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25. I Lost My Biggest Client, Then Moved to Paris · Lately with Lexi

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SPEAKER_00: A couple years ago,
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SPEAKER_00: I attended a retreat in the south of France,
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SPEAKER_00: and honestly,
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SPEAKER_00: it was a disaster.
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SPEAKER_00: The itinerary was a mess.
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SPEAKER_00: The facilitator showed up very unprepared.
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SPEAKER_00: And at one point, I remember just thinking, I paid for this.
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SPEAKER_00: What was I thinking?
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SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking, you know what?
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SPEAKER_00: France is not the problem.
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SPEAKER_00: The retreat is the problem.
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SPEAKER_00: I knew that there was more for me here.
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SPEAKER_00: I couldn't explain it, but I felt such a strong pull towards France.
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SPEAKER_00: I knew that I needed to come back on my own terms.
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SPEAKER_00: If you've ever felt a pull like that towards a place or a decision,
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SPEAKER_00: a life change that maybe makes no logical sense,
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SPEAKER_00: but intuitively feels right,
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SPEAKER_00: you know exactly what I'm talking about.
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SPEAKER_00: Today,
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I'm sharing what happened when I went back and how France gave
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me everything I
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SPEAKER_00: wanted by taking away the one thing I thought I needed the most.
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Welcome to Lately with Lexi,
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where I help wellness brands grow and spiritual seekers evolve.
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SPEAKER_00: Every episode explores spiritual wisdom,
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SPEAKER_00: business building,
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SPEAKER_00: or personal life reflections from my life.
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SPEAKER_00: Coming out as I share what I'm creating,
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SPEAKER_00: learning,
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SPEAKER_00: and navigating as a yogi,
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SPEAKER_00: business consultant,
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SPEAKER_00: healer,
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SPEAKER_00: and entrepreneur.
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SPEAKER_00: Here's something I didn't mention yet.
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SPEAKER_00: The retreat in the south of France, that was not my first time in France.
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I was 12 years old the first time I went to Paris,
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and I fell completely in love with the city.
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There's something interesting that happens to certain people
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when they step into a
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SPEAKER_00: place for the first time and feel something familiar.
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SPEAKER_00: It's like you've already been there.
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That was me at 12 walking through Paris thinking,
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I don't know how,
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but I need to come back.
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SPEAKER_00: I know that I'm meant to be here.
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SPEAKER_00: So when the retreat fell apart, something in me already knew what to do.
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I left the retreat early along with a couple other participants
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who were equally
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SPEAKER_00: just done with the whole experience,
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SPEAKER_00: and we went straight to Paris.
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My boyfriend met up with us,
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and the moment he got there,
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the trip shifted.
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SPEAKER_00: It stopped being about what I was leaving behind,
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SPEAKER_00: and it started to be about what we were walking toward.
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On our final day in Paris,
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we were walking through the beautiful 16th R&D's Mont.
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SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget this.
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SPEAKER_00: We were in the park behind the Eiffel Tower.
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There were kids running around and playing,
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beautiful dogs who were playing fetch.
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SPEAKER_00: And the next thing I knew,
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SPEAKER_00: my boyfriend and I both looked at each other and said,
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SPEAKER_00: what if we actually moved here?
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SPEAKER_00: What if we actually moved here?
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SPEAKER_00: We had no idea how we were gonna make it work.
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SPEAKER_00: We just knew that we were going to.
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After that failed retreat and the trip to Paris,
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we had about six months to figure it out.
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SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, right before we left, I lost my biggest consulting client,
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SPEAKER_00: Practically overnight,
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I went from earning more than I ever had to earning less than
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half in the last five
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SPEAKER_00: years.
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SPEAKER_00: The timing felt brutal,
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and the voice in my head that had always tied my worth to my
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income got very loud
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SPEAKER_00: very fast.
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SPEAKER_00: I started to ask myself, who am I if I'm not making a lot of money?
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SPEAKER_00: Who am I without the accolades of my biggest client?
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What does it mean about me that I have to lean on my boyfriend
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to support us?
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SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us build our identity on being the person who earns,
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SPEAKER_00: who contributes,
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SPEAKER_00: who doesn't need help.
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SPEAKER_00: I know that's what I did.
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SPEAKER_00: When that got pulled out from underneath me right before moving to Paris,
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SPEAKER_00: I didn't just feel financially insecure.
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SPEAKER_00: I felt like I honestly did not know who I was.
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SPEAKER_00: If you've ever lost the thing you relied on to feel valuable,
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SPEAKER_00: a job,
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SPEAKER_00: a role,
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SPEAKER_00: a title,
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SPEAKER_00: a relationship,
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SPEAKER_00: you know how disorienting that can be.
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A couple nights before our flight to Paris,
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I was a nervous wreck,
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to put it lightly.
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I started questioning why the hell I was moving to Europe when
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there were so many
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SPEAKER_00: question marks about my career.
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I confided in my boyfriend and told him how terrified I was of
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the financial uncertainty.
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He reminded me we cannot put money on a pedestal because if we
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do,
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it will rule over our lives.
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And that story,
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the one where money determines your worth,
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is a form of imprisonment.
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SPEAKER_00: I knew that I did not want to participate in it.
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SPEAKER_00: Now,
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there's a phrase I come back to all the time that helps shift
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out of narratives
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SPEAKER_00: that don't serve us,
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SPEAKER_00: and it's that story follows state.
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SPEAKER_00: The stories you tell yourself about who you are,
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SPEAKER_00: about what your life means,
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SPEAKER_00: about whether you're enough,
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all of those stories are really just trying to protect you and
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keep you safe.
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SPEAKER_00: When your body is in survival mode,
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SPEAKER_00: your mind generates these survival stories like,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm not enough,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm falling behind,
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SPEAKER_00: I need to earn more,
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SPEAKER_00: I've got to work harder.
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Those were the stories that were running through my mind before
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the big move.
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SPEAKER_00: And here's what I've learned about that experience.
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SPEAKER_00: When we're in that kind of transition,
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SPEAKER_00: when an old identity is falling away and the new one hasn't arrived yet,
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what our nervous system needs more than anything is a sense of
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safety in the body.
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SPEAKER_00: Not answers, not certainty, not a new plan, just to feel safe.
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SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with the chakra system,
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SPEAKER_00: you know that this is the sole purpose of our root chakra,
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the energy center at the base of the spine that gives us a
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sense of safety and
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SPEAKER_00: belonging.
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SPEAKER_00: When it's balanced, we feel stable enough to handle and navigate change.
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SPEAKER_00: When the root chakra is depleted,
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SPEAKER_00: which it almost always is during major life transitions,
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SPEAKER_00: our other energy centers can get thrown off too.
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SPEAKER_00: Our creativity may dim.
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SPEAKER_00: Our intuition gets harder to hear.
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SPEAKER_00: Our heart feels closed.
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SPEAKER_00: Our voice gets quieter.
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SPEAKER_00: So we've got to handle that.
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SPEAKER_00: In order to balance your root chakra, you've got to ground your energy.
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SPEAKER_00: For me, when I needed grounding, I always start with something simple.
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A practice as simple as pausing before my first sip of water
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each morning when I
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SPEAKER_00: can connect to my breath,
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SPEAKER_00: drop my awareness from my mind and into my low belly,
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SPEAKER_00: allowing my exhales to be a little bit longer than my inhales.
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Now that small shift can help get you out of your head and drop
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you deeper into your body.
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SPEAKER_00: What this does is help signal to your nervous system that you're safe.
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SPEAKER_00: even when external circumstances haven't changed yet.
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SPEAKER_00: Because this breath awareness technique is so simple,
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SPEAKER_00: you can do it a few times throughout the day to help relieve any stress,
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SPEAKER_00: worry,
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SPEAKER_00: anxiety,
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SPEAKER_00: and you'll start to learn how to resource yourself
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SPEAKER_00: into a state of safety when you're feeling uneasy.
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SPEAKER_00: If you're navigating a big transition in your life right now,
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SPEAKER_00: you need to know that shedding an old identity,
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SPEAKER_00: it can be really uncomfortable and also humbling.
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SPEAKER_00: So give yourself grace.
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SPEAKER_00: That is what I had to do when we decided to move to Paris.
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SPEAKER_00: When we finally landed in Charles de Gaulle at the Paris airport,
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SPEAKER_00: we settled into an Airbnb in the 10th R&D's Mont,
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SPEAKER_00: a neighborhood full of locals,
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SPEAKER_00: not a tourist in sight.
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SPEAKER_00: We had this perfect conversation
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SPEAKER_00: quaint apartment.
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SPEAKER_00: It was actually tucked away off of a side street,
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SPEAKER_00: about a 10 minute walk from the famous Canal Street.
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SPEAKER_00: And that became our home base.
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SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing that I didn't expect about living in Paris.
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SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever asked me what I did for work.
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SPEAKER_00: Very different from meeting new people in the US.
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SPEAKER_00: It's actually rarely even a point of conversation when meeting Parisians.
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And when you've spent most of your adult life believing that
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your worth is tied to
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SPEAKER_00: your career,
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SPEAKER_00: that kind of freedom can catch you off guard.
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SPEAKER_00: For the first time in years, I wasn't focused on my business.
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SPEAKER_00: I wasn't striving for growth.
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SPEAKER_00: I was just being.
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We spent Christmas in Paris,
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and if you've never experienced it,
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there's nothing like it.
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SPEAKER_00: It is more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
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SPEAKER_00: The lights, the markets, all of the Christmas spirit.
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Two-hour morning walks through the city became my norm,
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of course,
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with the
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SPEAKER_00: croissant in hand.
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SPEAKER_00: And whether we cooked at home or we ate out,
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SPEAKER_00: we would enjoy long,
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SPEAKER_00: slow dinners with the freshest ingredients every single night.
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SPEAKER_00: I remember feeling so present whenever we were eating,
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wandering through a museum or exploring a part of Paris that we
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had never been
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SPEAKER_00: before.
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SPEAKER_00: Every slow morning,
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SPEAKER_00: every meal that would last hours,
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SPEAKER_00: every walk with nowhere to be,
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it was all quietly proving something to me that I hadn't been
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able to see before.
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SPEAKER_00: Paris didn't care about the identity I'd tied to my work,
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SPEAKER_00: and slowly I started to wonder if I needed to either.
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SPEAKER_00: From Paris,
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SPEAKER_00: we made our way to Northern Italy to visit Dominher,
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which is a spiritual community built over decades as an
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experiment in conscious
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SPEAKER_00: living.
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SPEAKER_00: Art,
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SPEAKER_00: spirituality,
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and architecture are all beautifully woven together in a way
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that almost dissolves
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SPEAKER_00: these boundaries between the sacred and everyday life.
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SPEAKER_00: I could probably do multiple episodes just on Dom and her,
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SPEAKER_00: but here's what I'll say about it now.
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Being surrounded by people who devote their lives to building
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something both
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meaningful and beautiful really woke me up to something I'd
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stop paying attention
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SPEAKER_00: to.
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SPEAKER_00: Rick Rubin writes about this in The Creative Act.
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He says the real work of the artist,
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it isn't the thing that you produce.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a way of being in the world.
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SPEAKER_00: At Damanhur, I saw people who didn't just make art.
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They made their homes,
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their routines,
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their community,
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their whole life into art.
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SPEAKER_00: Also, it wasn't performative.
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SPEAKER_00: It was just how they lived.
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SPEAKER_00: And just like Damanhurians, your life can be a creative act too.
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SPEAKER_00: Not just your work, but your whole life.
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And if you've been waiting for permission to create in a way
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that has nothing to do
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SPEAKER_00: with your job or what anybody else might think,
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SPEAKER_00: consider this your permission slip.
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SPEAKER_00: After returning to Paris,
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SPEAKER_00: my boyfriend and I felt a strong pull to the south of France,
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SPEAKER_00: so we booked a trip to Nice.
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I remember on the train ride south,
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I felt the energy shift almost immediately.
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SPEAKER_00: The further we got from Paris, the calmer gets.
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I felt I loved the spaciousness along the coast and being
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surrounded by so much nature.
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Something in my body started to settle in a way that it hadn't
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yet on that whole trip.
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SPEAKER_00: By the time we arrived in Nice, it was late.
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SPEAKER_00: Dusk was setting in.
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I remember it was probably at least 10 degrees warmer than
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Paris,
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and it felt heavenly.
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We stayed in the most gorgeous hotel that was newly renovated
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with a view of the sea.
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And that next morning we got up early just to go on a hike that
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was around the
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SPEAKER_00: corner from our hotel.
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And right away on that hike,
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we both knew the South of France had stolen our hearts.
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SPEAKER_00: Part of me was surprised.
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I had been so certain about Paris,
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so settled in the vision of living there.
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SPEAKER_00: And then Nice kind of changed everything.
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SPEAKER_00: Not the dream itself, but the shape of it.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's something I want to name because I think it matters.
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SPEAKER_00: Anytime you think you want something and then the desire shifts,
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SPEAKER_00: it doesn't mean that you're flaky or that you don't know what you want.
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A lot of times the things we desire,
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it's not actually about that specific thing.
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SPEAKER_00: It's the feeling that we believe it will bring us.
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SPEAKER_00: So what I realized in Mies was that my dream didn't change.
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SPEAKER_00: My vision just got clearer.
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So here's four quick things I want you to walk away with from
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this episode.
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SPEAKER_00: First, trust the pull.
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SPEAKER_00: Even when it doesn't make logical sense, your intuition is not confused.
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SPEAKER_00: It's just ahead of your timeline.
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SPEAKER_00: If you ever feel a pull that you've been rationalizing away, just pay
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SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to those things and trust those intuitive nudges.
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SPEAKER_00: Second, you are not your income.
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SPEAKER_00: If you've been tying your worth to what you earn,
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SPEAKER_00: what you produce,
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SPEAKER_00: or how much you contribute,
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SPEAKER_00: that is not your identity.
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SPEAKER_00: That is a story your nervous system is telling you to keep you safe.
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And you can let it go the more you learn to self-regulate and
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establish internal
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SPEAKER_00: safety through grounding your energy.
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SPEAKER_00: Third, your life is a creative act.
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SPEAKER_00: Creativity is not something you produce.
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SPEAKER_00: It's something you are.
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SPEAKER_00: When we stop rushing,
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we can actually hear the intuitive nudges that are trying to
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guide us towards what
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SPEAKER_00: it is we're meant to create.
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SPEAKER_00: not just in our careers, but in how we live.
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SPEAKER_00: And fourth, let your dreams evolve.
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SPEAKER_00: If something you thought you wanted starts to shift,
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SPEAKER_00: it just means that your vision is getting clearer.
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SPEAKER_00: Trust that.
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SPEAKER_00: The version of the dream you've been holding might just be the doorway,
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SPEAKER_00: not necessarily the destination.
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SPEAKER_00: You don't have to abandon it.
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SPEAKER_00: You just have to stay open to what it's pointing you towards.
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SPEAKER_00: Remember, your vision doesn't change.
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SPEAKER_00: It just gets clearer every time you take a step towards it.
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SPEAKER_00: That is all I have for you guys today.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Lately with Lexi.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: If this episode resonated, I'd love to hear from you.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Leave a comment or write a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
12:49
Make sure to subscribe on Substack to stay up to date on my
12:53
writings and be the
12:54
SPEAKER_00: first to know about upcoming workshops and retreats.
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My next workshop will be in Sarasota,
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Florida for spring equinox on March 22nd.
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SPEAKER_00: Send me an email if you want more details to sign up.
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SPEAKER_00: And lastly,
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all of the links to work with me are in the show notes below in
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case you want to
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SPEAKER_00: book a reading,
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SPEAKER_00: a healing,
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SPEAKER_00: or a consult.
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SPEAKER_00: And I will see you next week.