Latest / The Rochelle Christiane Podcast / 151. Becoming Flawesome: Stepping Into Your Authenticity with Kristina Mand Lakhiania

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151. Becoming Flawesome: Stepping Into Your Authenticity with Kristina Mand Lakhiania · The Rochelle Christiane Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Emotional Mastery Podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I am your host, rochelle.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This podcast started as a space to really just share my journey, to share the experiences and the things that I was going through as I learned to self-regulate, as I learned to manage my emotions, and it has transformed into so much more.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I am a 6'3 emotional manifesting generator in human design, and so this space is really just everything that I trial and error.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's everything amazing guests coming to you talking about their journey, their experiences with emotions, and really just take what resonates and leave what doesn't.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We're all unique individuals and so we all have different perspectives, we all have different viewpoints, and it's really coming to that space where you can trust yourself and that's where I really.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: That is my mission, that is my goal, my purpose to empower you to trust yourself, to find that space, to ground in it, to come back to yourself over and over and over again, because there's so much freedom and there is so much power and there is so much beauty in that.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: This journey can feel really isolating at times.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: It is beautiful, it is painful, it is joyful, it is love, it is all of the things and we are all of the things all at once, and so just have grace with yourself, have compassion with yourself through this, and I am so grateful that you are listening to this episode, wherever you are listening.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you for allowing me into your day.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of the Emotional Mastery Podcast.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Today I'm talking to Christina Menlachiani, all about her new book, becoming a Flossom.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I recorded this episode back in October and, like so many of the episodes that are now coming out from back in that timeframe, so much has shifted for me personally.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like I quantum leap, just a completely different person, and so, as I listen back to the way I was speaking and holding myself and all those things like during this time, it's just really interesting to reflect and see the progress.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: And, as always, everything that we talk about in this episode is coming back full force right now.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's so resonant.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, we talk about Christina's new book, which is Becoming Flossom.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: It is stepping into your authenticity.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: It is embracing your flaws right in order to like alchemize and then like step into your gifts.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And I've been diving into the Jean Keys with the Holistic Human Design Academy over the past week.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: We started this past week and we're going to be going through the genius sequence, the Venus sequence and the prosperity sequence.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And a core theme of this as you contemplate your Jean Keys, as you integrate your Jean Keys, as you move through this it's about allowing, accepting and embracing your shadows right, because if we don't accept our shadows, if we don't see our shadows, if we don't hold space for our shadows, then we are simply suppressing them and you can't really step into your true authenticity unless you are holding space for those parts of yourself that somebody somewhere along the line told you you were wrong for or you perceived to be wrong due to what societal standards were.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And especially as women, we really dive into that in this episode about embracing our femininity and how scary almost that is for a lot of women.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I know I've operated from a very masculine perspective for a long time because that was what was valued within my home, at least, it felt like it, that's the way I perceived it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: So that was definitely the way that I perceived femininity growing up.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And so now, as I am becoming more into myself and I am embracing myself and my shadows and all the things, I am leaning more into this feminine flow, this feminine nature, this feminine needs that we, as if you identify as female.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I think that it's really important to embrace those qualities and, as we say, masculine and feminine, we all hold these qualities.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: This is not just a woman or a man.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: We all have masculine and feminine within us and we all need to balance them in order to be this cohesive, coherent individual, this authentic.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Some of us may lean more feminine, some of us may lean more masculine, but I think it's really important to embody, accept and embrace all those aspects of yourself.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So Christina is an international speaker.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: She's an entrepreneur, artist, philanthropist and mother of two kids.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: She's the co-founder of Mindvalley, which is a leading publisher in the personal growth industry.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Christina dedicated the last 17 years of her career to personal growth, having worked and learned from teachers like Michael Beckwith, bob Proctor, lisa Nichols and many more.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: She started her career in a government office in her native Estonia and by her mid-20s, achieved a level of success mostly known to male politicians at the end of their careers.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: We really dive into that in this episode as well.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Shortly after that she met, she and her husband, vishen, founded Mindvalley From a small meditation business operating out of the couple's apartment in New York.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: The company quickly grew into a global educational organization offering top training for peak human performance to hundreds of thousands of students all around the world.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Christina helps her students to virtually hack happiness by taking them through her unique framework Hacking Happiness a unique framework of balancing your life, taking in every moment and paying close attention to the small daily choices.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: She's also the author of three transformational quests Seven Days to Happiness, live by your Own Rules and the Art of being Flossom.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Christina talks about personal transformation, authenticity, understanding and accepting oneself, and a path to happiness.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So her book was officially released this week, so I'm really excited to have and host and hold space for this conversation on this episode.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I have ordered my book, so I'm really excited to receive it and move through it and read it.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I also, at the beginning of this episode, twice called her book Becoming Flawless, and it is not.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: It is becoming Flawsome and I love the meaning behind that and that is what Christina gets to within this episode.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I am officially off of vacation and yet I feel like something shifted so profoundly within me, I think, just being in nature and being connected.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I've had multiple people who have said like wow, you're just like glowing now, and I think it's because we all, I think it's really important to craft your why.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And within the Healy community right now we're doing this immersion, this intensive immersion, and part of that is crafting your why, and this is something I've done years and years and years ago and it always shifts and always changes.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I'm a six line in human design, so that's sort of part of the process, right, it's like we just go through these different phases in life and we're always sort of shifting and crafting and reassessing our why.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I've also been going through Manifestation Babe, academy, mba and so this is like as we're looking from a manifestation perspective.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: There are steps to manifestation and we often have to revisit our what's the word I'm looking for.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The first step is to define, decide and declare right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: We have to get clear on what our manifestation is.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: We have to get clear on what our why is.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And, as I'm reflecting over the past 10 days, two weeks, let's say even a month, I think a lot of the shifts come from being in a space where I was surrounded by this beauty of nature.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: One of my pillars is travel.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: One of my pillars is freedom.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Those are probably my two biggest pillars, and so I was traveling and I felt so free within that space.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I did a lot of shopping but I didn't feel guilty about it, right.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And it's those little shifts that maybe before I would have felt shame for spending so much money and not being in work or not like the traditional I don't know all those sort of societal things that come about but I felt so free just to be me and I was lit up and I was traveling and it was beautiful and I was in awe and I was like feeling all of those things.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: And so when it came back the first day, I actually got really frustrated to be back here and I was like, oh, like I had that moment where I like victim mindset, right, I was like I'm stuck, I can't do this, I can't do that.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I put myself down and I was like, okay, roussel, what was it that you were feeling over the last two weeks, that you feel like you are not feeling right now?
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: And it came down to those two things.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: It was freedom is my number one core pillar of anything I do.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I always filter it through the lens of will this make me feel freedom or will it not?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: And if it does, I move towards that and I know in my system like what that feels like, and so what I realized was the last like two weeks I felt free, I felt freedom, and travel, for me, always helps me feel free.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It's just my North notice in the ninth house.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I've always traveled all of my life and so that is always something that lights me up deeply, like on a level that is even hard to put into words.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Travel for me is everything, and so it had me realize that I need to incorporate that in my life.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Right, and even I'm already planning another trip for October, and so even just in that, it makes me feel expanded, it makes me feel free, it makes me feel this freedom, and so I've really been incorporating that now in my everyday, like how can I continue to feel those feelings?
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: And creating that, why, creating those pillars, creating those those?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Um, I don't even know the way I'm looking for is creating those.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I'm just defining that for yourself what is the thing that you want and why, and then even just distilling that down to what is the emotion that that thing brings you, because that is where, when you can create that emotion in your body and when you can hold that emotion in your body and find ways to give yourself that emotion in your body.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: That is when you will begin to manifest, that is when you'll begin to move the needle, that is when you can begin to shift your mindset and change your neural pathways.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And, like all these things, it's not always, it's not an overnight fix.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You know, my journey has been long and I know that my journey needed to be long for a very specific reason, and so I feel like now, as things are actually moving, and I'm starting to, I'm starting to get out of my mind where I'm doing things that in the past I would have been like oh no, no, no.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And it's not that I don't feel scared doing them now, but there's something that has shifted and it's like this is the only thing, this is the only way that we can actually change right, and we need to continue to do the things that make us feel fear, because when we continue to do those things that we're afraid of, we will literally tell our subconscious it is actually safe to do those things.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And so that's where I'm at right, like that's what I continue to do.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I continue to show up in these spaces that once upon a time, like I might have felt really fearful of, or really awkward or anxious, and it's not to say that I'm not feeling those things now, but it also lights me up so much and I really think like for me, giving up alcohol it's been nearly 10 months now has been the catalyst for this, because it's like wow, if I can do that and if I can show up here as myself without alcohol, if I can do this as myself without alcohol, what else can I do?
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Right, like it sort of makes me feel like this, like the possibilities are limitless.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Right, like going through a week, you know, I honestly feel like this past vacation with my family has been was the most beautiful grounded in my body vacation I've ever taken, because, you know, family is family, I love my family and I and also I think like when I was drinking, come as we made, that would trigger me and because I was drinking, I would just be like, oh, like defensive about it and emotional, whatever.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: And now I think it was just so much easier to be like, huh, that's interesting, that would have triggered me, or if something did trigger me, it was just a lot briefer and be like okay, well, this is their wounding, it's not mine, I don't have to hold that, and so it's given me a lot more clarity within my system and within my body, and I think a lot of that is what sort of like this conversation with Christina is.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: It's embracing your flaws in order to find your true authenticity.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Right, it's finding compassion and self love for yourself to find your true authenticity.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: You know, and it was a really beautiful conversation.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to share this conversation with you all and, just as a sort of wrap up before the conversation begins, the Holistic Human Design Academy is starting its second round At the end of August.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I have not set a specific date, but if you sign up with the link below, you'll get an email when that date is finalized, because this program has been everything.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: It has been fucking amazing and the feedback is amazing and these women are beautiful.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It's just been like watching their self awareness and providing tools to regulate their emotions and just like as we're peeling back all these layers, piece by piece, of your human design, your astrology, understanding those and then the gene keys and subconscious reprogramming and energetics, and like all these layers on top of each other, it's just bringing so many like ahas and it's such a beautiful program, it's a beautiful transformation to witness and I'm so excited to continue this and share it with you all.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: So, again, if you want to get on the waitlist for that program, the link is down below I'm also launching an emotional authority workshop.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: That will be July 21st is when it is going out and it is seven modules, all about your emotional authority.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So it's about the solar plexus, the gates, the channels.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: It's about the moon, the venus signs, how you experience your emotions, how to regulate your emotions, how to rewire your subconscious and how to model we do talk about the unconscious and the or the undefined and open solar plexus because I think it's important.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: As emotional authority individuals, as feeling individuals, as emotionally defined individuals, we are here to model a healthy way to experience and express our emotions, because 50% of us are defined and 50% of us are not, and so the ones that are not are taking in an amplifying and so if we're in an unhealthy expression, they're taking in an amplifying that in an unhealthy way.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: So that link also will be down below.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You can there's a presale right now.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You can get in on that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: It will be out July 21st and I hope that you love this episode.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Come find us on Instagram at Rochellechann.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I'm also sort of loving threads right now.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of up and down on that, but I'm kind of loving that as well.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I'm over there.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know my threads like badge number, but you can find all on Instagram and Christina is on Instagram at Christina Mond and that is K-R-I-S-T-I-N-A-M-A-N-D, so you can follow her there.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Grab her book.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Every single link is in the show notes.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening and I will catch you next time.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome, christina, to the emotional mastery podcast.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Today I have Christina Mande Lacanee, who is an international speaker, entrepreneur, philanthropist, artist and mother of two and co-founder of Mindvalley.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have you on the podcast today to talk about your new book, becoming Flawless.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: So I'll just start, if you would like to introduce yourself and just kind of give a brief overview of your journey, how you've got to where you are now and sort of any defining moments along the way.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: So thank you, rochelle, for having me.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: And I, you know, I always struggle when I have to introduce myself because it so depends on the conversation how you're going to you know, the way you introduce yourself, that kind of defines the way you're going to be, that kind of defines the rest of the conversation.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: So I guess my defining moment was midlife crisis and I'm saying it half jokingly and half seriously, but I actually was still a perfectionist for many, many years and very you know, very familiar type to a lot of people hyper achieving, perfectionist, ambitious kind of person, a very typical contemporary human being.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And and at the age of 40, I suddenly realized that, despite having ticked all the right boxes in my life and having achieved all the right things in my life and in fact, the things that I wanted to achieve, I was somehow unhappy, and the worst part of it was that I didn't dare to admit that because I felt shame for not feeling perfectly happy and content as I'm supposed to.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: When you have your perfect Hollywood ending, which I mean in the middle of the life, it's never an ending yet.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, that actually made me start questioning what's what's going on in my life, and I like to present it in a way that I took a sledgehammer and destroyed it, but in reality the pieces of my life was still there.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: So if it was Disney castle earlier than I think, what I'm trying to assemble right now something very different.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: It's not a Disney castle, but it may be, you know, maybe a medieval castle or a starship, who knows?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's, you know, a lot of people kind of.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You know, like you said, just having that that outer appearance of everything is is perfect, right, and we try and like maintain that, but yet inside it's like, yeah, just finding that, that inner happiness within yourself, and you've been in the personal development space for a while, and so how did that, how did all of that play like leading up to this, this moment where you're just like this is not working?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I ended up in personal growth, a little bit accidentally.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: So, for the background, I was born in Soviet Union and I was teenager and Soviet Union collapse, so actually I was raised in that mentality.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: So anything which was non academic was frowned upon.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: So personal growth wasn't my natural choice.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Business wasn't also a natural choice, but I followed my then husband to us and I had to reinvent everything and I ended up doing personal growth.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: So I've been doing it for 20 years.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: The first huge part of this time it was in the role of entrepreneur and marketer and it was exactly around that time when I started shifting into something different.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: So I became an author and a right hand speaker in personal growth.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Relatively recently I reinvented myself, but I guess that's this reinvention in the middle of your life is kind of normal for a lot of people.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it was an accident and and when I had my dark tunnel in my life or my dark moment in my life, I resorted to psychology, because that's that's what I find very interesting, also accidentally, but it gave me so many interesting not always answers, sometimes sometimes more interesting questions to look for answers and that's how I ended up switching off that part of me which was into marketing and being just purely entrepreneur and focusing much more on writing and being an author and being a speaker.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: And you started in the government, right?
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, working in government.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: It took quite a big shift.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a politician by education.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, and so was that your move to the US that kind of shifted that?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, I started.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: So you see, after post-Soviet Estonia, we were one of those one-day children after Soviet Union because we did the things right.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: And one of the right things to do was to completely shift everyone who was running this, the country because it was, it was until then run by communists, so it just happened so that when I started Korea, it was mostly young people in the power.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: So, for example, when I was, I actually made a very fast career, became responsible for foreign and international relations to the governor of the capital region by the age of 20.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Wow, I wasn't even legally allowed to have this job, but you know, I wasn't so special because our minister of education and minister of defense these two people were 27.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So, yes, I started in the government, but then, as I got married, obviously government career if you, if you go so far away, it's a little harder to to get back into that.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I did do a little bit of work with UN, but I got disillusioned.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and how did that like?
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: What did you learn from that phase into kind of like pulling that into personal development and where you're at now?
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It's so curious to be talking about my personal experience Because I have to think.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I have to think it was.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I wasn't in the habit of analyzing my life at that time too much.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: And I.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I guess it was the, the youth and the the bliss of being young and carefree and not worrying too much.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: So I never analyzed of how things were.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: The interesting thing was that I was okay with leaving everything behind and making a huge U-turn in my life, and not I wasn't bothered about.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to rediscover myself, or is it going to be better or worse than than it was right now, of course, if it seems almost scary just thinking that it could have stayed working for the government for the rest of my life, but at that time it was.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: It was the bliss of just going where your heart takes you and not worrying too much.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: That's, that's probably the.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: The thing that I took.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Of course, my education and the fact that I followed through into my career with my education, which is a blessing as well gave me the capability of talking.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: You know politics and international politics.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: The most important task is to to talk, so that that was helpful and when.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: I guess it gave me some courage and the idea that the illusion that everything is possible and whatever illusion you have in your head, that's what's going to become your reality.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So I was lucky with my illusions.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely yeah.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask what brought you into public speaking and if that was something that came naturally to you or something that you really had to work towards.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not my.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: My relationship with public speaking is curious.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: As a, as a student, I enjoyed it very much.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed being on stage, I enjoyed people's attention and I guess that's a little bit of a narcissist in me, but.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: But when I started speaking professionally because one thing is to speak when you have to speak, and in professional capacity, especially if we are talking about politics I used to write speeches for our governor, which was very interesting, creative task for me.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: But looking at some politicians speaking, I am horrified because they're just feeling the time and it's just, it's just horrible.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Of course, personal growth kind of speaking is very different and the speaking in itself is art.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: But in my heart and my head I separate the perfection in speaking from from the message, and I don't care about the perfection in speaking as much, although I do truly admire good speakers, quite technically very good speakers.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I admire them like you would admire a good dancer or a good singer.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: But my heart is more pulled towards speakers who have deep message and some of them are very, very mellow, energy kind of speakers.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: A lot of them are more philosophical and that that would what I find exciting.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: But then I have to say a little disclaimer I've been in personal growth for 20 years.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I've worked with almost anyone in our industry and I've seen them on stage and off stage and I've seen their books, some of them I've read.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: So of course I'm privileged to be so picky, yeah, and being around that?
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I asked that question.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I mean I am always fascinated and when I see public speaking because for me I literally took public speaking college and I like blacked out, I don't remember it, but I have the grade, I don't remember anything but it's like when I close my eyes and like see my future and feel into it, like I see myself on the stage and so it's kind of like getting from point A to point B, and so I'm always curious with people who are such beautiful public speakers.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: It's like was that?
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Because I know for some it really took effort and consistency and practice and kind of like putting yourself in there.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: But it's a choice as well.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I've learned public speaking with some of the best speakers in the world and I know, as I'm going to publish my book, I've been told that a lot of things are going to be expected from me and a certain way of presenting myself is going to be expected from me.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: But here comes the biggest twist.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: What I teach is essentially authenticity and being happy in your real, true form, which might not be exactly what is expected of you on stage.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And how many times I've gone on stage knowing how I'm expected to be and refusing to do that because I'm incredibly obstinate for my own reasons.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: So it's a choice.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: It's a choice to go that way, and while in the end of the 20th century it was a choice somebody else took for you, you just didn't have a chance.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Right now it's not.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: So there are a lot of amazing people who are not that kind of speakers, for example, neil Don't Walsh as a speaker he's.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Or anybody who teaches any Zen like you get any Buddhist on stage.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: They don't speak like your typical professional speaker does, but you can listen to them for days.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a perfect shift into your book.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Becoming Floss.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Two, and that was sort of like a question so you teach authenticity and it sounds like you kind of you obviously perfect person to be teaching it because you kind of like go your way regardless.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: But how would you teach somebody who maybe would succumb to or feel the pressure of having to perform in a certain way that is maybe not authentic to themselves?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Like, how do you just show up as yourself when everybody's telling you to do something different?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Well, I'll go to that question.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I have to make it very clear that my book is Becoming Floss Some, which I'm sorry You're going to know.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: It's about the idea that you're going to be flawed.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: We all are going to be flawed.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Perfection is unattainable, thank God.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: What I'm trying to convey and of course, right now it would be a huge logical question, would be a huge logical jump what I'm trying to convey in my book and in my teachings is that it is exactly your flaws and the things that you might be ashamed of where your biggest value lies, and a lot of.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: For a lot of us, the struggle is to actually face those things, face and embrace them and come to peace with our dragons.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I like to call our flaws and imperfections dragons because it's more visual and we all have these dragons in the dungeons of our beautiful castles.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: But a lot of the times and I know that from experience because, as I said, I'm perfectionist, but a really long history of perfectionist a lot of the times we have a tendency to see those dragons as enemies and to weed them out.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the times, when we go into something, we think that what we need to do is to get rid of things which make us what we are, because these are our weaknesses and our flaws.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: What I'm trying to explain is that?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: No, that's not the case, and it is a longer discussion.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Of course, in just one short answer I wouldn't be able to convince maybe every single listener, but I could share my own experience when I went on stage in capacity of a speaker.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Of course I've gone on stage for years, but in capacity of a speaker and an author of my own content.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I was scared because I share stage with the best people in the world, with third speakers, with celebrities, and I come from a small Eastern European country well, politically not correct Northern European, north Eastern European country and I have a bizarre accent, so bizarre that in the beginning of my career people were asking me not to speak on video because it would confuse American listeners and they'll be more concerned about my accent than what I have to say.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: So I had a lot of insecurities and I remember going on stage, going on stage in front of a huge audience.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It was a very responsible event for me because it was our event Mindvalley event and I felt that I cannot afford not perform.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Because I'm co-founder, obviously I have to perform and I was terrified.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I was terrified.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I forgot how to breathe.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: So I was standing around the corner of the building trying to remind myself how to breathe before I had to go on stage and hiding from the people.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: And then this one woman passes by and she sees me and she suddenly recognizes me and she says oh, that's you.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I've been looking forward to your speech and that is a big event, with the best author speaking right before me.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I was surprised, but that woman actually was a turning point in my career because she said you know, when you speak, I feel like you're not just this, you know God in the Olympus, you are, I feel like I'm speaking, you're speaking to me, like it's me speaking to myself in the mirror, because you're so relatable.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: And at that point I realized that my the things that I feel ashamed of, that I'm too simple, that I'm not.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I don't look like a God, I don't sound like a God, I don't perform on stage like, like that unattainable deity.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: That exactly is what people value in my message.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: And I remember when I went on stage after this interaction, I felt so much strength and power because I thought I was so unique, I was so different.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It's exactly my imperfections.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: It's exactly the things that made me struggle, that made me feel ashamed, that give me the value that I have to give to the world, not my attempt, because I am perfectionist and entrepreneur.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: If you tell me to perform in a certain way, I can do that.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Of course I can do that.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But does the world need another clone of a good speaker?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Probably not.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's powerful, I think bringing up human design I know we briefly talked about it before this episode always it's always on my mind, but for me that was just a really pivotal in my personal growth journey was understanding.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: You talk about seeing your flaws.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I think part of the beautiful part of the human design system is that it shows you all of these areas where you've been conditioned in your life.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: For me, when I looked at it, it was like all of the things I've always perceived as wrong about myself from the outside People who made me feel or I felt based on what I saw them perceiving in me were wrong.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: We were really just like who I was.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It gave you this permission to just be who you are, as you are.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of shadow work into these things for me, because nothing's wrong but it's like we perceive it to be.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Then it gives you this, that anxiety around showing up as yourself.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: But I think that's a beautiful thing to just be able to show up.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: That perfection wants you to fall in line and be like everybody else, but it is beautiful to just stand out on your own.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: If you don't mind, I'd like to give a twist to that.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: An additional twist to that, of course.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course, there's nothing wrong about being you.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: We could go deeper into that topic, but the twist that I want to give is that who decides, or who decided in the first place that something was wrong with you?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: We often attempted to say that it's a society.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: We started this conversation and said that I made a career very fast and I was a perfectionist.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: On top of that, I was a straight-A student all my life All those things that society says that this is success.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: But who decided in the first place that I would even listen to that?
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Let's say, who decided in the first place that my accent was wrong or that my origin was wrong or that my speaking style was inferior to traditional speakers?
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: And I'll rely on my experience as a personal growth entrepreneur.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I've seen so many people on stage wonderful people, some teachers who have the most wonderful messages but they go on stage and they get scared and they start doubting themselves.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: And some of the best speakers I've seen great speakers who actually, the moment they start to doubt themselves, they don't come across as good, and that's the feedback they're getting.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And I've seen people who have no questions about oh no, I am a star.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: They go on stage, they say ridiculous, simple things.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Let's say simple things, sometimes ridiculous things, and people are mesmerized like little bunnies looking at a snake.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: It's usually we wear our own opinion about ourselves, like clothing, like costume.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: We teach the world how they're going to receive you, and I've been in the framework of the same event.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I've been on stage delivering pretty much the same quality of content.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I'm in the same stage of my life.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I'm the same person.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Once I come on stage, I'm scared, I'm not sure it's something new, and the feedback I get is horrible.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Literally one week later I go on stage knowing that I'm the superstar and I get a standing ovation.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: So who decided?
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: What changed about me?
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: It's almost like having multiple personalities.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: It's just my opinion.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: So very often it is not the world that says that something is wrong with you.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: It's your own decision.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: But just the same way as you may decide that being born in an obscure northeastern European country is a handicap, just the same way I might decide.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: This is a strength that I can rely on, which I haven't actually reframed this way yet.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe there is a strength in that.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And how do you lean into that?
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: So like, if you come on stage one week and it's received maybe with criticism, how do you then go back on stage and then be perceived as a superstar within yourself?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: How do you kind of it's a very interesting thing.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: First of all, of course, I have unlimited reservoir of self-love and I do not know if you have kids.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I have two kids and I've learned it with children.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: You see, when we raise the child, we may scare a child into success.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: We may tell the child you have to work hard, otherwise you will be a loser and you'll have a miserable life.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Or you can encourage your child into success.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Where the child does something and it may be questionable or not, according to your level of perfection, a good parent usually would say it was a great try.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: I admire your courage.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Right Shall we try again.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: So when it comes to children, it's so easy to understand that when a child fails, the best way to encourage this child to go on is to love and give love to that child despite the failures, not despite.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: It's irrelevant.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: You don't love a child because the child is successful or a failure.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: You love a child because the child is.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Of course, with the age we learn to earn love.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: We learn that you have to be liked.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: You have to be good To be liked to receive love.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: You have to get good grades, you have to behave well, then the teachers will love you Parents will praise you.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: So we learn.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: By the time we grow up, we learn that love needs to be earned.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And that's a scary moment because that's why we go into big life and we suddenly realize that I have to be perfect, because if I'm not, I don't deserve love.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: So in my case, probably the biggest thing that helps me to keep going is the idea that I can give myself love, not because I'm success or failure, but just because I have to be my biggest support.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: And failure is just.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It just is.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: And of course, sometimes you start doubting yourself.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: But you also have to be mindful of yourself.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Talk.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: It's an important part of that.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: And in psychology there is this difference between optimist and pessimist.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I'm very simplifying it right now.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: It's not even the right terms, but basically, people who are optimistic, generally when they face a failure, they don't generalize it.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: They don't personalize the failure.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: They don't say this was a failure because I always fail because I'm so stupid.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: They generally are able to attribute it to certain circumstances.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: For example, I didn't prepare well enough, I wasn't certain in my content, I allowed myself to doubt myself.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I failed, not because I'm crap, but because maybe in that particular case I didn't do the right things, which is okay.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: I can improve, I can change, I can do better the next time.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And pessimists are generally people who well, I'm simplifying this theory, of course, but when they face failure, they attribute it to themselves, they generalize the failure, they say it's always like this and they think the flaw is in them, something is wrong with them, and reverse with the success.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: A lot of the time, pessimists think that success is just chance and optimists personalize success.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: They know that they have earned it.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: So these kind of things can help.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: And, of course, you have to be mindful of what you tell yourself.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm very mean to myself and when I find myself doing that, I try to laugh it off and laugh at the idea that I teach people one thing and then I make a mistake and do exactly the wrong thing to myself.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: And I saw on Instagram you had a self-love diary where you were challenging people to write down their thoughts for the day.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It is really challenging because when you start to do that, you really realize how many negative thought patterns that you have because it's just on autopilot.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: And so how do you go from maybe being a pessimist or having that sort of lack of self-love for yourself to then begin to have that self-love and that courage to show up again when you feel like you failed or you're not a success?
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't work with specifically affectivity of people.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Are they positive or negative?
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: This is psychological work.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: I only focus on self-love, and self-love is possible with a more bleak outlook into the future.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can be in depression and still love yourself.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I think so.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen research, but I believe it is possible.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: So, when it comes to self-love, I believe there are three crucial qualities which you need to work on.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: One of them is honesty, and that's probably one of the toughest, and I know that people were like oh no, that's not a problem for me, but the nature of delusion is that you're never aware that you are living in a delusion, and the way we light ourselves, these ways are so intricate that we are not even aware.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: So if we were to talk about that deeply, you'd find a lot of interesting aspects about how we distort reality.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: So honesty is important and we perfectionists are very good with distorting reality very good, so we are not even aware what we are doing to ourselves.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: The second quality is kindness, and it's very crucial because honesty without kindness is mean, and I'm a huge not fan the opposite of the fan of any kind of tough love, because I don't believe that love or kindness can be tough, or compassion for that matter.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: I think these are two different things, and kindness is crucial.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: If you replace judgment with kindness, your life is going to be very different.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Or if you replace attempts to love with just kindness, which seems so much simpler, a lot of things are going to change.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And the last one, very important, crucial qualities courage.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: And that's not very directly related to honesty or kindness, although probably it is, because courage, in the root of that word, is the Latin word, I believe, heart.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: So courage is about heart, which kindness is also about right.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: So honesty, kindness and courage, these three qualities we need to drill, and then that pays the way to self-love.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's powerful.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: And when you talk about honesty, my mind kind of goes to emotions.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: This is emotional mastery podcast.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: It's always about emotions, but I think even in and there was a quote, I think it was the Buddha, I'm not exactly sure, but it was saying that, like the mad man who realizes he's mad is no longer mad, right, cause it's like we, once we realize it and have awareness of it, it carries so much less weight, you know, and that theme of like honesty when we relate to our emotions.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: So many of us are not honest about our emotions, right, which is where they get trapped and stored in our body, because we're not looking at them, we're not seeing them, we're not feeling them.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Yet we think we are a lot of times, you know.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And so my question to you is, as far as that, like what has your relationship maybe been to emotions and how has that kind of helped, shaped yourself, love for yourself, and where you are now?
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Well, emotions is a huge chunk of my teaching.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: So, because you are going to face emotions you're not going to like and we need to talk about that, we cannot talk about anything in personal growth without dealing with the simplest thing.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: I call it emotional ABC or emotional literacy, whichever is your favorite term, because we are not taught how to feel.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: We are taught how not to feel since childhood Don't scream, don't yell, don't be angry, don't be sad.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: When we grow up, first world problems.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: How dare you all these things?
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Or positive vibes only.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: So for me, the facing of the unpleasant emotions was the beginning of this path.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: To a great degree, as I said, my turning point was a pretty dark moment of my life, so I had to figure out emotions and then I discovered that apparently psychology has figured out emotions long time ago.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: So it's about science.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: It's as academic as can be, and I'm really shocked that we don't teach emotional literacy to kids in school, because there's no argument.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: It's not even about values.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: I get that we don't teach meditation or something else, positive psychology, because that may be about values.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Emotional literacy is pure science.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: And here a great teacher.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Without going deep into this topic, because I can talk about emotions for a long time.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I love this topic.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: A great teacher that I think, who has shaped a lot of my teachings, is Susan Davis.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: She's a psychotherapist from South Africa originally, I think she's now working in US, and her concept that pushed me onto this path is that there are no good or bad emotions, that the moment, the first step that you do is that you stop judging your emotions as good, bad, negative, positive, dark light.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: There are emotions that you want more of and the emotions that you want less of, and I like to compare our emotions to our physical sensations and, without going deep, I'll just give this one analogy because I think it's very important.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Every emotion is given to you for a reason, the same way that pain is given to us for a reason.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: There are people who suffer from I think it's called congenital analgesia.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: It's a medical condition where you can't feel physical pain.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: It's a very small percentage of people who suffer from that, but what happens is that they don't grow to adult age because their bodies break when something is wrong.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: The way our body lets us know that you have to heal, you have to pay attention is it creates pain and when you feel like, for example, that your hand is burning, you know to remove your hand from fire and if you don't feel anything, it's going to deteriorate and well and die.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: That's why people with congenital analgesia do not live to adult age.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: So emotions are given to us for the same reason, but the pleasant or unpleasant, this is your even bodies and psychers way to pay attention to those areas of your life that need healing or fixing or removing yourself out of danger.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: And if you try to attain the case, the state where you don't feel any emotions that would be emotional analgesia, in my opinion your life will deteriorate.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe you won't die physically, but emotionally probably you will.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think those emotions also, they get trapped and then they become some sort of physical ailment at some point.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Right, Because emotions are energy and motion.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: So it's like if we're not moving them, if we're not, if they're just stagnant, trapped inside of us, then it's like what happens to them.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Sorry, I hope you don't mind a little bit naughty joke, but one of my grandparents said that all illnesses in this world from emotions and from psychological condition, except the few which are from pleasure.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that you talk about.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Just because you mentioned pleasure, I know I had read on your website you talk about wicked femininity, and what does that mean to you?
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I'm slightly confused right now.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure what the good was there.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: It was on your website.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: It's OK.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: It was just talking about continuum.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Can I be not very well.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: I do not know what adjective to put to that, but it might have been my copyright who you used to Don't relate with my Instagram, though, is purely written by me.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if she's going to put this there.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I try to be honest.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: The website is copyrighted.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: The blog, if it's not written by me, it would say editor.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: OK, ok, interesting.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I was just curious.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I have to go back to that now.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wasn't sure if there was like a like, just what, I guess what femininity femininity meant like as really related to maybe like pleasure, like wicked I guess, like in the US term terminology, like wicked.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: And I was just curious.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: but I could switch on my politician and try to explain this term, but it might not be authentically what it was meant there.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I have had a struggle with femininity, like so many women in, let's say, in areas where all femininity is not welcome, whether it's professional area, entrepreneurship, business or even speaking.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: I've had a troubled relationship with femininity where you are asking yourself where do I draw the line?
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Do I bring it along to work or not?
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: And for most women it is a question and I do not know what's the honest answer of other women.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: But it took me years to admit that I am just what I am and I'm flirty and I like male attention and if I switch off my femininity, I'm switching off a part of me.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: So I do try to bring it along with me on stage occasionally and sometimes I wear inappropriately I'm back revealing clothing.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: But I think we need more of a discussion in this area because even if we look at politics and I came from politics there's this Finnish Prime Minister, sauna Marin, who has been shamed for her choice of clothing or for her parting, where she's just being herself a young woman.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: She's like 30, early 30s and if you look at any politician of high level woman politician.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: They are gender non-specific creatures in essence, because our femininity is not welcome anywhere, which is such an interesting question.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I don't talk about that a lot, but I think it's the conversation that we as a society we require.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: We had a wonderful speaker speak at one of our latest events in Mindvalley Sheila Kelly she's known for I think it's a Netflix movie Strip Down, rise Up.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Apparently it's a beautiful movie.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: She actually came on stage.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: We had to install a poll on stage and she came on stage and performed and then she gave a wonderful, empowering, really powerful speech and, trust me, I've seen in 20 years I've seen so many speakers.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: She's one of the top, for sure.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Not because of her pole dancing Pole dancing inside the essence of her speech, her presentation, everything was top.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: And she came on stage in pole dancing outfit.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: For me it was after 20 years in this industry.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: It was a moment of well, earth shattering moment.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I realized that we don't have enough of that conversation unfortunately.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Because femininity is uncomfortable for so many people women as well.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and that's why I brought it up.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: The word pleasure triggered that femininity thought and I'm personally for myself until probably 32 years till I was 32, I really showed up in the world in a very masculine way and then I wondered why it was unhappy.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: And I think, as I'm beginning to really integrate that femininity and lean into it more, I think it is a power for us and it is really uncomfortable, especially if I see someone or maybe a past version of myself.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: If I saw somebody who was just embodying their feminine, it would trigger so much in me that I was just like what is wrong with them?
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Or it triggered the judgment because it was something I wanted to embody but I couldn't possibly go there because that's not what I was taught.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And when I look through your Instagram, I mean you have these beautiful flowy dresses and it just seems that you very much embody that feminine side and bring it into what you do, at least now.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: And I know there's always a shifting point.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of why I wanted to bring it up and just how we can kind of embody that more, because it is a powerful thing and in men and women we all have this feminine nature to us.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: That sort of gets repressed.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about flowing dresses only which is feminine, and I do love being in those dresses.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: It makes me feel comfortable.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: It hides all the things I'd like to hide and expose all the things I want to expose.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: But that aside, you said a very, very profound thing right now.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: It is very often when we embrace those things that we were ashamed of where you find power.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: And I know that I can present myself very professionally and turn down that seductive side of me to be professional.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: But I feel the most powerful when I'm allowed to be flirty, to be girly, to be a little bit ridiculous.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: That's when I feel I have the power to move the mountains.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: That's what we started with.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: It is oftentimes the things that you feel ashamed for where your strongest power may be lying.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and coming back to that authenticity, right, You're being authentic to yourself when you can show up that way as opposed to maybe trying to make everybody else comfortable in your then maybe masculine side as opposed to feminine side, and so it's a really powerful, just a really powerful quality to embrace in all of us.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I love that.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: And then one of my questions that I had too, and you had mentioned children, and I'm also a mother.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I have a 12 and a six year old and it's just been one of the most confronting.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, kids are like our mirrors, how, what has and I know you briefly, you know we've kind of talked about it, but how has that helped in your personal growth or development?
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: How has that helped in the way you show up?
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Because, like I said, it's a huge mirror for me and it's it's triggering and it's frustrating, but it's also beautiful and it's like when we can really look to what's coming back to us.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: You know it really helps and grow.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: I have a similar situation, but I'm three years ahead, like 15 and nine.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: So three years ago I had also 12 years old.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: For me it was a huge well, first of all, the way my brain works.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I would learn from everyone.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: I lost the phone once and I learned profound, lifeless from that experience.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: So obviously having children is intensely, intensely educational and illuminating.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I love to compare self love to love for children, because I guess the biggest lesson that I learned with having children is the meaning of unconditional love.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: It's a really hard thing to learn.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: While we talk about love a lot, especially in our industry in 21st century love here, love there we glorify it but we do not define it properly and very often we stretch the phenomenon to the point where it becomes so thin that it's you know it's breaking.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: So for me the idea of unconditional love became clear only when I got children, when I felt for the first time that I'm willing to forgive everything and do anything for the safety and security of my children and I'm not talking about happiness, because that's not in my hands.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: And also, having children has been a huge lesson in taking life philosophically, because a lot of the times they do defy our expectations.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: My eldest child has Asperger's and for me that was a journey to first discover it and then to learn to love him with that because of that not despite, but because of that to finally embracing it to the point where I actually can't imagine him any other way and I wouldn't want him to be any other way.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: And I even forget the fact that he's not a neurotypical child and that was a philosophical journey of learning, acceptance and embracing and finding the strength in things.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: You know, it's always a choice.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be your cursive blessing?
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: It's always a choice.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: And I love, I love quoting people and I would like to quote Gandalf.
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's from a movie, not from the book, although I've read the book twice.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: But you know, when Frodo asks him about why he has to and I assume that everybody knows Lord of the Rings when he, when he asks Gandalf why does he have to do that?
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Because it's such a burden.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: He has to save the Middle Earth, you know, from from perishing.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: Gandalf tells him we never, we don't have a choice which times we are living in, but we will always get to choose what to do with the times that we are given.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: And probably some Buddhist monk had said something like this before thousands of years before that.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: But I think it's such a, it's such a wonderful idea.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: So the children are probably the most powerful lesson in that thing.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: We don't always choose what's going to happen to us, to our children, to the people that we love, but we get to choose how to take what's happening.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: And and what are you going to, you know?
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Are you going to make it your curse or your blessing?
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and how do you use?
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: You know kind of what you speak to and we you teach to with your kids, like in just raising them in this.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: You know space of self love and authenticity.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: I do the opposite.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: It's for me, it's easier with the kids than with myself.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: So what I do?
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: I'll give an example.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm 44.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: And when I turn 40, I believe that something changed, although I've done all the blood work and everything seems to be fine with me.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: But I started putting on weight which I had never had until I was 40.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not much, I'm still.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: I'm still in good shape, but I used to be on the skinny side of my twenties and I remember looking at myself in the mirror and trying to practice the self love eat the dog food.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: And I was making all those plants in my head.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: You know, okay, stop eating that, do this, do that, just lose this belly.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: And then suddenly I thought isn't self love or love of your body supposed to be unconditional?
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Am I willing to love it with the belly?
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: That is different from what I'm used to.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Or am I willing to love it only under the condition that I'm going to get rid of it?
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: I kind of love it right now, but only because I know I'm going to work on losing it.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, I don't have like an ugly or unhealthy belly, but we are.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: So you know, statistically, 80% of women are not happy with what they're seeing in the mirror.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: And in that moment I told myself would I ever say that I would love Hayden?
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: I really love Hayden, but I'm willing to love him 100%.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: If he wasn't as burgers, I laughed out loud because it was ridiculous.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: So with child it sounds ridiculous, yet with my own body it sounds natural, even the right thing to do.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: You know, sharon, how dare you have the extra, whatever kilos?
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's powerful.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I think we like give, we don't give ourselves, or maybe our partners or people in our lives, as much grace and compassion as we give our kids, you know, and it's like when we look at that relationship and being able to kind of think in those terms, like would I say this to my child, you know, like no, I wouldn't.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean I can so relate to that.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: You know, having kids and I'm 36.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: But you know, just, your body does tend to change as you get a little bit older.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: And just being able to love that through that, and you know, I've had those moments where I look in the mirror and I'm just like, oh, my gosh, you know it's not what it once was, and just kind of, but that's yeah, that's really powerful.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: To think like I would never, you know, say this to or have these conditions upon my children, I think that's beautiful.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: So for me, children are definitely the measuring stick to self love.
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: I always ask myself if I'm in doubt.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: I always ask myself, if I was my own child, how would I treat me?
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Of course, we have to admit that not every parent has some conditional love for their child, and not everyone has a child, but we all have at least something which we are very close to loving, unconditional Sometimes it's sometimes it's a pet, it's a dog or a potted plant, I don't know.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's always something to kind of relate to.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else you know on your book becoming flossom that you would like to leave a listeners with if you want to let them know a little bit about where they can find it when it's coming out all the information, and then just yeah, where they can find you.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to switch on my market and say like, no, no, I have nothing else to say about my books, I just buy it and read it.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: But I also have to say that we haven't started pre sales yet because, just for the background, I started writing it because I'm so obstinate and I'm all about being authentic, with or without convention.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: You know, if convention is in my way, then who cares?
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: But later, since I decided it's my first book baby, I want to give it the best.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: So we partnered up with a big publisher.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: So now the publishing date has been moved to next year, to 2023.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: I do not know when this episode is coming out, but it's going to be in May 2023 or June 2023.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: So still a while.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: So for now, you can sign up for pre sell.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: When I start pre selling the book, which will be probably very soon, then that's that's how you can get the book.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you pre buy it, you'll you'll get it once it's launched.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: And meanwhile I have a 10 day program on self love.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: It's a beginners program, yeah, but I talk about some of the concepts, actually about emotional literacy quite a lot.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, well, I still remember how to be a marketer.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for sharing your energy, your wisdom.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: You are an inspiration and just yeah.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for for being here and speaking to listeners of the podcast.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: Of course.