
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was in the military and we moved around a lot, so my training was
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a bit all over the place. And it was funny because I thought I
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was great. Look like, I thought I was hot stuff. I just
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got my point shoes and I thought, oh yeah, And I had been
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admitted into this magnet school at the advanced level for dance. I showed up
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the first day of school and I was one of the worst in the class,
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Like hands down that I was fourteen and the twelve year olds were already
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doing for day turns and all kinds of advanced things in the middle of the
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room and I was just learning how to do things holding onto the bar.
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But what was so amazing about that year was because she was such a affirming
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teacher. Then I grew, and I grew incredibly, and at the end
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of the year I was given most improved and I was given a solo on
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point and I remember coming up to her afterwards and I said, why did
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you put me in the advanced class? And she looked at me and she
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said, because I saw potential in you. And so it was a beautiful
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turning point for me because I was experiencing being affirmed by a teacher and recognizing
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my own growth. But it also helped me make the decision at the tender
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age of fourteen that I would not be a professional dancer, only because I
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already saw that I was behind if I wanted to be professional in just dance.
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So thankfully, then in high school, I had an amazing theater teacher,
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an amazing choir teacher that again lifted me. They were so affirming.
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And when I started looking at college programs, I wanted to bring these all
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together, and what's the best way to do that musical theater. So I
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went to college for musical theater. And it just felt so wonderful, you
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know, it felt like all these things were able to be expressed in me,
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and I really thought that this was my path. It's very interesting,
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but I thought, oh, this is it. Like I'm going to be
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a performer. I'm going to be on the stage, you know, playing
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characters and all of that. So, yeah, the little girl with the
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bucket definitely had a vision, but had no idea that it would take such
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a turn. And you became a answer with the world famous rockettes. What
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was that like? Yeah, so there is. My mother wants me to
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write a book about the Roquetts because there was a big change that happened.
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For most of the history of the Rockets, it was a very It was
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a privately owned company and they really valued each individual dancer. And the good
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news is that the first year I was a Rocket, I got to be
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in that environment of being valued as an individual. But then they were bought
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out by a corporation and there was a span of time from the first time
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I was a Rocket till the second time I was a Rocket of seven years
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actually, and so when I returned, there have been a lot of changes
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and the fuel was different. And we used to joke us in the line.
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We would be like, I'm rock at number seventeen. It was a
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joke, but it was also a real reflection and so there wasn't a value
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on the individual. We really were just a face and a part of something
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corporate, you know. And so I loved being a Roquette, and I
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loved being able to have the opportunity to speak backstage and do the events and
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like inspire people. But as far as working for the company, it was
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so challenging because it felt like it didn't matter what I did, it was
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never going to be enough. And so thankfully I got myself out of that
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toxic environment because it was just a wake up call because at that point I
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had been in the industry for a long time, and you and I talked
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about the voice inside, you know, there was definitely this discontent that was
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coming up around the industry, and for me as a dancer and a performer
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and just being like man like, my inner critic was getting so loud and
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I didn't have any tools to deal with it, and I just was I
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was feeling very lost. So it was a very mixed experience, very mixed.
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And you share that in one year's time everything fell apart for you in
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what you described as your life burning down. What happened? Okay, So
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in one year's time, I went through a devastating divorce, I was robbed,
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I lost a dear friend to a heart attack, and I was in
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two car accidents. So that discontent that I was talking about. And there
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were a lot of things in my life that were just not working, and
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I was working very hard to drown that out in many different ways. I
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was having an affair in my marriage. I was drinking a lot, I
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was watching a ton of TV. I was listening to a lot of music.
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I wanted to ask for help, but I didn't know how to do
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it without my first husband knowing because we had a joint bank account. But
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the truth was, I didn't understand what I was doing. I didn't understand
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why I had such destructive behavior, Like what am I doing? I was
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trying to get pregnant. It wasn't happening, and it was like, why
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do I keep getting drawn back into an affair? This is destroying everything,
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like what am I doing? And I didn't have any tools around self reflection
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or any other stuff. So what happened for me is on Thanksgiving Day in
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twenty twelve, my first husband knelt before me and said, I don't think
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I love you anymore. I don't think I want to be married anymore,
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and I don't think I want to have children, And then he shared that
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he was in love with someone else, and it was like the ground opened
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up but swallowed me whole, and everything came like crashing in and I tried
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so hard to fix it. I tried so hard to save it. So
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I still wasn't getting it, even though here he is saying, I'm not
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on the same page as you anymore. And the next day, which was
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Black Friday, I heard a small voice that came up and said, you
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need meditation. And I remember at the time thinking, yeah, that'd probably
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be a really good idea, because I didn't know it was about four years
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by that point of me just feeling completely lost. So I followed that voice,
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and my marriage dissolved very quickly, like enor. It was like a
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tsunami. And you know, the they say that the statistics of marriages breaking
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up over the holidays is very high because there's this very pressurized container of it's
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the holidays, let's all be happy, and if you're miserable, you know,
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it can end up being the thing that causes the explosion, right,
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the explosion of truth of wow, this is really where I am. So
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that was definitely what happened for my ex. But what was amazing was that
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in this moment of losing everything, which for me was like, oh my
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god. Not just I'm losing my marriage, but I felt like I was
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losing my opportunity to have a family, which was wow. Now we were
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really getting to what I wanted more than anything. And at the time I
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was thirty seven, so it was very scary. But the marriage dissolved very
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quickly, within a matter of six weeks, and I found myself going to
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a yoga class and I was like, Okay, I'm going to that voice
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that said you need meditation. I'm going to buy a book on meditation.
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So I go into the book area of my yoga studio and they've got these
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little like category tabs, and there is a tad says meditation. I was
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like, okay, today's a day. And I pull out this book and
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I open it up and it's like every word is popping off the page.
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And it was a book on Tibetan Buddhism. I was like, wait a
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minute, I was looking for meditation. This is about Buddhism. And so
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I just followed the path and started trying these different forms of Buddhism until I
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found the practice that was right for me, and it really was the saving
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grace to get me through a year where I literally was losing everything in my
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life, and yet here I was receiving what I wanted most, which were
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the tools. Why is this happening? How is this happening? What does
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this mean? Like I finally asked for help and here it was coming.
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It was a miracle. Really. Many of our listeners practice yoga and meditation
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and some follow Zazen. How did Zen practice shape your path? Oh my
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gosh, so as I said, I tried different forms before coming to Zen,
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the Pasana, Tibetan, nasher, and Daishanan, and they were wonderful
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and they were amazing, but I found myself feeling it's not quite it.
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And I did this intro to Zen training weekend and as soon as I received
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the instruction, I was like, this is it? Like I could just
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feel this relief and really lease in my body. And at this point it
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had been about three months and I was already finding myself really craving silence and
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really silence for the first time in my life. And Zen is probably one
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of the most austere of the meditation practices. It really invites you into quiet,
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absolute quiet, and everything in my being because there was so much chaos
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around me just wanted that. It just wanted quiet. And so I found
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that Zazen allowed me to connect in with not just that voice, but actually
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connect in with my power. And it really came down to two main teachings
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that really turned things around for me. The first was I am whole and
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complete as I am, I have a Buddha within. This was a radical
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concept to me, but because I was experiencing such confusion and shame around my
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addictive behaviors, around my affair, to be taught that I was whole and
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complete just as I am, Oh my gosh, it just felt like a
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wave of compassion. The other teachings that had such a profound effect on me
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was change is constant. And I thought, well, it changes constant.
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That means I can change. That means my life can change. That means
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this situation and the spire that I'm walking through can and will change. And
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so these really became foundations for me. As I was experiencing stillness and quiet
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in space, and I mean, I know that you have very very strong
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spiritual connection and practices, and I imagine that the listeners that are listening right
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now can relate to that moment of just oh, I'm okay, I'm okay.
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This isn't about me grasping something outside of myself. It's actually here within
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me. You had mentioned that this took place for you in your late thirties.
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I had chaired with you prior to beginning this interview that I had a
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spiritual transformation in my late thirties. Is there something about the late thirties that's
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an opening for people. That's a great question. I can only speak from
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my experience, but I did hear. I remember when I was going through
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my divorce, I was looking at a lot of statistics and they said that
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it's very common around the fifteen year mark for things to fall apart, and
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also at the twenty five year mark. So I was right on target with
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that because I'd been married for fifteen years. But I also think about my
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twenties. I mean, I got married right out of college, so I
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didn't have the twenties of exploration and all this stuff. I went right into
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my career and my marriage and just kind of like what it was, but
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there wasn't much reflection, and so I think of it more as a build
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up of karma, a build up of not having the tools and things just
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like swirling in my subconscious that were like things got to change. And so
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again I can really only speak for myself, but the tipping point for me
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was thirty seven because I can look back and see all the things that were
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leading up to it. And I mean I even went through doubts when I
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was engaged to my first husband, you know, fifteen years prior, sixteen
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years prior. So I feel like it was more of a build up,
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if that makes sense, like a karmic build up. And I honestly feel
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like it wasn't just my life, but that it was a karmic build up
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through my family line that came to me and when everything fell apart, I
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felt very strongly that I was the one in my family that was going to
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break that wheel and reshape and reshape that path. One more question about your
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experience when you would hear the voice, how did that manifest for you?
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Yeah? It was quiet. It makes me think of there's this musical theater
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song and right now I'm blanking on what musical it's from, but it's called
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It's a Quiet Thing, and it's all about the voice of love that when
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love comes in, it's a quiet thing. Everybody will tell you that it's
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bells and whistles and loud trombones and trumpets. You know, you think like
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I'm a brass band from Sweet Charity. But it was a much quieter voice.
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And at that point on that Black Friday, the voice that I had
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been accustomed to was the voice of my inner critic, which was very loud
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and very friends. The energy of it was extremely different, you know,
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kind of like a push push push. It was like my nervous system just
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like, oh, like you're not good enough, It's not going to happen,
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you know, just feeding anxiety when I would be going in for Broadway
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callbacks or when I would really need to have an important conversation. But this
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voice was quiet and calm and just very straightforward. And so I'm so grateful
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for that moment, which was the beginning of me really waking up to life,
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like actual life as opposed to what I was doing prior, and to
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have that experience to then use as a guidepost. Oh there it is.
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Oh yes, this not only sounds different, but it feels different. And
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what I experienced, going back to your question about Sozen, was that boys
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Ozen opened it up so much for me. So I would get off the
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mat and just have clarity. I would get down to that mat and I
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would something would just be spirling in me. How is this going to work?
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And by the time I got off the mat, I was clear.
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Absolutely. My guest is Nicole Rogers. We're going to be talking about her
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new book, thirteen, One Woman's Sacred Journey to Discovering her Greatest Power.
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Nicole, please share with our listeners where they can get your book and find
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out more about you and your wonderful work. Thank you, Victor. So
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this is pretty easy to remember. You can go to thirteenthebook dot com very
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easy, thirteen the Book dot com. Everything is there. It is also
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available at all major retailers Amazon, Barnesannoble, dot Com, Goodreads. You
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know pretty much all the main online retailers. But to keep it simple,
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Thirteenthbook dot com and everything's there. And what do you offer to people who
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come to your website? What services do you offer? Yeah, so for
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people come to my website, I have a couple of beautiful free trainings.
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You can download free chapters of the book if you want to get an idea
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of what it's about that's at Thirteenthbook dot com and then if you just go
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to Nicole Rodgers dot com. I actually have a pretty powerful training called Reclaim
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your Confidence. So a lot of people might feel like they're looking underneath the
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bed or in the closet, where did it go? At one point,
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I was full of spark and vigor, and now I'm finding myself questioning,
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questioning and doubting and why am I not taking the steps I want? And
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so this is a very simple, free video training to take you through a
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sacred process to reconnect with your confidence again because it's there, It's there inside.
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And then if somebody would like to come into my offerings, I have
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an amazing course called Powerful Presence that helps you to create your perfect audience,
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reclaim your confidence, and bring your fearless vision to life. I also offer
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private one to one coaching and VIP days. And we'll be back with more
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of decol after these words from the own Times Radio Network, The Cutting Edge
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of Conscious Radio Home Times Radio IOMFM. Ome Times Magazine is one of the
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leading online content providers of positivity, wellness and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
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their net proceeds are funnled to support worldwide charity initiatives via Humanity Healing International.
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Through their commitment to creating community and providing conscious content, they aspire to
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uplift humanity on a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle
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destination unlimited. My guest this week is Nicole Rogers. We're going to be
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talking about her new book thirteen, One Woman's Sacred Journey to Discovering her Greatest
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Power. Nicole, what inspired thirteen? Oh? My goodness, the ten
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thousand dollars question? Right? Yes. So I went through this year of
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losing everything in my life, and I ended up discovering that I really wanted
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to take this teaching of transformation that it happened to me and teach it to
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others. And I was working with an amazing life coach who took me through
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all sorts of great exploratory processes as coaches do, which led me to realizing,
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I want to be a coach. This is the way I'm going to
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teach it through this way. And so I got fully certified as a life
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coach and was going through all this training and launch my business. And so
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I started guesting on interviews and I would lead with this story, the story
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of losing everything and how losing everything actually allowed me to create this amazing life
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for me to actually connect with what I wanted. And every time I told
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the story, I would just hear silence or oh my gosh, or me
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too. I saw it have this profound effect on people, and I also
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was writing a blog and talking about it and it just seemed to be helping
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so much. So as I was seeing this, I was very clear that
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I would write a book about it, especially since at this point I was
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writing a blog consistently and really coming back to my childhood love, which was
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writing. So as an eight year old child, my favorite period of the
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day was creative writing. I couldn't wait for it, and I would write
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out my story and hand it to the teacher and she would hand it back
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to me with top marks and usually tears in her eyes. I also had
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a lot of encouragement from my mother, who would do the same thing,
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so she wasn't grading my papers, but there was just this amazing amount of
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affirmation between that teacher and my mom, and my mom said to me,
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she was like this voice in my ear. One day, you'll write a
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book. One day, you'd better write a book. So of course when
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I went into the performing arts, you know, I was like, okay,
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all right, mom, I hear you, but you know I'm performing
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like I don't know when the book's going to happen. Okay, well you
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know, but here I was at this change in my life, and here
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I was creating this coaching business, creating a global audience and writing and loving
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it and returning to that love that I had when I was an eight year
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old. And so I said, okay, I am going to write a
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book about this year. Now. For anybody who's listening who owns your own
29:26
business, you know, it takes time to build a business from scratch.
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So each year there was kind of like the new thing. I needed,
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the foundation to the business that needed to happen. And so I was like,
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okay, this year, no, I'm not going to write the book.
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No, this year, I'm not going to write the book. There
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were some years where I thought I would, and then there was something else
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that popped up. But then what happened for me was well what we all
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know, right, the pandemic. And I also was going through a health
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journey and dealing with chronic pain and chronic headaches, and so I found that
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I needed to pull back from my client loads so I could be placing my
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attention on my healing. And I had this open space and it was just
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calling me, now is the time? And so I wrote the book in
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twenty twenty one, and it poured out of me in five months with no
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writer's block, and it felt it was so clear to me that the book
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would be called thirteen, not just because everything happened in twenty thirteen, but
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because I really wanted to dive into this concept of a thirteen. What is
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a thirteen? And how this number had been changed into something very like not
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helpful and unlucky and evil when it was always like historically thirteen has been a
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highly sacred, divine, feminine number. So I, as I was myself
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creating this life that was returning me back to divinity and sacredness, I wanted
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to bring forward thirteen and honor it for what its original intention was. Tell
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us more about that. So I was just thinking too when you were asking
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me what inspired this? I have to give a massive shout out to Elizabeth
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Gilbert, because when I went through my divorce, I had a very close
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friend who put Eat Prey Love in my hands, and I devoured that book,
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and that book gave me such hope, you know, as everything was
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burning to ash around me, here was this beautiful story of a woman who
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used her divorce to go on a spiritual journey and really discover herself, discover
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what she wanted, discover happiness and love. And so I really wanted thirteen
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to have that kind of power. Same as in e Prey Love Elizabeth Gilbert
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talks about the one hundred and eight beads, she was using numbers in a
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very sacred way too, and it was just planting that seed in me.
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Now, I will say I do feel that a lot of the book was
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very big magic. You know, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about in her book Big
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Magic, how ideas come to you and if you don't act on them,
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they go to somebody else. You know. It's like this magical thing,
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and it's like, are you the portal? Like, are you the what's
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the word I'm looking for? Are you the person that's going to take this
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idea and put it out into the world. And so I felt very much
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that with Thirteen that it was it had been just stating, but it was
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moving through me at that time. To tell the story of what a thirteen
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is, To help return thirteen to its sacred beginnings, is that it's not
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an unlucky number. It's actually a highly lucky number because it offers you the
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opportunity to turn your life around. It's a moment of transformation. You find
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yourself there at a crossroads and you have a choice. You could say,
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Gosh, this is just more the same, I'm unworthy, I'm not lovable.
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You could go down the spiral and perhaps for where you are, that
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spiral has been happening a lot, but you could make a different choice in
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that moment, and the thirteen, this divine storm, is actually happening for
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you to transform your life, for you to transmute everything that has come prior.
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So it's this magical moment, and we've all had them, We've all
34:30
probably had many of them. But I've been so passionate to place this idea
34:37
in the world that devastation could actually be a sacred moment of transformation. I
34:45
may we identify the numbers, the sacred numbers that manifest for us in our
34:52
lives, and how may we use these to achieve our dreams? Well?
34:55
I would probably say by looking at patterns, looking at patterns of what is
35:05
occurring over and over again. I'm a huge fan of cheekong, and within
35:14
that tradition they have meanings to the numbers. So three is a number of
35:21
sacred union, seven is a great number of transformation. They think of nine
35:29
as being this beautiful completion. So I feel like it's looking at the numbers
35:35
that are repeating for you and then trusting the sources around you that can help
35:44
guide you. So the teachers, the books, or the podcasts, the
35:52
radio stations that you listen to that's speak about this to kind of gain an
35:55
understanding about what is my sacred geometry? What are the patterns that I'm seeing
36:01
are happening again and again? And are they happening within a series of numbers?
36:09
Always on the five, always on the three. This happens to me
36:13
again and again, how many times? So because so much fell apart for
36:19
me in twenty thirteen, it really was a moment to go, wait,
36:27
what does thirteen mean? Because I could make it mean everything's falling apart for
36:36
good, but instead it was everything's falling apart so that it can rise for
36:43
what I truly desire. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you you share
36:50
that heartbreak maybe the doorway to the life of our dreams. Please explain.
36:57
Okay, So this goes back to what I was saying before. So devastation,
37:05
especially heartbreak, can put us in a place where we're losing a relationship
37:12
that, prior to losing it, we may have thought we would die without
37:16
it. I know I felt that way. I thought I was going to
37:22
be married to my first husband for the rest of my days. So it
37:29
really when everything fell apart and he was very clear that we were no longer
37:34
on the same page, it felt like I was drowning. And I developed
37:43
this cough, this chronic cough, which makes a lot of sense because the
37:49
lungs are where we hold grief. Of course, I didn't know any of
37:51
these things at the time. So I'm having weight loss because of a heartbreak.
37:54
I've got this chronic cough, and so I went to a doctor because
37:59
you know, losing weight and chronic cough could be something terrible and I'll never
38:05
forget. They took X rays of my chest and the guy came in to
38:14
be like, Okay, would you like to look at this, And I'm
38:16
thinking, oh, gosh, am I about to see like a mass on
38:19
there or something like that. And I look up and see the most perfect,
38:23
healthy set of lungs ever up on the X ray. And he looked
38:29
at me and he said, wow, you could probably stay underwater for a
38:32
long time. I was like, oh my gosh, like not knowing that
38:42
he doesn't know that I'm going through what I'm going through. This was the
38:45
person that just took the X rays, you know, but it was such
38:47
a moment of oh my god, I can And similarly, when I went
38:55
to my introts and training weekend and I had my first face to face teaching
39:01
with the Zen teacher, we were supposed to bring a burning question. While
39:07
I had a burning question it was how do you let go? And I
39:12
walked in there and I got on the cushion in front of him, and
39:15
I bawled my eyes out, and he calmly grabbed a box of tissues and
39:21
he put it in front of me and he said, are you okay?
39:25
Without him, and it was like a wake up. It was like a
39:30
complete pattern interrupt because I realized in that moment, much like looking at the
39:35
X ray, I'm okay, I'm breathing I'm alive. So this is why
39:45
heartbreak can be so powerful, because you made up something in your mind that
39:53
it would end your life, that your life would be over, and yet
39:59
you end up realiz zing you're okay. And it's also a great opportunity than
40:06
to come in contact with what you actually really want. So I had been
40:15
hoping and controlling and doing everything I could to make this marriage work, wanting
40:22
to have a family, but we weren't on the same page. So when
40:27
everything fell away and I'm like there by myself, then I'm left with I
40:32
want a family in the face of the destruction, it brought me into what
40:42
was really alive. So that can be so powerful, and it only happens
40:46
in the devastation because I can speak for myself. But I was covering up
40:52
with just trying to make the marriage work, like all my energy was in
40:55
that instead of those tools of why am I destroying myself in so many ways?
41:02
Why am I in this affair? Why am I doing all these things?
41:07
If what I really if I'm still in this marriage, Like do I
41:13
want to be in this marriage? So when everything fell away, I was
41:15
like, oh wow, I didn't And what I really want is a family.
41:21
So it put me on a path after my divorce to find a partner
41:24
that was on the same page. I wanted to create a family, and
41:29
I'm so happy to share that I became a first time mom this year.
41:34
Congratulations, that's wonderful. Thank you. I had a wonderful spiritual teacher who
41:39
was well into his eighties when he was my teacher, and he used to
41:44
say he'd get up in the morning and he'd have pain in his legs and
41:47
his arms in his back, and he'd thank God. And people will say,
41:51
you're in pain. Why are you thanking God? He said, because
41:53
I'm alive and I have an opportunity to live another day and to do the
41:57
work that means so much to me. That's really we're talking about, isn't
42:00
it. It is because I felt like I was dying and then through the
42:09
experience, connected with my will to live, and I think that's what was
42:16
missing. This is why everything had to burn, because out of the mud
42:22
comes the lotus. Out of the ash grows forests, Forests grow out of
42:31
the ash. I mean, I can remember going to Hawaii in twenty fifteen.
42:37
It was my first time ever going there, and went to the Volcano
42:42
National Park and we got out and there's all this ash, and coming out
42:47
of the ash was this beautiful seedling. And I was smiling ear to ear
42:53
because at this point it been two years, you know, I was really
42:57
turning things around. I was like, there it is. This is what
43:00
arises life. Life arises. It's like what they say with missus Zen saying,
43:09
is out of stillness, life rises. Yes. Absolutely. My guest
43:16
is Nicole Rogers, her book thirteen, One Woman's Sacred Journey to Discovering her
43:22
Greatest Power. We'll be back with more after these words on the Old Times
43:27
Radio Network. Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
43:34
Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly to bring help to
43:38
communities with little or no oh. Our projects are not broad mandates, nor
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and that someone cares to learn more. Please visit Humanityhealing dot org. Humanity
43:55
Healing is where your Heart is. Back on Destination Unlimited. My guest this
44:00
week Nicole Rogers, her book thirteen, One Woman's Sacred Journey to Discovering her
44:07
Greatest Power. Nicole. What is a powerful presence and how can it help
44:13
someone live in alignment with their truth and transform their life. So, in
44:20
very basic terms, a powerful presence is being okay with who you are.
44:30
That's the most basic terms. But think about it. When you have walked
44:36
into a room, when you have been in a conversation and you're okay with
44:43
the state of where you are, there's a relaxation and that is felt by
44:52
everyone around you. It's you know, your your nervous system is relaxed,
45:00
regulated, you're not looking for approval. And what it does is it creates
45:08
that same beautiful energy in whoever you are speaking to, presenting, or performing
45:16
to. So a powerful presence is a very magical, magical thing because we've
45:30
all been there when we've come to when we've met somebody, or we've seen
45:32
someone speak, or we've seen a show, and we just feel inspired,
45:40
like we're feeling this energy going through us and we're feeling better, Like we
45:46
leave the auditorium or the meeting or the conversation feeling better. So a powerful
45:55
presence is really this beautiful energetic loop that not only allows whoever is speaking to
46:07
feel the relaxation of I'm okay, but for everyone that they speak to to
46:12
feel the same. We shared before the interview that we both are poets.
46:16
Why do you use poetry and how does it help the reader have a transformative
46:21
experience. So when I was in eleventh grade, so I would have been
46:30
sixteen, I had this amazing English teacher and he was all about poetry,
46:37
and he was just one of those amazing teachers in my life and really encouraged
46:43
it. And I found that I loved it, and it was just flowing
46:46
out of me, and all through the rest of high school and college,
46:52
it just became my mode of expression. I wasn't doing as much creative writing
46:57
anymore. I wasn't doing stories. I was doing poetry. It's like when
47:00
I was inspired, it would just come out more like freeform poetry. So
47:07
when I was going through all of this devastation during twenty thirteen, poems were
47:15
coming out at that time as well. What also was happening in that year
47:21
was I became completely immersed in the work of Rumy and Hafez, and I
47:29
bought two collections, The Essential Roomy and The Gifts, and I dog eared
47:37
these. They just felt like they were speaking directly to my experience of where
47:43
I was with losing everything and seeking answers and turning my life around, And
47:50
so it wasn't just poetry was an expression for me. It was that poetry
47:55
was an anchor and a guidepost in helping me to understand what was happening because
48:04
there was so much transformation occurring, and especially with like rumy and Hapez,
48:09
which are just such sacred, beautiful words, it felt like it was really
48:15
nourishing me. So when I wrote the book, it was so important for
48:22
me to include that. But also what I found when I went back and
48:28
was putting everything together was that there were poems that were it was almost like
48:37
what the poem was expressing was completely parallel to what I was going through.
48:44
So, for instance, I in the book at one point I talk about
48:49
being robbed, and this was after been through the divorce. Like it it
48:55
was really traumatic and everything in my car stolen, and I was moving out
49:00
of my apartment. It was like the closest I came to a complete breakdown.
49:05
And there is a poem that talks about the friend coming in and striking
49:15
anywhere with a knight, just trying to say here is love. And it
49:20
was such a beautiful expression of the state of desperation I was in, because
49:27
I could have really like that could have been the end, you know,
49:30
after the divorce and then having everything stolen from my car, I could have
49:37
just plummeted into the dark. But instead there was a rising that happened,
49:45
and so it was really beautiful to go back and look at these poems that
49:49
had spoken so much to me during the year and see how they were literally
49:54
explaining where I was in my spiritual journey. Absolutely, in your powerful presence
50:05
trainings, one of the things you teach is the graceful creation of boundaries and
50:10
the ability to say no. I wrote a poem about overcoming early wiring as
50:16
a people pleaser. I had a strained relationship with my father and really never
50:21
felt loved by him until he took ill when I was eight and I became
50:24
part of his caretaking team with my mother. That was the first time I
50:29
ever sens love from him and had wired in my young mind that if you
50:34
care for others, you will be loved, and that set a pattern in
50:37
my life that continued into my late forties until I realized that neglecting my needs
50:43
was harmful on so many levels, and I learned to use the N word
50:47
no, and I wrote a poem called the Healing Power of No. May
50:52
I share that with you? Oh my gosh, please? And you were
50:53
talking about this before we started recording, so I've been waiting for this moment.
50:58
Here we go. It comes for choosing rather than losing the essence that
51:02
makes us so and in the bestowing. There's power in knowing the freedom that
51:09
comes with no when said with compassion, not angry, in fashion and letting
51:15
the self love flow, there's a sense of renewing and deep soul imbuing the
51:22
awareness that comes with no. So with gentle voice and the power of choice
51:30
and the courage to make it so, I'm still here, my friends.
51:34
There's no means in this end, just the healing that comes with no.
51:43
I'm clapping. I don't know if you can hear it. Thank you,
51:49
thank you, thank you. What are some of the other valuable lessons you
51:52
share in powerful presence trainings? Oh? Another big lesson, And thank you
52:00
for talking about the power of no, because that's a big one. Is
52:05
drowning out the noise. So speaking about no, it could be about the
52:13
noise of guests. But what I like to think of is that it's the
52:16
noise of everything and everyone in your life that is telling you who you are.
52:24
And in today's world, that's quite a list. And it's no wonder
52:32
that we suffer so much because we are brought up within a world and a
52:38
society that we don't know who we are and that we don't have that voice
52:46
within right, we don't have a sage and a wisdom that can actually guide
52:52
us in making decisions and creating our life. So in the course I really
53:00
help people to identify what the noise is and start to drown it out,
53:07
well not drown it out, but to make new choices, and that it's
53:12
replaced with practices, as we're talking about spiritual practices, it's replaced with practices
53:16
that actually cultivate the quiet voice. They cultivate the wisdom and the sage.
53:23
And so then much like my experience, your experience, you then can understand
53:31
actually what's occurring when voices arise, to recognize wait a minute, what's happening,
53:37
Because whether it's the critic or whether it's the sage, they both want
53:43
the same thing for you. They want you to thrive. They love you
53:49
all parts love you it's just the critic might have a way of going about
53:54
it that isn't helpful. But there is an un met need there. There
54:00
is something in your life that is not receiving the energy and the care that
54:06
it needs. And so they're both pointing towards the same thing. And so
54:13
this is a very large part of my work, which is allowing you to
54:17
understand what is happening in your body, because I believe that everybody knows best
54:28
for themselves. They just might have some things they've got to make their way
54:30
through to understand that. But ultimately, when they come to that point of
54:37
understanding, then they're unstoppable because they recognize that they have a power within that
54:45
doesn't require them to always be seeking approval, to always be seeking answers outside
54:51
of themselves. The wisdom of my guest, Nicole Rogers her book thirteen,
54:57
One Woman's Sacred Journey to Discovering her Greatest Power. Nicole, one more time,
55:01
Please share with our listeners where they can get your book and find out
55:05
more about you and your wonderful work. Thank you, Victor so Super Easy
55:09
thirteen, the book dot com, and that is all part of my website,
55:15
which is Nicole Rogers dot com and yes, Nicole is filled very differently
55:22
and ikol and R O, G E, R S NO D but Nicole
55:27
Rodgers dot com, thirteen the book dot com and you can purchase thirteen at
55:31
all major retailers Amazon, Barnes Andnobles dot com, Goodreads, Bookshop dot org.
55:37
It's all there and I and please come over to Instagram. I'm there
55:45
on Nicole at Nicole Underscore Rogers and send me a DM. I would love
55:50
to hear from you and hear what you thought of thirteen. Nicole, Thank
55:55
you so much for joining us and sharing your experience which came from pain but
56:00
developed into understanding and a deeper sense of self. Thank you so much.
56:05
Thank you for having me Victor, and thank you for joining us on Destination
56:09
Unlimited. I'm Victor the Voice Firman. Have a wonderful week