Latest / FINE is a 4-Letter Word / 78. (S3E4) The Power of Being Authentically You with Elaine Blais

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78. (S3E4) The Power of Being Authentically You with Elaine Blais · FINE is a 4-Letter Word

• 0:02
  Lori Saitz: Hey, my friend. Welcome to Fine is a Four-Letter Word.
• 0:06
  My name is Lori Saitz.
• 0:08
  I'm an entrepreneur, mentor, founder of Zen Rabbit, and your instigator in saying fuck
• 0:13
  being fine. This show is for those of you who are done living with the dumpster fire
• 0:19
  and are ready to find the tools and courage to transform to step into more success and
• 0:25
  fulfillment in both your personal and business life.
• 0:28
  You're in the right place for stories of self discovery, gratitude and connection, and
• 0:34
  to help you strengthen that connection to your own inner guidance, you'll find each
• 0:38
  episode has an accompanying meditation.
• 0:41
  Now let's get into it.
• 0:45
  I'm so excited to have Elaine Blaze joining me today.
• 0:49
  Elaine is a mid life troublemaker, a.k.a Difficult Woman, a life coach, author and
• 0:56
  spiritual practitioner with a passion for helping mid life women live into their
• 1:01
  dreams. Elaine grew up in an environment where she learned to people please and keep
• 1:06
  others comfortable in order to avoid humiliation and keep herself safe.
• 1:11
  This way of living set the tone for much of her life as she married young, had children
• 1:17
  and spent many years in a long term marriage.
• 1:20
  As the oldest of five, Elaine also felt a great sense of responsibility for others,
• 1:25
  stemming from the trauma of childhood and not having adults in her life to show her how
• 1:31
  to manage her emotions and be with her feelings.
• 1:34
  It wasn't until reaching life that Elaine began to shift and figure out for herself who
• 1:40
  she truly was and what she wanted for her life.
• 1:44
  Now she is on a mission to help other women do the same and step into their power.
• 1:49
  She recently started a Facebook group called A Difficult Woman Collective because woman
• 1:55
  plus difficult equals powerful.
• 1:59
  She lives in Rhode Island but spends half her time wandering the country in her RV
• 2:04
  Silver girl with her labradoodle Gracie.
• 2:08
  During this episode, we'll be diving into Elaine's personal story and her wisdom and
• 2:13
  guidance for empowering others to live their best lives.
• 2:16
  So join us as we explore why being fine is a waste of time, and it's now time to embrace
• 2:24
  our true selves.
• 2:26
  Today's episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit.
• 2:29
  If you'd like to find peace of mind amidst the chaos, and no matter what's going on
• 2:34
  around you, you'll find a whole bunch of free resources like meditations and articles
• 2:39
  at Zen Rabbit dot com.
• 2:41
  And while you're there, if you're curious about how you might stop working so hard and
• 2:45
  achieve more success at the same time, get a copy of the five Easy Ways to Start Living a
• 2:52
  Sabbatical. Life is a short guide to working less and living better.
• 2:56
  Find it all at Zen rabbit.
• 2:59
  Com. My guest today is Elaine Blase, and we have known each other for a while and she was
• 3:07
  actually the inspiration, one of the inspirations for my sabbatical road trip that
• 3:13
  I took over this summer. So I am super excited to have you here.
• 3:16
  Elaine on Fine is a four letter word.
• 3:19
  Elaine_Blais: I am super happy to be here and excited for this conversation.
• 3:23
  Laurie.
• 3:24
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. And I know also that you are overcoming, what, pneumonia you had.
• 3:30
  Elaine_Blais: Yes. It's been a bit of a healing journey for me in the last few weeks.
• 3:34
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. So if you need to, you know, take a, take a second.
• 3:38
  At any point during this conversation, that's what's, that's what's happening here.
• 3:44
  Yeah. Let's start out with I'm curious what the values and beliefs you were raised with
• 3:50
  that that contributed to who you you became as a young adult?
• 3:54
  Elaine_Blais: That's a really interesting question today, especially so part of this healing journey
• 4:00
  that I'm on.
• 4:01
  And that's truly what I believe it is, is around grief and I.
• 4:08
  Typically, as someone who studies metaphysics, metaphysics, anything to do with
• 4:13
  your lungs is usually you're holding on to grief, unprocessed emotion.
• 4:17
  And what I've come to recognize through this journey is that you
• 4:26
  talked about me being one of the inspirations for your sabbatical.
• 4:30
  So last year I let go of a lot of material possessions, physical things, a lot of my
• 4:35
  identity, and I think I didn't really take the time to grieve that.
• 4:44
  And one of the beliefs that I really discovered in this from childhood really is a
• 4:52
  pattern of self abandonment.
• 4:53
  This idea that.
• 4:55
  Because I chose these things.
• 4:58
  I shouldn't grieve them.
• 5:00
  I shouldn't grieve what I was letting go o because I made this choice.
• 5:05
  So it's kind of like you have nothing to cry about.
• 5:08
  You chose this kind of, you know, that kind of thing.
• 5:10
  What's the matter with you?
• 5:12
  And that's been a really profound thing actually going through this this few weeks of
• 5:18
  illness. And so that's a lot of my upbringing was being seen and not heard.
• 5:26
  Two, I learned two people.
• 5:29
  Please. I learn to keep other people comfortable.
• 5:33
  To keep myself safe.
• 5:35
  Really? Right?
• 5:36
  To avoid humiliation.
• 5:39
  That it was really wrong to be me.
• 5:42
  And that has set the tone for most of my life up until now.
• 5:48
  Lori Saitz: Yes. Yeah.
• 5:49
  So talk a little bit about how that played out.
• 5:53
  As you were growing into adulthood and figuring out who you who you were.
• 5:58
  Elaine_Blais: I don't think there was a lot of figuring out.
• 6:01
  I think a lot of it was doing what I thought I was supposed to do, living the life that I.
• 6:09
  That was mirrored for me.
• 6:10
  So I married young, I had children.
• 6:13
  I was married for a very long time and.
• 6:18
  And being the oldest of five, I think a lot of that is the whole responsibility thing,
• 6:24
  you know, really thinking that I'm responsible for everyone.
• 6:28
  And a lot of that comes out of of the trauma, of childhood, of.
• 6:35
  Not having adults in my life through no fault of their own, but not having adults in
• 6:40
  my life that could mirror or show me how to manage my emotions, how to be with my
• 6:48
  emotion. And so I don't think there was a lot of figuring out for myself until I
• 6:54
  reached midlife. Really?
• 6:55
  Mm hmm. And then things started to shift from it.
• 6:58
  Lori Saitz: It's so interesting because when I started this podcast 70 something episodes ago, this
• 7:06
  I was surprised by how many guests talk about not.
• 7:13
  It, understanding that they even had emotions being raised in environments where
• 7:17
  emotions were not part of the equation, Like you didn't have them, you didn't express
• 7:22
  them, you weren't allowed to or they weren't even acknowledged.
• 7:26
  Yeah, and that's so interesting to me.
• 7:28
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah. And I mean, I'm sure that that's how my parents were raised, right.
• 7:33
  And their parents and their parents.
• 7:34
  I mean, this is historical trauma.
• 7:36
  Really? Yeah.
• 7:38
  So people like you and I get to be the cycle breakers, which is really cool.
• 7:43
  But yeah, there, you know, the idea that.
• 7:48
  It. Don't make your dad angry.
• 7:51
  Don't make me feel this way.
• 7:54
  So. We begin to guard our own emotions or to think that those things that we feel are
• 8:02
  wrong to be felt because of how they're affecting someone else.
• 8:07
  Right. And the truth is, those are adults who, through their own trauma, don't know how
• 8:13
  to process their own emotions.
• 8:14
  So for me, there wasn't a lot of there was a lot of guidance around that.
• 8:19
  When I was a kid, it was more about, you know, suck it up, check your emotions at the
• 8:25
  door. I can remember my brother Steve, who's ten years younger than I am.
• 8:30
  And so I was about 12 maybe, and he got hurt out in the yard somewhere and his head was
• 8:36
  bleeding. And, you know, the head could be a tiny little thing, but the head bleeds
• 8:39
  profusely, right? Sure.
• 8:40
  And I'm freaking out.
• 8:42
  I'm like, Oh, my God, my brother is bleeding.
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  I'm carrying him home. I'm screaming for my mother.
• 8:48
  And she got angry with me.
• 8:50
  She got angry with me for being emotional.
• 8:53
  There was no ability to just realize that I was scared for what was happening with my
• 8:59
  brother. So those are those are some of the more challenging memories for me, Yeah.
• 9:05
  Lori Saitz: Oc And so you mentioned being married and having kids and not like, how did you come to
• 9:13
  the place where you went, All right, I need to change directions because the way I'm
• 9:21
  operating now is not serving me.
• 9:23
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, it wasn't a moment.
• 9:26
  It was probably a lot of little moments over time.
• 9:30
  And I think the thing that really.
• 9:35
  Well, one thing is my children were getting older and more independent, so I had more
• 9:40
  time to sort of reflect on me.
• 9:42
  Lori Saitz: Yeah, that's often a place where people.
• 9:45
  Elaine_Blais: Very much check in.
• 9:46
  Very much so. I think before that time I was so busy parenting and running kids around and
• 9:55
  all of the busyness and going to work every day that.
• 9:58
  And I think a lot of that busyness, too, is.
• 10:02
  A way that for me anyway, I avoided what I needed to feel in process.
• 10:06
  Right. Let me just keep busy and I'll be fine.
• 10:09
  Yeah. And I know you talk about that a lot, Lori, About right, getting out of the hustle
• 10:14
  and the grind.
• 10:16
  So I reached a place in my life where I had become more confident in myself and through a
• 10:24
  number of different things to a career I'd created and started to really think about
• 10:29
  what do I want now?
• 10:30
  And I returned to college in my fifties for my undergraduate degree.
• 10:34
  Lori Saitz: Oh, how cool.
• 10:35
  Elaine_Blais: It's something I had always wanted to do, and I fell in love with the learning.
• 10:41
  And there's a lot of brain drama around that.
• 10:44
  I'm 50 something.
• 10:45
  Can I keep up with people in class?
• 10:46
  I'm working full time.
• 10:48
  Can I do this?
• 10:49
  And I absolutely.
• 10:52
  I absolutely loved it.
• 10:53
  I was so.
• 10:55
  Oh, it just felt so fulfilling to me.
• 10:57
  Yeah. And the more I did this kind of thing, the further apart my then husband and I
• 11:04
  drifted. I think for him, being in that more traditional place was was what he signed up
• 11:11
  for. And I knew that I had to grow out of that.
• 11:16
  I didn't know how.
• 11:17
  I didn't know what that would look like.
• 11:19
  I just knew that my my soul was craving so much more in my life.
• 11:25
  And so my 35 in the middle of going to school, my marriage fell apart.
• 11:30
  I'd been married for 35 years.
• 11:32
  Wow.
• 11:33
  Lori Saitz: It was.
• 11:33
  Elaine_Blais: Time. A really tough place to be.
• 11:36
  Who the hell am I now?
• 11:39
  I'm, you know, I've been wi for so long.
• 11:41
  What is this me thing?
• 11:43
  How do I do this?
• 11:44
  Even. And it was.
• 11:45
  Lori Saitz: Who am I? Yeah.
• 11:47
  Without that other person?
• 11:48
  Elaine_Blais: Without. Right.
• 11:50
  Even if that that wasn't a great relationship at that point in time.
• 11:54
  I still knew it.
• 11:56
  Right. It was familiar.
• 11:57
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. And that was the person you had been with for pretty much your entire adult life?
• 12:02
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, we grew up together in a sense.
• 12:04
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:05
  That was a really tough time for me.
• 12:07
  And it was also, in hindsight, the greatest gift that that I, that we could have given
• 12:13
  each other actually at that point in time.
• 12:16
  Yeah. So that just shifted everything.
• 12:18
  I have been on a personal growth journey intentionally an intentional spiritual
• 12:25
  journey ever since.
• 12:27
  You know, I discovered around that same time that my marriage is falling apart, I
• 12:30
  discovered Louise Haigh and I discovered Deepak Chopra, and I just started to get more
• 12:36
  and more Michael Beckwith into all of this.
• 12:38
  Lori Saitz: Oh, I love Michael.
• 12:40
  Elaine_Blais: Oh, he is. I listen, have you ever listen to his I'm going to plug him.
• 12:43
  Actually, his Sunday morning way of meditation is fabulous.
• 12:47
  Lori Saitz: I actually I actually met him.
• 12:49
  Well, I don't I was in a room with him where he was speaking and it was a small room and
• 12:55
  the energy of that room was over the top.
• 13:00
  Incredible. Yeah.
• 13:01
  And it was because of him.
• 13:03
  It was his energy that you could feel.
• 13:05
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, I'm not surprised by that at all.
• 13:07
  Lori Saitz: Just radiating.
• 13:09
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah. So having done all that, I started to feel really uncomfortable in my
• 13:18
  career. It was time for that to change.
• 13:20
  Lori Saitz: To what was your career first?
• 13:22
  Elaine_Blais: I had been working for about 25 years in corporate and I had done a number of
• 13:27
  different things, primarily customer service and some internal communications, and I was
• 13:32
  working in internal communications when I ended my career.
• 13:36
  And I just got to a place where the values of the organization no longer worked for me.
• 13:44
  It's not about anybody else.
• 13:46
  It's not about the company.
• 13:47
  It's not It's about what changed in me, Right?
• 13:50
  Lori Saitz: Your evolution.
• 13:51
  Elaine_Blais: Exactly.
• 13:52
  Lori Saitz: And and before what?
• 13:54
  What were you studying in school?
• 13:55
  I'm curious.
• 13:56
  Elaine_Blais: I studied communications and gender and women's studies.
• 14:00
  Okay. Yeah.
• 14:01
  Lori Saitz: And you did that, but not necessarily to further your career.
• 14:05
  I feel like you did it because you were interested in that.
• 14:07
  Elaine_Blais: Well, it's so funny that you say that because you're right.
• 14:11
  I really wanted to have my degree.
• 14:13
  It was something I'd always dreamed of, so that was the reason for it.
• 14:17
  And I imagined that it would further my career.
• 14:20
  But the funny thing is, after getting my degree, I was put up for promotion three
• 14:25
  times and all three times I was turned down.
• 14:28
  Oh, and so that is really the impetus for starting to think about what do I really
• 14:33
  want? Because if this isn't happening, there's something else.
• 14:35
  There's something better, right?
• 14:37
  Yeah. So, yeah, it didn't it didn't do what I thought it would do.
• 14:41
  And that's okay because it did what I needed it to do.
• 14:45
  Yeah, which was right.
• 14:47
  Lori Saitz: That's often how things happen.
• 14:48
  Elaine_Blais: To get me to think about what do I really want now.
• 14:53
  And in that time I graduated, I traveled and my dad passed.
• 14:59
  And that also got me thinking about what am I waiting for?
• 15:03
  Yeah, what am I waiting for?
• 15:05
  And so in the spring of 2015, I exited voluntarily, a long corporate career and took
• 15:15
  about six months sabbatical to really think about what I was doing next.
• 15:20
  And I knew I wanted to coach.
• 15:21
  I knew I wanted to help people in a bigger way than what I was doing.
• 15:24
  And I was coaching and mentoring in the workplace, but a little different
• 15:28
  environment. And the rest is history, as they say.
• 15:35
  Lori Saitz: What did you do on that sabbatical?
• 15:37
  Because I didn't know about that one.
• 15:39
  But what what you know, and I get the question, too, like, well, what's the
• 15:43
  difference between a sabbatical and a vacation?
• 15:46
  Elaine_Blais: And so what.
• 15:47
  Lori Saitz: What was it that you were doing on this?
• 15:50
  Yeah, six month, that first six months sabbatical.
• 15:53
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah. I think the word I would use to describe it as decompressing.
• 15:58
  Mm hmm. What I realized when I first left my job, I would get up in the morning thinking I
• 16:04
  should be doing something. I should be doing something.
• 16:06
  I should be doing something right, because we are so in that corporate.
• 16:10
  Yeah. And that's so that that idea of productivity all the time.
• 16:14
  Yes. So that was really the work that I did.
• 16:19
  That was I didn't go anywhere.
• 16:22
  This was a stay at home sabbatical.
• 16:24
  I spent that time learning to not be in a corporate job, learning to not have to be
• 16:31
  productive all the time, learning to give myself permission to rest and to sort of
• 16:37
  decouple from all of that stuff that I had been doing for so long.
• 16:43
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. It's so interesting that we have to learn how to decompress and learn how to
• 16:50
  rest.
• 16:51
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah.
• 16:51
  Lori Saitz: Like, don't these things shouldn't these things come to us?
• 16:53
  Naturally. But we've been so reprogrammed.
• 16:56
  I mean, you know them as a child, a baby, a child.
• 16:59
  But we've been so programmed, we have to deprogram ourselves and really rewire the
• 17:05
  brain.
• 17:06
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:08
  We create habits and patterns that we that serve us when we create them in most cases.
• 17:14
  But then we tend to not we tend to be.
• 17:17
  So I mean, we are habitual people, right?
• 17:20
  We get comfortable with something and so we keep going with it.
• 17:23
  And the idea, I think, is so new of actually just taking time to pause and say, Do I want
• 17:30
  to continue to do this or or do I want to do it differently?
• 17:34
  Or how is this really serving the life that I want to live?
• 17:38
  Yeah.
• 17:39
  Lori Saitz: The other question I get a lot from people when they hear talk about sabbaticals is how
• 17:45
  I would love to do that, but I can't afford it.
• 17:47
  Elaine_Blais: Didn't cost me anything to stay home.
• 17:49
  Yeah, I think that that statement is a great place for someone to inquire what they even
• 17:58
  think is sabbatical is right.
• 18:00
  So. So what does that mean to you?
• 18:02
  Does it mean being in Europe for a month and maybe you can't afford it, but does it mean
• 18:06
  being home for a week, two days?
• 18:08
  6 a.m.? I don't know.
• 18:10
  So it's really about what's the intention of your sabbatical, of your time?
• 18:16
  What do you want to do with that time?
• 18:18
  How do you want to be with yourself in that time?
• 18:22
  What would you like to discover in that time?
• 18:26
  Lori Saitz: That right there, what you just said?
• 18:29
  How would you like to be?
• 18:31
  What would you like to discover?
• 18:33
  To me is the key difference between a sabbatical and a vacation.
• 18:38
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, absolutely a vacation.
• 18:40
  I'm on the beach with the margarita.
• 18:41
  I mean, come on.
• 18:42
  Lori Saitz: Yeah, right, right.
• 18:44
  You're not really digging.
• 18:45
  Elaine_Blais: Into know.
• 18:46
  Lori Saitz: Who am I? What do I want to do?
• 18:48
  What is my life going to look like moving forward?
• 18:50
  Who? How do I find joy?
• 18:53
  Whatever it is.
• 18:54
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:56
  Yeah.
• 18:57
  Lori Saitz: There are more self discovery elements.
• 18:59
  I believe in a sabbatical.
• 19:01
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:02
  I'm. I'm going on sabbatical for me anyway, personally, to be curious about me, I'm going
• 19:09
  on vacation because I'm curious about a location, a place, and an event.
• 19:14
  So where's my curiosity?
• 19:16
  Lori Saitz: Oh, yes, that.
• 19:19
  I love that. Thank you for that.
• 19:23
  So back to your story of you.
• 19:25
  After this six month sabbatical, what did you discover and what did you do with it?
• 19:29
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, I, I really discovered that it takes a long time for me personally to really extract
• 19:37
  myself from what I was doing and really start to see myself in my life differently.
• 19:43
  So that took some time.
• 19:45
  But I was more convinced than ever that I wanted to be coach, that I wanted to life
• 19:53
  coach, that I primarily want to work with women.
• 19:56
  So I went to school with Martha Beck.
• 19:59
  I don't know if you're familiar with Martha Beck, but she is one of Oprah's coaches.
• 20:03
  Yes. I took her program, which is phenomenal.
• 20:06
  I still listen to her and follow her and started coaching, I don't know, maybe six
• 20:15
  months after that. So and I've been doing it ever since.
• 20:19
  And that, too, obviously has evolved.
• 20:22
  So what I do today is work with women on the art of self approval, which to me is a little
• 20:30
  different than acceptance.
• 20:33
  I think acceptance is saying, well, you know, I'm not perfect, but I accept that
• 20:37
  about myself, which is which is a beautiful place to be, especially if you come from very
• 20:44
  low self worth. Self acceptance is sort of a step towards self approval.
• 20:48
  But self provable to me is that I am an expression of the divine.
• 20:56
  Always in this moment.
• 20:58
  In an every moment.
• 21:00
  Mm hmm. There is nothing wrong with me.
• 21:03
  Lori Saitz: Right.
• 21:04
  Elaine_Blais: So it's really about beginning to appreciate and approve of.
• 21:10
  The places, the things about ourselves.
• 21:13
  I want to celebrate everything about us, but this is really about looking at the places we
• 21:20
  think we're different or unacceptable or wrong, because that goes right back to that
• 21:27
  trauma, that childhood stuff.
• 21:30
  And there was never anything wrong, right?
• 21:32
  So it's about coming full circle and really reclaiming everything about yourself.
• 21:37
  I also sometimes call it how to be a difficult Woman, because I think as a woman,
• 21:44
  I've spent so much of my life trying not to be difficult for other people.
• 21:48
  Lori Saitz: Everything that I'm lazy for myself.
• 21:50
  Elaine_Blais: That's right. And so now it's time for me to embrace the things that I perceive or maybe
• 21:57
  other people perceive make me difficult.
• 22:00
  Not at anyone's expense, but in pursuit of my dreams.
• 22:04
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. Have you found that that is a belief that you have that may not necessarily be
• 22:10
  true, that you are difficult, that other people don't perceive that as being
• 22:16
  difficult. It's only your perception.
• 22:18
  Elaine_Blais: It could very well be, but it is a perception that I've learned somewhere that that I want
• 22:24
  to be curious about.
• 22:26
  Yeah. So if my saying.
• 22:29
  No to someone makes me seem difficult.
• 22:33
  Or if my expressing my opinion to someone makes me seem difficult, then I am willing to
• 22:39
  be that in order to be authentic, in order to be in unapologetic self approval.
• 22:48
  It's not about being mean or unkind to people.
• 22:51
  Lori Saitz: Exactly.
• 22:51
  Elaine_Blais: It's about being myself.
• 22:52
  Lori Saitz: It's about being true to yourself.
• 22:54
  Elaine_Blais: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 22:56
  Yeah.
• 22:57
  Lori Saitz: What led to the selling all your stuff and and taking your life on the road and becoming
• 23:05
  a nomad.
• 23:06
  Elaine_Blais: So that's so interesting.
• 23:10
  I have been.
• 23:12
  I think I've been pursuing this for a long time.
• 23:15
  So in 2017, maybe I packed up my SUV and my dog and outfitted it so I could camp in the
• 23:24
  car, and we took a six week trip around the country.
• 23:28
  It was amazing.
• 23:29
  It wasn't. You went up.
• 23:31
  Lori Saitz: You went on like a trip with your dog?
• 23:33
  Yes.
• 23:34
  Elaine_Blais: Six weeks. Six weeks.
• 23:36
  I have a £29 labradoodle named Gracie and a portable pet.
• 23:44
  And somewhat in that time.
• 23:46
  But she's portable.
• 23:48
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:51
  And I remember coming back and a friend of mine asked me if because I had some great
• 23:59
  experiences and that wonderful people did as much as I could traveling with the dog, which
• 24:04
  can be limiting. Yeah.
• 24:06
  Stayed with friends and family, did some Airbnb, did some camping.
• 24:09
  I camped in the redwoods in California, which was pretty spectacular.
• 24:14
  And just the energy in that place.
• 24:16
  Yeah, it's incredible.
• 24:17
  Lori Saitz: Yes, it is.
• 24:18
  Elaine_Blais: And a friend of mine said, So did this trip restore your faith in humanity?
• 24:27
  And I thought that was an interesting question.
• 24:29
  And I thought about it for a minute, and I said, actually, it simply renewed my faith in
• 24:35
  humanity. There was nothing to restore.
• 24:37
  It validated it because people are people everywhere.
• 24:41
  Yeah, You know, we all want to be seen and heard and understood.
• 24:45
  Mm hmm. Yeah.
• 24:46
  And so that sort of whet my appetite.
• 24:49
  And I have been following and learning about living nomadic valley.
• 24:55
  And that has shifted too.
• 24:57
  So I sold a house that I lived in a home.
• 25:01
  It was really a lovely house.
• 25:02
  I didn't sell something that I was tired of or didn't like.
• 25:06
  I loved it, actually, but it was time I sold my home, sold almost all my possessions.
• 25:11
  I mean, literally, I don't even own a bed right now and bought an RV.
• 25:17
  It's a sprinter van type.
• 25:19
  One of those tall vans. Yeah.
• 25:20
  And I set off to explore.
• 25:24
  I thought I would be a full time nomad.
• 25:26
  I'm going to do this thing.
• 25:27
  Lori Saitz: Yeah, live out of the van.
• 25:29
  Elaine_Blais: But the more, the more I was not, the more I was gone.
• 25:32
  Exploring and having really.
• 25:35
  There's so many beautiful things to see and do in this country.
• 25:38
  It's amazing. I've only tipped the iceberg, but I realized that I want a home base, so
• 25:46
  I'm exploring that now for myself.
• 25:48
  What will that look like?
• 25:50
  And I do have a partner.
• 25:52
  He and I have been together about three and one half years, so we have been talking about
• 25:57
  maybe creating a home together that will remain to be seen.
• 26:00
  Lori Saitz: Does he travel with you?
• 26:01
  Elaine_Blais: No, no.
• 26:03
  He's here working and living his life.
• 26:06
  So what? I realized that full time Nomad is not for me.
• 26:09
  So I'm going to be a part time nomad.
• 26:12
  I'll have a home base and I'll travel when I when I'm ready to travel, which probably by
• 26:18
  March, I'll be ready to head somewhere for a while.
• 26:20
  But I think that I think the.
• 26:24
  I think the key to really creating a life that you want.
• 26:31
  Is to not be attached.
• 26:34
  To do what you think you want.
• 26:37
  So like the full time nomad thing for me.
• 26:41
  If I had been holding on to that, I would probably still be traveling, but not be very
• 26:45
  happy with myself because I think I have to do it because that's what I said I was going
• 26:49
  to do.
• 26:50
  Lori Saitz: So allowing yourself the space to change your mind.
• 26:54
  Elaine_Blais: Yes. And I don't know about you, but changing my mind was not something that was encouraged
• 27:00
  when I was growing up.
• 27:03
  Lori Saitz: Yeah, well, when you start learning about manifesting and visualizing, you hear a lot
• 27:09
  about what?
• 27:10
  Create a clear picture and then keep visualizing that.
• 27:14
  Because if you're all over the place and there is some some validation to this, if
• 27:19
  you're all over the place, it's like ordering at a restaurant.
• 27:22
  I'll have the eggs with bacon or actually I would never order with the vegetarian bacon.
• 27:29
  I don't know where that came from.
• 27:31
  And then the server goes away to put the order into the kitchen.
• 27:34
  You're like, Wait, wait, wait, wait. Nope, I would rather have the pancakes.
• 27:38
  And they go and put that. No, wait.
• 27:39
  I changed my mind. I'm going to have the waffles with fruit and then they can.
• 27:43
  You never get served. You're always hungry because you can't make up your mind.
• 27:47
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, that's different.
• 27:49
  Lori Saitz: Than saying, like, eating and then later saying, You know what?
• 27:53
  I'm not going to have the same thing for lunch.
• 27:55
  I'm going to have something different.
• 27:58
  There's a subtle difference there.
• 28:00
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 28:02
  And the thing about manifesting and really creating or co-creating what you want.
• 28:10
  Is for me more about the feeling.
• 28:14
  Mm hmm. How do I want to feel in this experience?
• 28:18
  Yes, because there's a little tiny book written by Neville Goddard called Feeling is
• 28:24
  the Secret. Are you familiar with it?
• 28:25
  Awesome little book, right?
• 28:27
  Yeah. Go to bed at night and visualize and go to sleep thinking about what you want.
• 28:31
  But when you listen to and not Bart, and when you listen to, like Abraham Hicks and
• 28:38
  other Law of Attraction people, there is this idea that if you keep if you're in the
• 28:46
  wanting of it all the time and you never get it because you want it right, So you're
• 28:51
  getting exactly what your your energetic vibration is.
• 28:56
  And so if you're in the energy of wanting, I think the same thing happens with attachment.
• 29:01
  If I'm attached to the outcome being a certain way, then I'm just going to be
• 29:05
  disappointed because honestly, the universe can deliver something way bigger than what I
• 29:10
  can imagine.
• 29:11
  Lori Saitz: Exactly. We don't know all the ways that things can show up for us.
• 29:16
  We can, like I think where you're going with this and I'll let you go on about the feeling
• 29:21
  of it, if you know how you'd like to feel.
• 29:25
  That feeling can be delivered in a billion different ways that we're not even aware of.
• 29:30
  Elaine_Blais: Exactly. I believe that.
• 29:34
  The thing. What we want is never really about what we want.
• 29:38
  It's about how we think we're going to feel when we have it.
• 29:43
  And so the more we can be in that feeling now, right now, even though we have no
• 29:49
  evidence of the thing.
• 29:51
  Yes. Then we're actually calling it in.
• 29:54
  We're vibrating in the feeling of what we want, which is the only way we can match what
• 30:01
  we want.
• 30:02
  Lori Saitz: Yes, it is to be it now, which is sometimes confusing, like, well, how can I be in the
• 30:10
  feeling if I don't have the thing yet?
• 30:13
  But that the feeling is not dependent on the thing.
• 30:16
  Elaine_Blais: No. And your brain does not know the difference between having the thing or
• 30:22
  imagining the thing, right?
• 30:24
  So when you're in the imagination of it, you can be in the feeling of it.
• 30:28
  Yeah.
• 30:28
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. And this is why those customized meditations that I create for people are so
• 30:34
  powerful is because I'm taking them on a journey and getting them into the feeling of
• 30:39
  the thing. Yeah, even though it has not physically shown up yet.
• 30:44
  Yeah, but getting them into the feeling calls it in like you said.
• 30:47
  Elaine_Blais: One of my favorite things that I do with clients in in workshops is the future self
• 30:51
  visualization. And you probably familiar with that.
• 30:53
  Lori Right. Taking I take people on a journey to meet their future self because
• 31:00
  that version of us actually exist right now.
• 31:03
  Yes. And there is so much wisdom to be found by having this meeting, if you will, with
• 31:11
  your future self and that version of us already.
• 31:16
  Already has done all the things that we want to do.
• 31:19
  And so the idea behind that is to then right now, today, in this moment, not in the
• 31:27
  future. Yeah.
• 31:29
  Show up as that future self.
• 31:31
  So what's the one tiny thing I can do right now to be that version of me?
• 31:37
  And that puts you in the energy of what you want as well.
• 31:40
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. And talking about the future self reminds me of a book I recently read by Dr.
• 31:45
  Benjamin Hardy called Be Your Future Self Now The Science of Intentional
• 31:51
  Transformation. And he talks about exactly what you're talking about and also that that
• 31:59
  we are going to change and become someone in ways that we can't necessarily imagine right
• 32:05
  now. Because if you think back five years ago, that person that you were five years ago
• 32:11
  is a very different from the person you are today, presumably.
• 32:15
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:16
  Lori Saitz: And so your your self five years ago could not necessarily imagine who you would be
• 32:22
  today. So to your point of the small steps, that's all you can do is because imagining
• 32:30
  who you're going to be in five years may be kind of you can again imagine how you would
• 32:35
  like to feel, but all of the circumstances surrounding that, that's that may be out of
• 32:40
  reach because you're going to grow and develop in ways you can't even imagine today.
• 32:45
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:47
  The only place you can act or take an action is right now.
• 32:53
  Yeah. You can't act in the future or the past.
• 32:56
  So visualizing and getting into the energy in the feeling of.
• 33:02
  Who you are or who you want to be or how that feels.
• 33:07
  And then taking that into right now, and sometimes it's the tiniest thing for people.
• 33:13
  Yeah. You know, sometimes it's just about changing the way you dress.
• 33:18
  Mm hmm. Right.
• 33:20
  You see yourself dress differently, and you start to change that.
• 33:23
  And you feel that energy of who that that version of you is.
• 33:28
  And you start to act that way every day.
• 33:31
  You know, I often just say to people, So what is if you were that version of yourself,
• 33:36
  how would you wake up in the morning?
• 33:38
  What would your first thought of the morning be?
• 33:41
  Yeah, because a lot of us get up and it's like, oh, the alarm, whatever.
• 33:44
  All of that moan and groaning stuff, Right?
• 33:47
  What if you didn't moan and groan?
• 33:49
  Yeah. What if you chose a different thought feeling in that moment to wake up with?
• 33:56
  Yeah. Just tiny things.
• 33:58
  Lori Saitz: Try anything?
• 34:00
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:02
  See what happens.
• 34:03
  Lori Saitz: Yeah. And I love that you're talking about who would you want to be?
• 34:08
  Who would you like to be?
• 34:10
  Because that is really the the question and I've talked about this, I think, on other
• 34:14
  episodes as well.
• 34:16
  When we ask children, what do you want to be when you grow up?
• 34:19
  Wrong question. Who would you like to be?
• 34:22
  Yeah, and asking ourself the same question every year.
• 34:25
  We're recording this at the beginning of a new year, and that's kind of irrelevant.
• 34:30
  Like you can start over any minute you want.
• 34:33
  It's not necessarily important that it's the beginning of a new year, but my point is that
• 34:38
  the this is the time of year when a lot of people are looking at things and going, What
• 34:43
  do I want to do this year?
• 34:45
  The better question for me is who would I like to be?
• 34:49
  Elaine_Blais: Yep. Yeah.
• 34:51
  One other thing, one other exercise that I've done with people and often in workshops
• 34:57
  and classes is instead of creating a to do list.
• 35:01
  Create a daily to be list?
• 35:04
  Yes. So who do I want to be today?
• 35:06
  I want to be kind.
• 35:08
  I want to be accomplished.
• 35:10
  Maybe whatever it is.
• 35:11
  But what is going to be my state of being?
• 35:16
  Because that's my energetic place.
• 35:18
  Yeah, that's where everything else is going to come from.
• 35:21
  We don't manifest anything from the outside world.
• 35:23
  We have to be it.
• 35:24
  Yes. Yes, we have to become it.
• 35:27
  So who do I need to be today?
• 35:30
  To move a little bit towards that version of me.
• 35:34
  Lori Saitz: That is a fantastic place to end this conversation.
• 35:38
  Elaine_Blais: Before.
• 35:39
  Lori Saitz: We'll leave people with that thought.
• 35:41
  But all right, before and before we completely leave, the always question of what
• 35:47
  is the song you listen to when you need to, an extra boost of energy when you want to be
• 35:53
  more energetic.
• 35:54
  Elaine_Blais: Yeah, I have a big long playlist, but probably the one that comes to mind that I
• 35:59
  love the most is a song by Bliss called Be Who You Were Born to Be.
• 36:03
  Got to jump off that cliff and be who you are born today.
• 36:07
  Lori Saitz: I am not familiar with that song, and of course I'm going to go listen to it right now
• 36:10
  after we finish this, because I, I no doubt it's a great one.
• 36:15
  One of the great things also about living a nomadic life and the in this time in history
• 36:25
  is that if people wanted to get in touch with you, they don't need a physical address.
• 36:29
  Where where would people find you if they wanted to continue a conversation with you?
• 36:33
  Elaine_Blais: Elaine A few places.
• 36:35
  So my website is Elaine Blaze.
• 36:38
  That's BILA I Ask.com.
• 36:42
  I am mostly on Instagram, on social media and Elaine Blaze coaching and I do have a
• 36:49
  Facebook group for women called A Difficult Woman Collective, which I would love to have
• 36:56
  more women join because the conversation there really is about self approval, about
• 37:01
  reclaiming what we think makes us difficult and really stepping into our power to be who
• 37:07
  we are.
• 37:07
  Lori Saitz: Fantastic. I'll put links to all of that in the show notes.
• 37:11
  Thank you so much for joining me today on Fine is the four letter word.
• 37:15
  Elaine_Blais: Thanks, Lori. This is a blast.
• 37:17
  Lori Saitz: I am so grateful to Elaine for her inspiration.
• 37:21
  Not sure I would have sat out on my own sabbatical if not for that conversation with
• 37:25
  her back in July.
• 37:27
  Here are the key takeaways from today's episode.
• 37:30
  Number one, many of us use keeping busy as a way to avoid processing emotions and
• 37:37
  feelings, but that's never a long term solution.
• 37:41
  We can tell ourselves we're fine, but you know how we feel about that word here, right?
• 37:47
  Number two, people pleasing and putting the needs of others ahead of ourselves is a
• 37:52
  safety mechanism.
• 37:53
  But all it ends up doing is making us feel small and insecure.
• 37:58
  Number three, you don't have to settle for work that doesn't align with your values,
• 38:03
  whether it's a change in yourself or the company you work for when things don't line
• 38:08
  up anymore, it's time to move on.
• 38:11
  Number four in the world we live in, rest is not intuitive.
• 38:16
  We have to intentionally relearn how to step away from work, how to not be productive, and
• 38:23
  how to give ourselves permission to rest.
• 38:27
  Number five The key to creating the life you want is to not be attached to what you think
• 38:34
  you want. It's okay to change your mind.
• 38:37
  Number six What we desire is never about what we desire.
• 38:43
  It's about how we think we're going to feel when we have it.
• 38:48
  And you don't actually have to have that thing to feel that way.
• 38:52
  The more you feel it without having it, the more likely you are to actually get it.