Embodied and Empowered, with Angelina Lombardo
Listening to the body to find healing, purpose, and liberation
Angelina: Absolutely. That's definitely where the liberation lied for me going in. The body actually was an important role in the diagnosis. The diagnosis was for my body. My body had this illness. Where did I take that? What I had known before was that I was trying to live an authentic life, that I thought that being on the path of trying to develop myself. I believed I was doing the best that I can and I was. I absolutely was, but then the body comes into play, and because it had gone through so much trauma in the past there was a true disconnection.
Through that process I was able to come back together with the body, because I know that for me my body tells me everything. That's where that liberation for me, the anxiety where that lives in my body. What story does that tell me? Each day is different, so not getting it right is really important. Every day is about being right there.
VB: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. It takes a lot of wisdom to listen to your body. Of course with trauma this disconnection that you're talking about, yes that's what happens. The body is no longer safe to be in, so of course we flee. People think about trauma, a lot of people think about trauma like something, only something life threatening and huge.
I just want to communicate to all listening right now that there could be so many little traumas that you may not even remember, but your body remembers. Your body doesn't forget anything, and so when you find yourself anxious, when you find yourself hesitating before putting yourself out there in any way check in with your body with a lot of love and compassion.
Listen to that voice, listen where that anxious energy is, because it's trying to protect you from something that it's perceiving as dangerous. When we listen to the body it will tell us what we need to know. I would love to hear from you Angelina, what is your process of tapping into your body wisdom?
Angelina: You know there's not just one process. I know I actually went through several modalities during the process of healing. I think on a daily basis I would say breath is huge for me, and grounding my feet, legs. As we did before this interview is really my starting point to any moment I'm trying to connect to that, because for me like you said the body ... From a very young age my body was not safe to be in. I lived unembodied for a lack of better words, for most of my life. I work everyday on being embodied in everything that I do as a human being.
Instead of trying to enlighten and leave this planet, I'm here, I'm human, and I am spending everyday bringing myself back into my body. The breath and the grounding always is my first place to start. From there I'll listen. What do I need? Sometimes I need water, sometimes I need sound, sometimes I need essential oils, sometimes I need another voice, sometimes I need to speak my truth. I need voice, I need to be seen and heard. It's different, but that's the first place is that. Is the breath.
VB: I love it.
Angelina: Body scan.
VB: Breath. Checking in with your breath, connecting with your breathing, feeling your feet on the ground, and then scanning your body to see ...
Angelina: What it wants.
VB: To listen yeah. What my body needs right now. I love this respectful honoring attitude that you bring into the process.
Angelina: I believe really it's an integral part of being a human being.
VB: Yes. What you said, although people who are on the spiritual path we're all aware that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It is so important that the human experience is in the body. It is through the body that we have it. Yeah. Some spiritual practices may bypass the body.
Angelina: Absolutely, absolutely.
VB: They situate in the mind, and that is so dangerous. I would even go as far as saying with some unfortunate situations with spiritual communities where abuse happened and unethical things happened, I would venture to theorize that it was because people were disconnected. The leaders were disconnected from their bodies, and they could not have an ethical relationship with the followers unless they were fully embodied. That's my take on that.
Angelina: Yeah, yeah. Well you know in trying to heal myself from a very young age I knew that I was in trouble. That was one of the places that I searched for, were other people, safe places. A lot of times those safe places just kept me very in my head with my mind. That's kind of how I worked my ... That's how I survived my life was thinking, and being on my toes, and responding. A chameleon. What does my environment need from me, and that's what I would do.
It would come from my chin to the top of my head. That's where it would happen, that process. I was never able to drop in, they were always giving me messages like we need to be enlightened. This is what we're doing on the planet is for love, compassion. It never recognized the human experience or the darker parts of what that was. It never allowed for me to be in the seat of that dark night at the soul, so to speak, even though I was already there on a continuous basis. It was a little ... It was great, because I obviously was able to see what was going on there and make the shifts.
Yeah, I agree sometimes those can be ... How do you say? It could prolong or cause ... Actually it caused more, it put more on top of what I already was carrying.
VB: Yeah. I have to agree with you there. There's a lot of secondary trauma that can happen.
Angelina: That’s it. That's it right there. Also therapy.
VB: I was just about to say, you took the words right out of my mouth. As a therapist myself and having been in therapy for years with different therapists I grew to recognize that, but I only grew to recognize it once I began learning from and practicing bringing together the mind, the body, and the spirit. Learning from the Pioneers of the integration models. Traditional therapy is completely disembodied. When I learned about therapy in both my masters and my PhD, well my PhD was different, but my Masters’ program at Columbia. The only time the body was mentioned kind of by implication was when they told us not to sleep with our clients.
<both laughing>
…
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: trauma, coaching, therapy, embodiment, anxiety, healing, women entrepreneurs, success, body, illness, liberation
Led to success, with Michelle Bridger
Spiritual practice for vision, clarity, purpose, and winning business decisions
How did you begin to discover your special gifts, your superpowers that ultimately fed into the business you created?
I think it was more that they were revealed. I really struggled with believing the lies that I'm not capable.
That was a big one for me. Feeling like I didn't have a lot to offer. It's been such a gift to be able to land in a place where I can see that I am capable, I have much to offer, I'm highly sought after. It's really been such a gift, but it is through that asking. I would go on those walks and be able to say, "I don't even know what I'd be good at. Show me what skills I have, show me how I was made, show me ... " Yeah, "Just show me what skills I have, show me what I'd be good at." I just didn't even really know.
I knew certain things, like I've always been really tenacious, I've always been a good researcher. I've always showed great initiative. I've always been really good at follow-through. There's certain things that I knew that I had, but in the bigger picture… to run a business… I wouldn't even had known where to start in the business. It was really through the process of asking, layer upon layer, that I was able to start seeing that what a gift being able to land in advertising field was and that I'm able to see things maybe that other people or ... that people appreciate is probably a good way to say it about what will work in advertising. What won't work. What to try. What not to try. And cut through the clutter of that. Does that answer your question?
Yes. Thank you. Again, asking, right? Asking and trusting what you're receiving. I know there are so many tools people use to find out about this strengths. There is the Strength Finder test, there are a lot of psychological assessments. Some people recommend asking people who know you very well to tell you what you're good at. These are all valid data collection tools, but I feel that the spiritual vehicle that you are describing, it just goes further. Even people who know you, and certainly the tests, they may be missing something, because they've known you up to now, but there is a bigger vision for you. Your life has a bigger vision for you, or God, in whatever way you conceive of that, and to tap into that bigger vision, we need a spiritual vehicle. Other people don't know that and certainly psychological or aptitude tests don't know anything about our bigger vision. All they measure is how to date we have been showing up in the world. There are so many ways in which we have not revealed our capacities and our greatness in particular areas. They're just waiting.
They're waiting, they're like little buds on trees waiting to blossom and sometimes invisible when you're asking for them to be revealed to you. This is so powerful. You're trusting it and then that self-talk, those lies, as you've called them, the lies about your own inaptitude and that, "Who do you think you are?" And, "You're not good at that," and, "You have nothing of value." Those lies get washed away, because it's the source that’s speaking to you. The source is not going to lie, it's not going to mislead you. In a sense, that's also a confidence fix right there and then, wouldn't you say so?
I would say do, yes. I loved the analogy that you used about the buds that there's hidden gems within all of us that we don't even know. What a shame it would be if that bud never opened.
I ask the same thing from my kids, reveal to them and to others what they're good at, because so often we think we're not good at very many things and we wouldn't want those buds to stay dormant and never be revealed. That would be such a loss.
It’s so important to stay attuned to the movements of energy within that want to push those buds open.
We can't block that and if we do, if we attempt to block that, then there are consequences that are difficult because life needs to find a way to bring us face to face with our gifts, regardless, so it's going to find a way. Sometimes it does take something devastating and life-altering, like a divorce or a health crisis. I see it a lot in the people I work with on the journey of transformation because they get on the journey, as you said, out of desperation. Desperation is such a powerful place.
Resources:
Visit Michelle’s website www.michellebridger.com
Claim your free gift at www.michellesfreegift.com
Get in touch with Michelle at michelle@michellebridger.com
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: God, Facebook, divorce, successful, mompreneur, entrepreneur, mom, business owner, building a business, Christian, success, spiritual, practice, vision, clarity, purpose, winning, making decisions
Gratitude through trauma, with Melissa Binkley
Create a masterpiece from the mess of your life
After trauma, do you sink into the darkness of shame, self-hate, and self-destruction? Or do you reclaim your gifts, start a movement, and become a channel for healing and empowerment? Melissa has traveled both paths. May her story of transformation empower your journey.
Breakdown before the breakthrough
How did your journey begin?
In 2009 everything started to fall apart.
The big breakdown before the breakthrough.
I lost my home, my partner, and my job.
All within a six month time period.
I ended up homeless.
I would live in my car or stay at people’s places and not really explain what was going on.
I was melting on the inside.
Things were falling apart.
I was dealing with former eating disorders and drug issues.
My body was in this place of complete and utter shutdown.
My health was going. I didn’t have a place to live. I didn’t have a job.
I dropped to my knees and I was like, “What’s the answer here? What am I missing?”
Everybody talks about that moment, that quietness, that peace that happens to them. That happened to me in 2009.
I had a friend who came and picked me up from a night of excessive drinking and took me to her house.
I woke up the next morning and I had this level peace.
I went from being distraught and mind blown and crying.
To two days of absolute nothingness.
At the time I asked her “What the hell did you do to me?”
She was like, “I just did some work on you to take you out of that space.”
She was my first spiritual guide.
Pulling down the veil of the mirror to stand tall
I started in on this journey of healing and transforming my life and working on loving my body.
I first went to heal my body physically.
But as I started getting healthy in my body I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.
I had spent years being really thin.
I had been judging myself so much on my outer appearance and found out it was really connected to my inner soul.
There has been such a war on the female body. We were sanctioned from showing skin and wearing certain kinds of clothes. Can you talk a little more of how you transformed your relationship with your body? What was your journey of becoming friends and lovers with your body, as opposed to being at war with yourself?
I was raped in 1994.
I believe that we are allowed to show our skin but it is not giving us any more freedom than the women who are completely covered, at all.
That was a piece of my reclamation and being asked, “What were you wearing?”
It was a brutal rape.
I was locked in a garage.
And had to fight for my right to say: “I was doing nothing wrong."
I was wearing a basketball jersey and jeans.
I had to reclaim it for myself and say “my body, my vagina, everything is okay with me."
I have a right to be empowered with that.
I love to be naked but it was for a long time that I just wanted to cover up.
I literally had to pull down the veil of the mirror.
I had to look at myself in the mirror everyday and say, “I love you."
And touch my body and caress it.
Even the pieces of me that weren’t ‘beautiful’ as what I thought society thought was ‘beautiful’, saying “I love that piece of you."
The stretch marks from having my baby.
I used to hide in the corner. I didn’t want to be seen. I wanted to be small.
To learning to take that power pose, and throwing my shoulders back and being proud of the height that I was.
It started with self-love.
It started with looking myself in the mirror and saying “I love you."
And then it started working on the soul piece, that I am just not my body.
My body is a tool that I am using in this lifetime to learn things, but it is not who I am.
I was a dissociator. I would literally escape my body to get out of situations. If I thought I was going to get hurt or emotions started to come up I would checkout.
I had to learn to ground into it and take care of it on a health level that honors it.
Rebelling as a means to heal
How did you go from slouching and wanting to disappear to showing up and standing tall?
For me it started out as a rebellion.
I was like, “You told me I have to be this way, you told me that this is the way it is going to be, and I refuse to accept this anymore."
And that’s where the tattoos came from, and the piercings, and the hair.
It was me stepping out and rebelling against society, saying “I am tired of being told I have to do things your way… I’m not afraid to use my voice and if you don’t like me I don’t care, I have enough friends anyway… I don’t need you to like me, for me to stand true to who I am.”
I used that hard exterior as a way to work on healing the inside.
Brain bliss
Would you talk about your process and how this healing comes through you?
Some of the things that you really want to be focused on when you’re working on healing yourself is what my client has termed “Brain Bliss."
Meditation. Three minutes of peace.
Understanding the duality, the disconnect from where we at right now.
Not just about silencing the brain but connecting to a higher source and something deeper.
The only way to do that is to work on deepening our connection to spirit.
One of the processes that I use with my clients when it comes to healing is if you have somebody in your life that you have not forgiven writing a letter to that person.
Then you take it and burn it, or you rip it up.
And you keep doing that day in and day out.
I’ve seen it can take at the most 12 days to really transform the way that you experience that person and everything that is connected to them.
It works in such a powerful way.
The journey to gratitude
You would not be who you are today had you not experienced what you experienced and had you not done the healing that you have done.
It was definitely a journey.
I call it Gratitude Through Trauma.
In March of last year I went back to my hometown for the first time in 13 years.
Thirteen years prior to that I drove into my hometown and I drove past the place where I had been raped. I was a drug dealer at the time, I was unhealthy, I was in a really bad mindset. I drove past the place and I was like “F*** this."
Fast forward thirteen years later, my daughter is running track at my old high school.
I drive to this town. I drive past the exact same spot again. I stopped the car in the middle of the road and I turned off the engine. I literally got tears in my eyes and I said “Thank you."
I would not be where I am today if that had not happened to me.
It changed everything for me.
My basketball coach back in the day, who was the only person that stood for me, now 20 years later he’s at this meet.
I walk up and give him a hug and I get the opportunity to tell him how much I love him.
Gratitude I had for him. Gratitude for that situation. Gratitude for all of it.
You may not find the gratitude right now, but when you get to that point, you know that you have transformed your life.
The blessings in disguise of the synchronicities of the universe
When you start paying attention, all the things you think are coincidences are the divine order of blessings stepping in, so you can find your path, so you can step into your truth.
The past summer I went to Europe with my daughter.
The day we got to this spiritual Eco society, my credit card was stolen.
I was only supposed to stay at this spiritual Eco society for five days.
It forced me to stay at this society.
In that, a book fell off the shelf that ended up changing my life.
I got readings and healings that completely transformed everything.
That is synchronicity and the way the universe works.
When you think something is a failure or something is bad, it is really not.
Look for the blessing and the bigger picture story of what is really happening in your life.
Using wisdom and intuition to heal
You took my quiz, Your True Selfie. [www.yourtrueselfie.com] I am dying to know what your result is and if it fits into your story of your life.
Wisdom. [www.yourtrueselfie.com]
What I have been told by my guides and what I am here to do, I am supposed to be a teacher.
They call me the “Great awakener."
I am here to shake things up and snap people out of their shit.
Wisdom for me is connecting and bringing in the wisdom from other dimensions and bringing it into this lifetime.
I am here to bridge the gap. Be the bridge to people who are on the other side. Bring in signs of spirituality and show that it is all connected.
Links and Resources:
**Mention that you heard her interview on Valerie’s podcast to receive a complimentary session from Melissa** (limited availability)
Visit her website: www.melissabinkley.com for a complimentary session, and to find out about the Intuitive Intelligence Academy or to schedule into virtual latte with Melissa
Follow her on Facebook and Instagram (@melissabinkley)
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: trauma, sexual, assault, rape, transformation, healing, drug, addiction, self-love, self-acceptance, body image, healthy, gratitude, confidence, business, success, empowerment, women
Quotes
“The big breakdown before the breakthrough.”
“I had been judging myself so much on my outer appearance and found out it was really connected to my inner soul.”
“I literally had to pull down the veil of the mirror. I had to look at myself in the mirror everyday and say I love you’.”
“My body is a tool that I am using in this lifetime to learn things, but it is not who I am.”
“I don’t need you to like me for me to stand true to who I am.”
“You may not find the gratitude right now, but when you get to that point you know that you have transformed your life.”
“When you start paying attention, all the things you think are coincidences are the divine order of blessings stepping in so you can find your path, so you can step into your truth.”
“When you think something is a failure or something is bad, it is really not. Look for the blessing and the bigger picture story of what is really happening in your life.”
My sexual orientation is that I like people, with Corrina Gordon-Barnes
The how of a dream relationship
Imagine if you said to your partner, “There’s nothing that you can do wrong. If I’m ever irritated with you, resentful of you, disappointed with you, that is 100% for me to resolve.” Find out more about Corrina’s radical approach to happy relationships, why it works, and what it takes.
The liberation of taking responsibility
How did you get to doing what you do now?
I got really really peaceful in my relationships.
I realized that this is really rare.
I broke through to this whole new level of peace where I said to my wife, “There is literally nothing that you can do that is wrong. If I’m ever irritated with you, resentful of you, disappointed with you, that is 100% for me to resolve.”
It doesn’t mean I don’t get triggered.
It means I have a very fast way of getting to peace.
It just takes one person.
It is hopeless to try and get the other person to change.
If Sam suddenly decides to give me exactly what I want, that is a bonus.
But it’s not required for me to be happy.
I have taken the responsibility and liberation on me.
Just take that responsibility yourself and give yourself what you want.
Detaching from the stories
What were some challenges on your own path that enabled you to go deeper?
I realized it’s just not going to work if I keep thinking I want and need something from her.
I’m just going to be disappointed, frustrated.
She is my soul mate.
I feel that we are meant to be together.
The core of our relationship is right.
How do you know that at the core your relationship is right? How are you so convinced?
When the stories are gone, there is just a silence in my head.
I had doubts over the years.
Doubts are the stories.
When I have worked my thoughts, I have taken a thought that has caused frustration or disappointment, asked whether it is true.
Is that what I need in order to be peaceful and happy in this relationship?
What would this moment with this beautiful woman be like without my story in the way?
Questioning the stories that build up.
They are just stories, they are not true.
Process to stillness
What does it take for you to get to the point where you can see the story from what it is and detach from it?
The very first stage is to actually have a rant.
Write down everything about your partner that you think is their fault.
Really get mean with this.
You have to get them on paper to see what you’re actually dealing with.
The next step is to find stillness.
I meditate.
Observe those thoughts and see that they are thoughts.
They are not facts. They are like these strings of words that appear in your mind.
Then you start to get that separation from them.
Be aware of where you are arguing for your pain.
People can tolerate huge amounts of pain if they think that is the only option.
When you start seeing that pain is not obligatory, if you can see that your thoughts are causing that pain then you can begin to move beyond that.
Giving away our power
I imagine you haven’t always been in this peaceful place. Can you share a little bit about the mistakes you made early on, maybe different relationships?
I had one significant relationship before Sam.
I looked to him for everything.
My world got very very small.
He was going to fulfill all my needs.
I didn’t need to stay connected to my friends.
I tuned everything out.
I made him everything.
I lost myself completely.
I didn’t have the self-love, so I was looking for it in him.
I definitely was not living my personal power.
I was a teenager.
I didn’t love myself.
I didn’t think I was amazing.
So when someone came along that seemed to love me, of course I was going to leap onto that horse and ride away into that subset.
There is no need to have needs
This whole idea of us having needs in itself is to be questioned.
I can take care of myself, love myself, be there for myself.
Anything my partner does is a bonus.
This is a thing I have really discovered, is how grateful I am.
When you acknowledge that you actually don’t have needs that have to be fulfilled by this person, then everything that they actually do for you is such a gift. It puts you in a place of appreciation, love and gratitude, as opposed to a place of expectation and disappointment.
We think we have needs, we think that our partner’s job is to meet those needs. They then don’t meet those needs because they are human, and then we feel frustrated, disappointed, bitter, and resentful.
I had a friend who said, “Expectations are premeditated resentments."
What if I went into a situation with no expectations?
There is no past to compare with, there is no future to compare with, there is no other person to compare with, there is no fictional wife or husband that I am comparing with.
Just seeing what is happening.
Just watch what is actually happening, rather than comparing it with the script.
That is what peace is, when you are just in yourself, not trying to change his world.
Accepting your authentic self
I understand that you identify as bisexual. Can you share a little bit about how this has been for you recognizing that your sexual orientation was not straight?
I was boy-mad in my teens.
I liked boys.
But I also liked girls.
Because I also liked boy, I thought, “I will just go out with boys. That’s just what you do,"
When I was in my 20s, I met Sam – my wife.
I just fell in love with her.
It was meant to be, soulmate, destiny.
We argued the very time we met.
We say we were annoyed at each other that we hadn’t met each other until then.
Gender was not relevant.
My sexual orientation is that I like people.
I have never had a problem with it.
It has always been easy for me.
I feel very grateful for that.
That is my vision, we don’t see gender so much.
We are just people. We all have these minds that project onto the people we are with.
Whether we are male or female or identify as a different gender, it is just humans trying to love humans the best we can.
Transcending assumptions
I remember the very first Valentine’s Day I got with Sam.
I went into the card shop. I could not find a card that did not have a man and a woman on the front of it.
I had no idea because until then all the cards I have ever bought were for men.
That’s when I realized it is not even people being prejudice that creates challenge.
It is when we make assumptions.
Being with Sam, people assume that I am gay. I say to them, “I am not gay, but my wife is,"
How do you find yourself living with these assumptions being imposed on you?
I experience it with a lot of love, compassion, and lightness.
People are innocent.
We believe what we believe.
I don’t think people want to hurt other people.
They just haven’t questioned certain thoughts, certain assumptions.
Being compassionate to your truth
Do you have any advice for people who are in the process of coming out right now?
My process if about questioning the thought.
The thought that would stop someone from coming out is, “They are going to reject me, they are not going to love me,"
Where am I doing that to myself?
Am I hating myself? Am I rejecting myself? Am I loving myself?
Finding peace with, this is who you are, this is your beautiful self.
This is your truth, and anything that is not your truth is going to feel off and wrong.
Our favorite tips from Corrina
Question your thoughts, “Is it true?”
Thoughts are not facts, they are just strings of words that come up in our mind.
Question the idea of having needs in relationships.
View what your partner does for you as a gift, as opposed to an expectation.
Let go of your relationship expectations, and instead be with your partner in that moment.
Find the magnificence in your partner and in that moment together.
Find peace in your authentic self.
Love and be compassionate to yourself.
Quotes
“I have taken the responsibility and liberation on me.”
“If we want to grow, we want all of it.”
“What am I living to get back into my personal power?”
“I can take care of myself, love myself, be there for myself, and then anything my partner does is a bonus on top of that.”
“When you start seeing that pain is not obligatory, if you can see that your thoughts are causing that pain then you can begin to move beyond that.”
“What if I went into a situation with no expectations? There is no past to compare with, there is no future to compare with, there is no other person to compare with, there is no fictional wife or husband that I am comparing with. I am just seeing what is happening.”
“That is my vision, we don’t see gender so much.”
“Whether we are male or female or identify as a different gender, it is just humans trying to love humans the best we can.”
“We believe what we believe. I don’t think people want to hurt other people. They just haven’t questioned certain thoughts, certain assumptions.”
“Anything that is not your truth is going to feel off and wrong.”
Resources and Links:
Visit her website: www.corrinagordonbarnes.com
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: woman, entrepreneur, relationship, bisexual, gay, lesbian, coming out, truth, marriage, happy, peaceful, love, wisdom, authentic, rules, liberation
What makes a successful entrepreneur, with Thembi Bheka
Creating a tsunami of wealth sharing
She came to Canada from Zimbabwe with $5 in her pocket. Now she’s a real estate investor and educator. Thembi’s view on what makes a successful entrepreneur: “Be okay with the fact that you just risked everything you have in life to take the next step." Do you agree? Listen to her interview and decide.
From poverty to perseverance
How did you get to do what you are doing now?
My background.
Where I came from there was poverty.
I left to leave the country.
I didn’t know anyone coming to Canada.
I came with $5 in my pocket.
I stayed at the YMCA for a month.
I wanted to give back, because I got so much in this country.
I told myself “As soon as I am able to do it, I will help other people like me and help other women who could be stuck in uncomfortable situations because of their financial status.”
That’s really what started everything for me.
Taking action
How did you go from having $5 in your pocket and living at the ‘Y’ to being in real estate?
I went to nursing school.
Just after I started working there, I realized that the nursing salary wasn’t enough for me to make an impact.
I came across an article in the newspaper, which said, “Get out of the rat race."
I attended an event based on that article.
I learned so much about real estate.
I learned that 90% millionaires become so through owning real estate.
I decided I was going to be one of them.
You have to take action.
One goal
Do you remember the day when your mortgage got approved for your first property?
It was 2008, in February.
It was a very happy moment.
It was a townhouse.
I still have it.
I went onto buy many properties after that, and renting out those properties.
I did not move into my house of my own until 2010.
To reach the next level, we have to put our needs on the side.
We need to put all the vacations to the side and see what we can do to reach that goal.
It’s about focusing on that one goal.
Just the one thing.
Impact as a measure for success
Your vision has always been empowering other people and giving back.
It is about helping the next people.
I believe that success is not measured by how much money you make. It is about how much you impact other people.
That is my philosophy.
That is what I live by.
Changing everybody’s lives everyday.
It’s not just about the money, it’s about what you can do with the money.
Squeezing in time for education
How was it for you juggling motherhood, educating yourself, and hunting for those properties?
I will be honest, it wasn’t easy.
But nothing in life is easy.
For the education part, I had a lot of CDs.
Every time we would travel, 4 – 5 hour drives, I would listen to that.
I could squeeze in time for education.
I ended up working night shifts, because I used to get longer breaks.
During that time that’s when I could study and research more about real estate.
I believe we have to sacrifice to achieve what we get.
Masterminds change your mindset
I imagine during those seven years you didn’t see the light?
Those moments would come where I am ready to quit, saying, “I am just going to back to work at the hospital. Forget this business thing. I just want to be like every other normal person."
That friend really helped a lot.
She would pitch in and say, “You can do it."
It is those moments when you have someone like that to help you with your mindset.
You need a mastermind or an accountability [partner].
It is not easy to be an entrepreneur.
The first few years are very tough.
I used shop at Valley Village for my clothing.
Because I couldn’t afford go into a regular store.
You need to save each and every penny.
Was it an easy journey? No.
Was it worth it? Absolutely!
Gaining inspiring work ethic
Were there entrepreneurs in your family before you?
My mom.
She used to go and sell fruits and vegetables on the street.
It wasn’t a real entrepreneur.
It was a survival mode kind-of-thing.
But I saw that in her.
That’s how she managed to pay our tuition and help us survive.
Gratitude
Having come such a long way, from Zimbabwe, when you look back and you look at yourself how have you changed?
Gratitude.
People in Canada have so much gratitude.
I think I learned a lot through that.
Sharing. To give to charity.
It is characteristics I didn’t grow up seeing because more people were lacking.
I came with nothing. I got furniture, I got clothes.
Not even knowing these people. They just gave it to me.
Just giving a stranger your furniture so they could have something to sleep on.
“I did not start giving because I have a lot of money. I started giving when I had nothing, when I was living from paycheck-to-paycheck.” That was Oprah.
It doesn’t start with having a million dollars in my bank account. It starts with having $5.
Paying it forward
What is the big vision behind your vision now?
I would like to get a lot of people, I mean a lot of people, to help other people.
For me alone I won’t be able to change the world. If I can impact many people to impact others then we would be able to change the world.
We would be able to eradicate poverty in Africa.
We would be able to make those big changes.
I started teaching people in Africa how to invest in real estate.
They can create wealth to impact others,
A tsunami of wealth sharing.
“When you first jump, your parachute will not open right away” – Steve Harvey
You have been so unstoppable. What has enabled you to really take this big leap? What’s different about you?
It’s not about me.
It’s about every entrepreneur, being able to stand up and take action.
Not only take action. Take action that may lead you to be bankrupt.
Every time I sign on that mortgage paper, I’m increasing my debt.
I am millions and millions in debt.
Be okay with the fact that you just risked everything you have in life to take the next step.
Take action and be prepared to lose everything.
Be prepared to fail.
It is worth it.
It elevates you. It takes you to the next level.
It impacts many people at the same time.
Bettering our children’s future and present
As a woman, have you experienced limiting beliefs about what you can and cannot do?
Investing in real estate takes a lot of travelling to go to seminars and events.
When I do that I have to look for someone to take care of the kids.
Sometimes I take them with me, and they stay in a hotel watching movies all day.
Every mother does not feel comfortable doing that.
That has been truly the most challenging thing.
Leaving my children behind as I attend the educational seminars to advance myself.
However, I look at it and I say “If I don’t do this my children won’t get to go to Disney Land by the end of the month.”
It is a temporary sacrifice, which I am doing for their future.
There is that guilty consciousness as a mother and as a woman.
But you look at the big benefit of it.
Taking the sacrifices so that they can have a better life.
Abundance
You took my quiz, Your True Selfie. [insert link www.yourtrueselfie.com] Any aha moments?
It was a true selfie.
For me it was honestly the truth of who I am.
My result was Abundance. [insert link www.yourtrueselfie.com]
That is my true belief.
I believe in the abundant mindset.
Our favorite tips from Thembi
Focus on only one goal.
Put your own personal needs aside to priorities your business.
It is important to have an accountability partner or a mastermind.
Take risks that could lead to bankruptcy.
Don’t measure your success through money, but your impact on other people.
Resources and Links
Visit her website: www.realestaterealriches.com for free tips in how to invest in real estate and for online coaching
Quotes
“You have to take action."
“To reach the next level, we have to put our needs on the side."
“It’s about focusing on that one goal."
“I believe that success is not measured by how much money you make. It is about how much you impact other people."
“It’s not just about the money, it’s about what you can do with the money."
“It doesn’t start with having a million dollars in my bank account. It starts with having $5."
“I would like to get a lot of people, I mean a lot of people, to help other people."
“For me alone I won’t be able to change the world. If I can impact many people to impact others then we would be able to change the world."
“A tsunami of wealth sharing."
“Not only take action. Take action that may lead you to be bankrupt."
“Be okay with the fact that you just risked everything you have in life to take the next step."
“Take action and be prepared to lose everything."
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode we chat about: real estate investing, real estate education, entrepreneur, immigrant, success, giving back, creating wealth, single mom, taking risks, reward, sacrifice, goal, focus, strategy, winning
Let success surprise you, with Natasha Khazanov
Give yourself a hug and other tips from a neuroscientist
Her success came as a surprise. When Natasha made her decision to leave Russia to seek a better future for her son in the US, she was sure that she was sacrificing her own career for good. But her entrepreneurial journey was just about to begin.
From sacrifice to success
What is the story of how you got on this path, what was your call to adventure?
I left Russia because of the turmoil at that time.
My motivation was to create a better life for my son.
I was willing to sacrifice my career to make it happen for Andrew.
I didn’t think I would be successful professionally.
I was hired at UCSF, one of the best schools in Medicine.
The department needed me to be a therapist.
I didn’t like it. It was too ambiguous. Too fuzzy.
Twenty-six years down the road I know that this is my calling – helping people to be happy and more resilient.
In my wildest dreams honestly I could not imagine that I could be teaching at UCSF, that I could testify in the Supreme Court, that I would have a thriving private practice in therapy.
My assumption that was you need to speak good English.
I wasn’t fluent.
I surprised myself.
How parents influence our professional life
So many limiting beliefs could have held you back, but you didn’t let that hold you back because you had this bigger desire at heart?
I did have that. But I also had another tool.
I downloaded the voice of my father.
My dad was the ultimate incredibly effective parent.
My dad parented me in a way that was intuitive. He didn’t know a lot about the science or the art of parenting. But he was wise and smart.
The download from my early childhood was “you can do whatever you want. Whatever you put your mind to you will be successful, because you are competent. You can make mistakes and because you are competent you will be able to recover from you mistakes”.
My mom was the opposite. She was very critical.
Her downloads were “Who do you think you are?”
I think this was my motivator to be a parenting coach and parenting expert.
I realized that when you have these two sets of voices in your head, one of them is helpful and the other is hurtful.
Overtime I was able to identify my mom’s voice as not very helpful and replace it with my dad’s voice.
Examining ourselves just enough
What would you say to somebody who is thinking “I don’t think I have had an empowering voice my life”? Maybe both parents were critical, or a single parent who was always busy. What can this person do to help parent themselves right now.
There are different ways to replace hurtful voices with helpful voices.
It is never too late.
We are never done. Even if our parents are very competent and good, still we develop unhelpful voices.
This is the work of self-exploration.
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”.
It is true, so we need to examine our lives.
But a lot of times we live the over-examined lives. We are stuck in our heads. We examine our lives by being critical to ourselves and beating ourselves up for our failures.
So my prescription to changing ourselves is living our lives that are examined just enough.
That means paying attention to our feelings. Knowing where they showing up in our bodies.
Feelings are very physical, so it is not about thinking.
It’s about being present, and allowing feelings to show up.
Overcoming the fear of rejection
When you started doing work on your own and developing your SMARTT method, what kinds of barriers came up for you?
It was hard.
When I opened my private practice, it was scary.
It wasn’t as scary as it is now to launch my SMARTT Parenting because there is no guarantee that people will like it.
Fear of rejection is the most visceral fear for all of us.
The only way I was able to overcome my fears is being gentle, kind, and forgiving to myself.
And using my SMARTT approach on myself.
The same part of our brain lights up in fMRI when we experience social rejection as when we have physical pain.
Sometimes it is easier to be in physical pain than be socially rejected.
Transformations
My mom passed away recently.
She was my critical parent.
I had an amazingly beautiful experience with her before she died.
I used my SMARTT tools to connect with her in a way that was kind, loving, forgiving, and pretty profound.
My mom was not probably parented in the way that was stellar.
My mom was educated and smart, she was a physician. But she was not emotionally intelligent.
I saw the transformation in my mom at the end of her life and that was beautiful and amazing.
Facing our feelings to succeed
Acknowledge, welcome all your feeling. No good or bad, right?
A part of my upbringing was the notion that you were allowed to have one feeling at a time.
If you were angry, go in your room and clear your anger.
Feelings show up and they are messy.
Acknowledge you may be fearful or anxious.
Then you can surround your feeling with feelings of compassion to yourself, forgiveness.
Being gentle.
You can even hug yourself.
When your body feels safe, your brain works better. You are more creative, more perceptive.
Our favorite tips from Natasha:
Don’t let language or cultural barriers get in the way of success.
Welcome the hurtful and helpful voices from childhood.
To work through the critical voice, use movement and breathing.
To overcome fear, be gentle, kind, and forgiving to yourself.
Use the SMARTT tools to connect with children and with parents
Avoid over-examining or under-examining your life.
Be present, pay attention to your feelings and how they show up in your body.
Usher in and welcome all feelings.
To feel safe and be more productive, give yourself a hug.
Resources and Links:
Quotes
“Fear of rejection is, in my opinion, the number one reason why people don’t take risks. And when we don’t take risks we are not going to be successful.”
“All my feelings, comfortable or uncomfortable, are good feelings. In my book, there is no such thing as negative feelings. All of them are signals.”
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: success, mother, woman, immigration, confidence, self-doubt, neuroscience, parenting, healing, resilience, brain, love
A natural born entrepreneur, with Cami Baker
Work for it, learn in, own it
Cami was dealt a tough set of cards. She was adopted. She lost her father at a young age. She struggled with dark times and addiction. Tune in to hear how she learned to turn obstacles into opportunities. Trace her uncanny trajectory of work for, learn it, own it!
Obstacles into opportunities
At eight years old my brother was three years older than me and he was always broke, so I learned about collateral and loan sharking long before I knew what they were. I was holding his stuff in exchange for high interest.
And then when I was nine or 10, I was buying gum on the way to school to sell to other children for a profit.
How can you not see opportunity everywhere?
It’s in my DNA.
The path of leadership
Can you tell us more about how this kept unfolding from being a loan shark at eight and selling gum to being a minge-to-millions maverick now?
I have noticed that I have gone from working for someone in an industry to owning it.
I went from working in bars for five/ six years to owning one from 25 – 30.
I worked for a real-estate agent for a year-and-a-half, but then when I got licensed I was my own agent.
I can do this all by myself.
I think it is Jon Maxwell that said the best way to learn – you do it yourself, then you show me how to do it, we do it together, and then I go do it myself.
That’s the path of leadership.
Shift from work to play
I am actually trademarking the word “net-play” as opposed to “net-work."
It excites me.
It’s about playing, it’s about having fun, it’s about not having so much pressure of looking for leads.
Planting your seeds as opposed to looking for leads.
People who knew me 10, 15 years ago would not have said “play." They would have said “aggressive, pushy.”
It’s a matter of slowing it all down. When they can just take a deep breath and play.
Just be there.
I don’t care if the room has three people in it or 300. I just really want one. One person to have a good contact with, a good connection, someone I can follow up and enjoy.
Don’t be so worried about the company you represent, it’s the company they keep.
As Abraham Higgs would say, “if you’re trying to paddle upstream, there is a lot of resistance."
Get in the flow, and just let things happen.
Who are your mentors?
How do you decide what to say “yes” to?
Having a coach, having a mentor, having people around me that are of the same like mind – that are forward thinkers.
People that are inspired, not motivated.
For me, there is a difference.
People who are motivated are running from something. You’re doing it because you have to. You are motivated to get away from the pain.
Whereas being inspired is “I have to have that… I want to feel that." Inspired is moving to something that is good, as opposed to running from something that is painful.
For me, the more I surround myself with those people… it is easier to listen to your intuition and know what the truth is for you. Know what the next right step is.
Break down to break through
I am dying to hear your personal story of transformation. You mentioned that you used to be all about achievement and go-go-go-go. What happened between you then and you now?
There was addiction in my past.
I have not always had mentors.
I take that back, we all always have someone or something influencing us. But maybe its not a positive influence.
There has been a time in my life where the people were not so positive and they were not so uplifting.
There came a time where I had to void myself of everyone and everything.
I came to a place where I said “no more for me."
Totally alone.
Sometimes the best friends to have is no friends to have.
That was a beautiful time of growth.
Every time you have a break down you have to have a break through.
From fear to freedom
Even though I had left behind that negative lifestyle, on the other side of the desert I was still just a hungry dog.
I knew that I wanted more.
I was so aggressive and so tenacious and so assertive.
And so deep down in survival.
In fear.
Fear!
Fear of going back there. Fear of being alone. Fear or not knowing where I’m going.
There finally came a point not too long ago where it went from here [head] to here [heart]… “You got this. You don’t have to fight. You don’t have to prove anything.”
I did a lot of spiritual work.
I went to Sedona for 31 days.
I did massages and healing work.
We did some past life regression.
The inner shift
I have always been proving myself from before I was given birth to.
I was adopted.
When I was in my mother’s womb I knew that I was being given away. That I wasn’t good enough… “Please keep me, I’m worth this, keep me around."
So moving through life I have always been proving myself.
If I do just a little more, they will keep me around. If I do just a little more, they will hire me. If I do just a little more, I will prove that I am better than any man.
Got a lot done. Made a lot of money.
But I also stepped on a lot of toes and burnt a lot of bridges.
Today, I don’t feel like I have to prove myself anymore.
I know who I am. I feel good in my own skin.
Whether I am making a lot of money or a little money, I am making a difference.
That has been the shift for me.
Unattachment
My dad died when I was six years old.
I think that plays into “don’t bother to love people because they leave you anyway."
That’s still living today.
I have a beautiful, wonderful man in my life that I push away.
My business is way more important to me… meaning my clients, living my dream, and being free, and being able to travel.
And not having any baggage. Literally, I have gotten rid of all my personal belongings.
I took my trunk of all my photos. I scanned them into the computer and I threw them away.
I even think of people as baggage. I don’t want any of your emotional stuff holding me down.
I just want to inspire, be inspired, and not be weighed down.
Surrounding yourself shining people
Today, I can look at everything in my life and say “If that hadn’t happened I may not be who I am today."
I love who I am.
If I needed to go through that, if I need to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough then break me down.
Because I know on the other side is hallelujah.
When I was on the other side, in purgatory those people were not shining. Their crystals were dirty.
Not that they were dirty people, they just didn’t know how to shine. They weren’t blazing with the light.
I was simply reflecting that which I was around because I was like that too. My crystal was dirty.
The beauty of it is that there came a day when I realized “wow my crystal is really dirty and I need to find some people with clean crystals to hang out with."
If you’re not feeling that freedom, that liberation, that playfulness, take a look at who you are shining off of or not shining off of.
Our favorite tips from Cami
Find opportunities everywhere.
To be a leader, watch someone else do it, then do it collaboratively, and then do it yourself.
Shift your thinking from working to playing; be present, breathe, and flow.
Networking is about creating one good connection.
Find mentors who are inspirational, as opposed to motivational.
Shift from being in your head to listening to your heart.
Unattach from material and emotional possessions.
To achieve freedom, surround yourself with people whose crystals are shining.
Resources and Links:
Quotes
“Planting your seeds as opposed to looking for leads.”
“Whether I am making a lot of money or a little money, I am making a difference. ”
“If I need to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough, then break me down.”
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: adoption, adopted, addiction, overcome, overcoming, networking, woman, entrepreneur, confidence, play, work, success, create, self-made
Recovering superwoman finds her wings, with Kelly Swingler
6 months after becoming the youngest HR director in the UK, Kelly ended up in a hospital. Her illness awakened her to heal from the “superwoman syndrome” and uncover a bigger mission of her life. Tune in to learn how she found her wings, and how you can too.
Letting go of being overworked
What was your call to adventure? How did you decide to spread your wings and fly?
I spent 18 years working in HR.
I was recruited as the youngest HR director in the UK.
I pushed and pushed and pushed to get my career where I wanted to go.
I went fully into superwoman syndrome.
Trying to do everything that I possibly could do.
About six months after getting the HR director position, I started to get quite ill and ended up in hospital.
Even whilst I was in hospital waiting for my operations I was still working on my laptop.
It was after the operation when I was in recovery that I thought “I’m not going to do anything”.
What I wanted to stop at the time was this “Monday-to-Friday Dying Syndrome”.
I had this realization and started my first business, my consultancy.
Regaining independence
Last year I was diagnosed with epilepsy and had to stop driving.
I lost my complete sense of independence.
When I was looking more deeply at myself and finding my own wings, I started to look at energy.
I did courses in hypnotherapy, reiki. I looked at more energy healing and was fascinated with this whole combination.
With the changes that I have been able to make for myself over the past 12 months – personally, professionally, business-focused – and then being able to see the difference that I can make for other people… I am flying.
If I could talk to any women or even go back three years and talk to myself, I would say STOP!
Take time out and rest.
That has been my biggest learn over the past six months.
The selfless act of resting
I have learned that rest and relaxation are completely different things.
Tweet: Rest and and relaxation are completely different things. #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Doing nothing wasn’t something I had ever done.
I have always been working 150 miles per hour and doing everything I needed to do.
Resting was doing yoga, reading, writing, going out with friends, taking the dog for a walk. It was doing something.
The thought of doing nothing was not something I could comprehend.
It’s not doing nothing. It’s resting.
Magic starts to happen.
I have some rest time everyday now.
Whether it is meditation in the morning or sitting and having my lunch looking out of the window rather than sitting in front of my laptop.
Taking time out for resting felt like a really selfish thing to do.
We have to reprogram that pattern that says doing this for ourselves is selfish.
We have to start putting our own wellbeing first.
In life, we are putting oxygen masks on everyone else and leaving ourselves till last and we are draining our own energy.
Overcoming panic
In my head I had to be the superwoman.
I didn’t want anyone to think I was failing.
Or that I couldn’t cope.
Or that I wasn’t good enough at my job.
Or that I wasn’t a good enough mom or wife.
When I was in my own headspace that is when I would start to go into panic.
What was the antidote for panic for you? How would you pull yourself out?
A technique I picked up was journaling daily. Getting the panic out of my head, writing it down.
Writing down a question and I would get answers.
From the journaling I was able to look and find more solutions on a deeper level.
With the meditation and focusing on my breathing.
Recognizing all the energy.
And being aware of the physical sensations in my body.
Our favorite tips from Kelly
Take time out to rest, stop, and slow down.
Rest is productive.
Self-care is a racial act.
Tweet: Self-care is a radical act. #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Journaling, meditation, breathing, and listening to energy can provide answers.
“We are all on a journey. I don’t think there is ever a finish point. We just have to keep growing and changing.”
Resources and Links:
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: stress, burnout, calling, illness, awakening, finding yourself, overcoming, relaxation, rest, self-care, healing, transformation
When money loves you, with Morgana Rae:
How to heal your life with some money honey romance
What if you have superhuman powers to repel money? What’s the connection between your money and your love life? How do you find gifts in tragedies? Tune in to learn from bestselling author and money Goddess Morgana Rae. Heartbreak, enlightenment, and transformation await!
The despair or repelling money
What was your call to adventure?
The thing that I really sucked at was about money and getting paid.
With a half dozen certifications, celebrity clients, mountains of testimonials, working with coaches, flying out of town every month to take new trainings.
Big deal.
I was still struggling to make $100 a month.
It was really painful and hopeless and devastating and puzzling and frightening.
My coaches couldn’t figure out what was going on.
Something was going on in the inside.
I had superhuman powers to repel money.
Nothing I did consciously or did well could come close to my powers to push money away.
I remember specifically I had just taken another class on sales.
I mastered it.
Seven people in a row said they would hire me.
None of them showed up and none of them paid.
I was so distraught. Disappointed. Enraged. Heartbroken. Angry.
Angry at myself, angry at the world, and the universe.
Angry that so many people had promised, “If you do this, you will get these results.”
I ran out of hope.
I remember being in my little one bedroom apartment and dragging closed the drapes, getting on my bed, and screaming in despair.
Really just wanting to die.
Protecting yourself from being initiated into your next level
If you are doing everything you can do in pursuit of your goal with everything you have and you are not getting the results that you desire, I deeply believe you are protecting yourself from what you want.
It is unconscious.
You are successful at protecting yourself from a perceived threat.
The first step is to find out what exactly you are protecting yourself from.
It is never what you think it is.
Some of the best things in my life happened during the darkest moments.
Some of the worst things happened during light moments.
It’s not that your are being punished, it is that you are being initiated into your next level.
A glimpse into the truth of your experience on earth
Initiated into your next level, can you explain a little bit what you mean?
I took Your Selfie Quiz [insert link www.yourtrueselfie.com]
I got the answer “Love”, which did not surprise me.
I had just had my heart broken back in 2003.
I was really obsessed with this person and brokenhearted and despaired.
I went to an event.
I had an out-of-body experience on stage in front of 300 strangers.
The message I got was that I was breaking my heart through all of these wildly inappropriate romantic choices because I came to earth to find out what humans experience so I can teach.
The biggest message I got, the biggest shock where it felt like crossing a veil into a hyper-reality beyond the illusion of our lives, I am love.
That is all I am.
That is the nature of existence.
The fabric of reality is love.
It has guided me in my life.
The gift of tragedies
When I was 17 after a catastrophic car accident that left me in a coma and I almost died.
I think the gift of the head injury was it opened up my intuition.
I remember things before they happen.
I think we have experiences because that’s what we are here for.
There is a gift and a learning and a wisdom from it.
I call our failures and our tragedies research and development.
So that I can have the humility and empathy to respect the experience of other people.
The pain that I went through gave me the gifts that made my life far beyond anything that I ever imagined possible for myself.
If your money were a person, who would your money be?
What was not working for in your relationship with money? What were you protecting yourself from?
I made a decision that money needed to be my next area of spiritual growth.
I got really curious about what was inside of me that couldn’t be with money.
On paper it didn’t make sense.
I had the Ivy League education, the success stories, the branding and marketing.
I had another session with my coach, who had a weird moment of inspiration that changed my life.
He asked me, “If your money was a person, who would your money be?”
As soon as I imagined money as a person, I saw who my money in that moment was.
He was a big, dirty, violent biker.
He terrified me.
I could feel it in my body.
It’s like a full body experience.
I finally found out what my relationship with money was when I made it a person.
I don’t know how to have a relationship with a measure of value, but I know how to have a relationship with a person.
It was like a light bulb went on.
I knew there is no way I could have money in my life if that was my money because he was bad, and he was dirty, and he was dangerous.
Stripping away the numbers and connecting money with love
Looking at my history, money got in the way of love.
An inheritance was stolen from me when I was a child by the family member I still love most to this day.
My college trust fund was stolen by the person I took my first steps to.
20 years later, it was showing up in my relationship with money.
The root cause of your money issues are not really about money.
You will find it deeper.
Money is the symptom, not the cause.
You will find the cause in what money represents.
Money represents our worth, power, love, safety.
It is when you can have a really great wonderful relationship with money that is not based on the numbers in your bank account, that’s when you are really powerful.
After I changed my money monster to my money honey, the next day four people hired me at double what I ever charged.
Then started group coaching and I had waiting lists.
In 2007, I had over 300 clients.
The love must come first.
You cannot treat money like an object because then you are back in money monster territory.
You want it to be real to you.
The more intimate the better.
A lover archetype works best.
Lovers are equal.
Money without love is not a worthwhile proposition.
You have to have them both.
Listening for the message in our lived experiences
I have a mother who is a drug addict and a borderline personality.
She was violent.
She would vacillate from being the best mother who ever existed.
Then turning upside down and becoming very dangerous.
For those of us who were gifted with dangerous parents, wow is that the best training in the world for intuition and empathy for survival.
People look at my life now and most don’t know what came before.
All of that hard stuff gave me a piece of the puzzle, a piece of wisdom, something I needed to bring me here.
Whatever it is, whether it is a money problem or a health problem, it has a message for you.
The longer you don’t get the message, the louder it gets.
It is not your enemy, it is your message.
When you receive the message the problem goes away.
Resources and Links:
Visit her website: www.morganarae.com
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode we talk about: money, archetypes, law of attraction, manifesting, conscious creation, healing, money issues, abundance, wealth, ease, love, romance, financial, coaching, tragedy, gifts
Contentment on the edge, with Sage B. Hobbs:
How to live up to the biggest and best version of you
When she got cancer at 23, Sage learned that life was not a guarantee. She had traveled to nearly 20 countries as a kid. Her heart was set on service to humanity. What would you do if you knew might not have an indefinite amount of time to change the world?
Curiosity
How did your journey begin?
I grew up in a really adventurous family who were really into making a difference in the world.
I didn’t realize how unique that was.
Being curious about the world was a family value.
That natural curiosity led me to want to engage with people in a deeper way.
Human beings were the only things that captured my interest for a prolonged period of time.
I have travelled to nearly 20 countries.
What was your most unusual cultural experience?
Kenya.
It was a whole other level of poverty.
It deepened my sense of gratitude and purpose.
And taught me so much around how you can find joy in simplicity.
Tweet: “You can find joy in simplicity.” Sage B. Hobbs #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
I was 21.
It was profound for me. I expanded and grew monumentally.
Allowing me to learn in an experiential way around this thing called humanity.
Changing your path
How I got here in this moment, it was holding my second baby in my arms.
I started to approach the hour of going back to my work and I had this visceral response of “I really don’t want to go back."
It scared the crap out of me.
I am sitting there going “why can’t I just be happy enough?”
What would be a way to use my gifts to be of service to a wider community in a different way?
I finished out that school year.
I stepped into this entrepreneurial, coaching, personal development, writing world.
It was absolutely what I was supposed to do.
Listening to your intuition
I hear it from a lot of women, this guilt “I have everything that one might want but I am not happy." That is why they end up settling and not rocking the boat. What gave you that confidence to step up and that courage to do it?
I was 23.
I got an awesome first real job, making a difference.
I was psyched. I was idealistic. I was invincible. I was fired up.
I was sitting at my new desk one afternoon and I felt this little lump above my collar bone.
I ignored it for a little while.
It didn’t go away.
I was like “This really isn’t right."
I listened to that little piece of intuition.
It was a whirlwind.
I was diagnosed with cancer. Hutchinson Lymphoma.
I had to have chemotherapy and radiation.
My life turned on its head.
Receiving love and being true to yourself
I learned many many lessons, including how to receive love and let people help me.
I really needed help. I needed support.
I remember my mom saying to me “Sage, let love in. Let people help you. They want to help you. It helps them to help you. Its generous to let them help you.”
The other really huge thing was I said “Life is not a guarantee.”
Tweet: “Life is not a guarantee.” Sage B. Hobbs #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
It was really different to look at it in the face and think I might not have an indefinite amount of time to change the world.
Since then I have lived with much more of an actual presence that life can be stolen from you at any moment.
I needed to live in a way that felt true to me.
Tweet: I needed to live in a way that felt true to me. #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Lessons from loss
How do you know when you are not fully in your center?
I lost my dad five and a half years ago.
It was traumatic for me.
He was an incredible role model for me.
There is a gap in my memory of fogginess around that time.
I can’t even get clear on what was happening.
I was floating a little bit.
I think that’s part of grief.
I wasn’t tethered to my center in that time.
It was five months from health to death.
I was flying across the country.
My dad had been in 11 countries the year before for work.
Then he all of a sudden was paralyzed, in a wheelchair from the chest down.
I know in that moment I couldn’t always find the grace or the internal knowing.
My intention is that we get better at snapping out of the old story that doesn’t serve us.
You get better at coming back to your joy, your purpose in the world, more quickly.
Receiving without guilt
How do you get back when you get disconnected?
I am a huge believer in that human connection is the most powerful resource we have.
Tweet: Human connection is the most powerful resource we have. #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
I think it is human disconnection that causes us the most problems.
For me, I call people.
I have cultivated my support grew, my team, my posse.
You get to choose your crew.
I have these women in my life who can get me back to who I really am in the world.
I call the people who stand for me being the biggest, best version of myself.
It is a reciprocal thing. It’s this give and take.
You have to practice it in order to also receive it.
The power of yoga
I was so lucky that I started doing yoga right before I got cancer.
Just at the local gym, as a 22-year-old.
After I had cancer, I wanted to be in a helping place and closer to nature.
If I am stressed, I got to go to yoga.
Something about doing yoga in community, my brain settles down.
I reconnect with the parts I like about myself.
Teaching what you are learning
I know you’ve taken my quiz that is based on the chakra system. Would you mind sharing your results and if it resonated with you?
Mine was Inspiration. [Discover yours at www.yourtrueselfie.com]
It’s about communication, truth, power, voice.
That’s also where my anxiety will come.
There will be a tightening, a restriction in that area.
It is interesting, one of the hardest poses for me is fish pose or bridge.
They are both these huge throat openers.
You should be teaching what you are also learning.
The balance between contentment and living on the edge
Back to cancer, I really got clear I want to enjoy this life.
I don’t want to always live so intensely on the edge that my fear is racking my nervous system.
I want to enjoy the contentment right on the edge.
Playing in that zone of always pushing, growing and expanding and finding grace.
Fear and excitement, they are a dance.
Does the fear stop you or can you walk with it?
Breaking through the barriers of stress
I often find that anticipation is where most stress lies.
The things that aren’t working in our lives also serve us in some way. There is a payoff.
That makes you seem like your life is important, being busy and stressed.
I have to examine stress for myself.
Where is it coming from? How much of it am I willing to tolerate? Is it a healthy stress?
There is some stress to writing a book, creating a live event, and being a mom to two kids.
How much stress is productive that keeps me engaged and what parts can I let go of?
So perfectionism and stress are going to always be my Achilles heel.
Where the room for growth is noticing when those things are stopping me or when they are serving me.
Our favorite tips from Sage
Listen to your intuition
Let love in, allow yourself to receive help and support from others
Find your people who would stand for you being the biggest, best version of yourself
Do yoga to relieve stress and reconnect with your true self
Balance contentment with living on the edge
Teach what you most need to learn
Our favorite quotes from Sage
“Let love in. Let people help you. They want to help you. It helps them to help you. It’s generous to let them help you.”
“My intention is that we get better at snapping out of the old story that doesn’t serve us.”
“Human connection is the most powerful resource we have.”
“I call the people who stand for me being the biggest, best version of myself.”
“Does the fear stop you or can you walk with it?”
Resources and Links:
Naked Communication book is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Communication-Courageously-Create-Relationships/dp/099817131X]
Visit her website: www.sagebhobbs.com for free chapters of her book and to gain insights through her blog
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode we talk about: service, humanity, travel, international, cancer, survivor, author, speaker, naked communication, book, fear, purpose, true friends, contentment, edge, balance
An Introvert’s Guide to Selling, with Christine Pereira
From a shy kid to an inspired entrepreneur, finding liberation through sales
Can being a shy kid fuel an exceptional business passion? How does an introvert excel at sales? Can sales conversations be an introvert’s vehicle for soulful connection? Amazingly, yes! Tune in to find out how.
Finding your focus
I love your focus on introverted entrepreneurs. How did you get into this particular focus?
I was at a conference and someone started talking about “well I’m kind of in introvert."
And I was like “I am an introvert too."
I started mentioning it to people and I got this amazing feedback.
I made a really simple PDF that I put up on Facebook – “An Introvert’s Guide to Selling."
It got shared by thousands of people.
Once I thought about it, I thought this is what I really relate to.
I realized that was one of the biggest struggles that I overcame.
From shyness to success
What was your own journey? What was your call to adventure?
I was a really shy kid.
I had such a hard time speaking to people but I really wanted to connect with them.
I found that if I had a script where I could talk to people and I knew exactly what to say, it made it so much easier for me.
When I got in high school I joined a business group, and I found “I can really do this."
That started out my love for sales.
Liberation through sales
In the course of nine months, I got fired twice from two different jobs.
This was really a wake up call – I’m really miserable doing this.
In my body, the thought of going back to the industry made me feel like my whole entire chest was constricting.
I knew it was time to start something different.
The challenge of receiving
If I ask for something, I am greedy.
I think as women, we feel that a little bit more.
Even people who are doing something that is 100% helping other people, they still feel a lot of guilt.
What I notice a lot is issues in receiving.
When it comes to receiving, not just money, but compliments, love, acceptance – not just from other people but from ourselves – that is just a whole different story.
I think it starts with self-acceptance.
For a lot of people it takes a lot of time.
To be at our best, we really have to take care of ourselves.
Battle to fight or time to go?
As an introvert and as a woman, what inner barriers did you have to wrestle with on your journey?
Balancing everything.
I went through the process of having both of my kids working in a corporate environment.
It wasn’t just me, it was the messages I got from everyone around me.
“You’re not going to be able to do all of these things because now you have kids."
“You’re going to have to leave early, so I am not going to pick you for these assignments."
The message that you get is not as worthy.
You’re not considered as important anymore.
That was very frustrating.
To have a company where so few women have a voice changes the dynamic.
I was pumping breast-milk in a tiny storage closet, where there was dust everywhere, where there was computer equipment.
I don’t think that would have happened if the CEO was a woman.
I had a very big struggle because I knew I wanted to leave but I didn’t want to give up.
I changed my mind.
I said “I’m not going to take this anymore, this is not acceptable.”
I am going to create a company where this is not the case.
Timing is everything
A year before I had gotten fired.
I started doing a lot of work on myself.
I started working with a coach.
I started reading a ton of books.
I started thinking about what am I really passionate about.
It was two women who were senior to me gave me these overwhelming compliments out of the blue.
It was perfect timing that they had both said it within a few weeks of each other.
I thought “I actually do love selling, and I actually am really good at it."
I was so energized.
The evolution of empowering women
What is your big vision?
An early business mentor told me “you need to get in touch with your big vision, because once you are in touch with that everything else will fall into place."
My vision has always been that I want to create this amazing, empowering conference for young women.
I think college-high school age.
I remember that being a very pivotal time for me.
I did have a decent amount of confidence.
Then all of the self-talk and all of the things that happened in the corporate world and society really confused me.
If I stayed confident and never heard all that noise, I would have been in a different place.
I would love to create a conference to empower introverted young women because that’s who I was.
And help them feel like themselves and accept themselves.
It’s really tough if you can’t tune into yourself.
The take-away top tips
What’s a good way to get started with Soulful Selling, if you were to give three top tips?
The first one is to make a gratitude list.
The impact of sales increased when people created a gratitude list.
It puts you in an openhearted state of mind. It grounds you.
Another one – to know your ‘Why?’.
Why do you do the job that you do? What is your story?
And the other one – selling is serving.
You’re serving people by sharing.
Our favorite tips from Christina
Pay attention to your body to find your path.
To serve best, first take care of yourself.
Test your business idea by talking to people.
Tune into yourself.
Make a gratitude list.
Know your ‘Why?’
Selling is serving.
Resources and Links:
Visit her website: www.soulfulselling.com
Follow her on Facebook @soulfulselling
Quotes
“If you are selling what your real passion is, really selling is serving.”
“Sales is 80% confidence and 20% process. And anyone can learn that 20% process.”
“No one ever is 100% confident or 0% confident. We can all improve.”
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: shyness, shy, corporate mom, work life balance, gender equality, gender issues, workplace, confidence, introvert, introversion, sales, soulful sales
Money conversations that create transformation, with Debbie Todd
Her big leap from a big position to a bigger life’s purpose
Debbie had a prestigious and lucrative career. Until the 2008 global financial crisis awakened her to her heart’s calling to start living her true God-given gift--helping families to get in charge of their money. We chat about discovering your purpose and healing your relationship with money.
Finances should be a family affair. #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Listening to your calling
What was your call to adventure?
You remember that little global financial meltdown that happened in 2008?
I was doing very well, had a lot of prestige.
But all around me, my friends, my family, my neighbors were just hurting.
They were losing their jobs.
Around their kitchen table there was so much stress.
In my heart, I would come home and I was aching.
I knew in my heart I needed to start my own CPA firm and spend my time focusing on helping families who couldn’t afford to pay me a lot of money.
Help teach them. Give them the tools they didn’t learn.
God gave me this gift, and I needed to use it to help families.
Not necessarily help the corporate world get richer.
Look at yourself in the mirror
It must have been hard to walk away from such a big job, from the prestige that came with it, the money?
It was really challenging.
It took me 18 months to make that decision.
Because it is a lot of pressure from our peer groups and from society to follow certain norms.
But I would come home at night and I would look at myself in the mirror and I’d go “This is not what you are supposed to be doing, and you know it."
We can’t lie to ourselves.
Having faith
What gave you the courage to finally honor what you knew?
This is going to be a real vulnerable walk for me.
What really drove me was my faith.
I knew in my heart, being a Christian, how important it was to fulfilling my purpose.
I knew years ago that God had blessed me with this talent of helping people with their money situation and getting folks out of crisis.
I knew it wasn’t meant to just better the corporate world.
How could I be going to my job, sitting in this fancy office, moving millions of dollars around, and then come home and know that my neighbor is still out of work and didn’t have a clue how to help themselves out of it.
Lifelong mentors
My single biggest mentor was my grandpa Fred, who is a retired bank president.
Years ago he saw in me an ability that I didn’t even see in myself.
He encouraged me and prodded me. He said, “Debbie you can do this."
He is passed.
I still think about him to this day.
I look up to heaven and I say “Grandpa Fred thank you for all you did for me, and for giving me not only the encouragement to take the steps I needed to take, for believing in me and for what my purpose in life was."
It was really hard for me to realize that I need to step back and follow what was in my heart.
That’s when I started to truly live.
Money versus the heart?
Whether you believe in higher power, the universe, the cosmos, or in my case Jesus Christ, every single one of us has a purpose of why we are here.
By relaxing, wrapping our arms around who we are and what we can do, and that gift that we have to share, that is when life opens up.
The money doesn’t matter.
It’s the heart.
Money, habits, how you feel about money, how money impacts your life, is probably one of the most emotional heart-centered things of your life.
It’s not just about the dollars, it’s about how you feel and your fears.
Aligning yourself with your heart
We can lie to others and rationalize to ourselves.
But in our heart we know what we are supposed to be doing.
Have a conversation with that person looking back at you in the mirror.
That’s my heart check.
If I can look at myself and go “Yeah, we’re on the right path.”
Has the path been all roses and sunshine and puppies – no!
But I wouldn’t trade what I am doing now for all the prestige that I had before.
Because it’s not about me.
Inner challenges in the corporate world
You mentioned that you were working in this male dominated world. As a woman, what inner challenges did you experience in yourself?
As a woman, I always felt that I had to do it better, faster, cleaner.
And still be feminine and smile.
I worked with bond lawyers and financial advisors all across the country.
Even though I knew they respected me, when I would walk in I would get that “oh there’s that little woman” scenario.
It was that sense that I have dared to enter into the ‘man cave’.
The men would be in there talking, and I would walk in and they would suddenly stop.
I would always sense that pressure to be as good or better than them.
Because I had to compensate for the fact that I was a woman.
Walking the path less travelled
I was born into a military family.
I was the oldest of four children.
We moved a lot.
And we didn’t have a lot of money.
I always felt like I needed to perform.
I should be doing more.
I was the first one in my immediate family to go to college.
I knew that I needed to go to college and change my path.
That was challenging for my siblings because they never went.
I was challenged to fit in with my family.
Because I had travelled a path that they weren’t walking.
From stress to purpose
I was able to jump into the “Stress Junkie” mode.
I started out in the CPA firm and believe me you work a lot of hours.
I was a mom. We have five daughters.
There was a huge amount of stress in balancing my professional career, my heart center to help people with finances, and balancing my family life.
I had to come back and realize that all of that isn’t important.
Some of the corporate stuff isn’t important.
It’s about relationships. It’s about following my purpose.
Our favorite tips from Debbie
Follow you heart
Have a conversation with yourself in the mirror to find your true purpose
Trust your inner knowing and be honest with yourself
Understand your money issues may come from your life experiences
Travel the path less travelled
“Instead of using our experiences as something to say, well I can’t do that because this is my experience, you look at that and say, what did that experience teach me, what tool did that experience give me that I can use now?” #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Resources and Links:
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode we chat about: money, finances, finding your purpose, living your destiny, finding your gift, living from your heart, money and emotions, healing money issues, empowering, taking charge of your finances, family conditioning, social conditioning, women in finance, CPA
All is well and getting weller, with Jeanna Gabellini
How to have more freedom, fun, and profits
“It’s all about the energy behind the strategy. If it turns you on, it's going to work," says Jeanna. She faced debt and death threats. Her journey took her from fear to fierce freedom and authenticity. She now teaches business owners how to double their fun and profits. You're in?
“If it turns you on it’s going to work.” Jeanna Gabellini #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Standing up to claim your power
How do you help your clients get in that flow?
I call it inner guidance.
If you are not tapped into that place, then you are being a crazy person.
You are literally being tossed and turned with the tide.
You are in a sandstorm underneath a big wave.
The first thing I teach in any class is how to be connected in, and tap into your heart.
Your heart is going to lead your head to the right and perfect strategies for you.
We got to loosen up a little bit.
Breath is huge.
Be present for a moment.
If I am needing energy or caught up in a shit storm in my head, I got to stand up.
Claim the power back.
I had this one year where I was super broke.
I would describe myself as “stuck” during that period.
I would get in this loop in my head, worry for hours in a day.
I couldn’t do my work because I was so worried about the money.
Finally I would stand up and go “NO! I am paying that damn credit card. Universe bring it!”
Literally shaking off the loop in my head.
It would work.
I would always be able to make the payment, but not until I claimed it for myself.
Changing the energy
When we change our posture the mindset shifts automatically. It is so easy to forget, especially if your work involves long hours in front of a computer, in a cubicle, or office, or in one position. Maybe the only thing we need to change is our body position in space. Just get up and get out.
I usually go outside.
I got to move the energy.
I feel the most connected when I am writing.
I have a journal. I use it everyday.
For me writing, actually moving that pen connects me.
As soon as I start writing, I get out of my head and focus in on my heart.
I don’t try to figure out what’s coming next.
I just flow right into that heart space.
My big trick is, name 10 things that I appreciate right now, or what’s working well?
Prayers at night, thank God for what’s working well.
It doesn’t have to be big stuff.
I am grateful for all of these little things.
The ease of authenticity
My biggest fear is not looking like I got it together.
One of the best breakthroughs ever was I went to a leadership program and it was all about your presence in front of a room.
The room voted what they saw in you.
My type was “eccentric, bold, unpredictable, intense, and quirky."
They said your challenge is being more quirky.
I ditched my suit, I had on a t-shirt, I started playing money tunes.
I had the best sales.
And this was so much easier.
“The easiest path to somewhere is never the one that you think. We always make it so hard in our head. How can we make it fun?” Jeanna Gabellini #inchargeshow
Law of Attraction
I would love to know how you came to this place.
I think I am the typical story of you teach what you most need to learn.
When I was 20, I went to a Personal Goals seminar.
They put on the board “To think is to create”
I was so in love with that saying.
In that same leadership program I met my now best friend.
She introduced me Abraham Hicks.
Law of Attraction became the thing I lived, breathed, wanted to teach, and loved.
I can’t be a victim anymore because now I actually have the power to change stuff.
From fear to fortune
Did you have difficult times where you thought “What have I gotten myself into”?
The worst time in my entire life came as a result of my personal life.
One of my challenges is relationships, and who I choose.
I chose a guy when I broke up he decided to stalk me.
I was getting death threats. He was stealing my stuff. It was sheer craziness.
My life became about escaping.
This went on for months.
By the time I took it seriously it was too late.
I was like “I am in big trouble, I don’t have money coming in."
I started trying to figure it out, I was driving myself crazy.
My business partner kept on saying, “You are trying too hard, you are trying to force this."
Finally I had a fight with the new boyfriend and he said, “This coaching thing is not working out."
It was the greatest thing that ever happened.
He was telling me what he was seeing; spontaneous cry fits over the stress around money.
I committed to being different.
A month later, things started shifting.
All debt paid off, income tripled.
It was torture for over a year, but the results and what I learned were so massive.
Surrendering is the first step.
Not “I give up." But “stop pushing, it is what it is."
“You can’t push hard to get what you want. Surrendering is always the first step.” Jeanna Gabellini #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Reclaiming your power
Fear was taking my business.
I was so stressed out.
So disconnected from my power.
I had given it all to him, just handing it over on a silver platter.
As soon as I took back my power he stopped bothering me.
One time my mom called me and said, “There is a box here."
There were things that he had stolen from me, like family photos.
He had returned them.
That was such confirmation.
Being in my power was giving me all these amazing gifts that would have never happen if I was still in fear.
Surrender
Once I shift how I feel, everything else will unfold. Just surrender. Everything else will flow.
I have come to know now that anytime there is catastrophe, it ends up being such a great breakthrough on the other side.
“Any time there is catastrophe, it ends up being such a great breakthrough on the other side.” Jeanna Gabellini #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
I also noticed the shorter amount of reaction time.
Earlier this year I had something that I expected to go amazingly well in my business did not go amazingly well.
I was sobbing like you break up with someone you really love.
By the next day I was like “I know there is learning in this."
It has shifted something that has been an issue for me.
Perspective is everything.
Change your perspective, change your life.
“Perspective is everything. Change your perspective, change your life.” Jeanna Gabellini #inchargeshow @drvaleriebaker
Resources and Links:
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about law of attraction, debt, fear, escape, overcome, authenticity, ease, business strategy, business success, success, profit, fun, power, reclaiming power, present, in the moment
A successful author and the owner of a marketing and consulting agency, Vanessa Horn was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, which affected her memory, her vision, her voice, and her the ability to type. She was forced to stop and listen to her body and listen to her heart in a new and deeper way. She gained a profound perspective on success, fear, and honoring our true gifts, which she shares with us on the show.
How is began?
How did your journey begin?
14 years ago, inside of my belly was a growing boy.
At the time I was a corporate financial analyst.
I became desperate to find a way that I could still have this outlet but be present for my kids.
That became this massive adventure into entrepreneurship.
To me, it is all about sharing my message and empowering others to identify what they are on this earth to do.
I struggled for the first 18 months.
Drained our savings.
It wasn’t working.
You are the creator of your life
What is the X-Factor there between somebody who makes it to the top, like yourself, and somebody who struggles?
My working hours are between 11 and 4.
I don’t do calls in the evening.
My business reflects when I want to be available.
Because it fuels me.
Truly creating a life that you love.
Being in that congruency, reverse engineering your business to create the life that you want.
Chasing the destination
It was this constant chase, “When is it going to be enough before I can allow myself to relax?”
Meanwhile I was missing my life.
I was missing being present to the joys that were in the day-to-day.
It is not some destination to pursue.
But how can I be present and accept the gifts that are right here, right now.
Listening to your body and your heart
How did you learn to stop chasing after the destination and start living in the moment?
I believe that whatever challenge we have been through in life is part of our gift to others.
Recently I hit an invitation to live my message at an even deeper level.
My body completely shut down.
This wasn’t just exhaustion.
But my body was speaking to me.
When I went and got diagnostic tests, they were like, Vanessa, you have got adrenal fatigue.
My brain was not operating the way it used to.
My short-term memory was not accessible.
I completely lost my voice.
I had such inflammation in my hands, I couldn’t type.
I’m a writer. If I don’t have my brain, my voice, and my hands, I don’t have a business.
These are my three greatest asserts of my business.
My girlfriend said, “You didn’t even mention your heart. Maybe everything else is shutting down so you will listen to your heart.”
What’s the worst that can happen?
I remember one time my coach asked me this and I was like “I am scared I will end up in a homeless shelter.”
It won’t be all that bad.
I can handle that.
It made me realize that no matter what it’s going to be okay.
For me, playing out the worst case scenario and realizing that when we are surrounded by love I would still survive and be fine.
It made me realize that I create this anxiety in myself.
Rather than giving myself permission to trust.
Inner work
You have this amazing capacity to not give up. Have you always been like this or have you learned this?
I am a huge believer of the inner work.
I couldn’t be authentic if I wasn’t real about my journey.
If we are not willing to do the inner work, if we don’t connect with our own hearts, we can’t connect with the hearts of others.
It is the connection with the hearts of others that helps us be successful.
Being curious to remain present
You stand out in any crowd because you are so present, so authentic, so real, so warm. Did you come to this planet like this or did you grow into this through different experiences?
I grew up all over the world.
My parents were on a spiritual pilgrimage.
We went from Brazil, to India, to Europe, to South America.
I got to see such a diverse experience of life and people.
That made me really curious about others.
I realized that part of my younger self had a desire for affirmation from others.
Now, knowing who I am as a woman, I have integrated the parts of myself that I may not have wanted others to see.
I have discovered that my affirmation from others had to really ground in that “Vanessa you are enough”.
Your gift is to be present for others.
I don’t have to be extraordinary.
I just have to hold up the mirrors to help bring out other peoples brilliance.
Self doubt to success
I sold my network marketing business to become to coach and an author.
18 months in, I had no clients.
I thought, “What is wrong with me? What am I not getting? Why is it not going off?”
Desperate. Struggling.
The struggle is part of your gift.
Me getting adrenal fatigue, I went to a deeper level in the journey to share with others.
I don’t need my client to affirm my worth.
I don’t need someone telling me I am amazing.
Because if I am seeking that I am not fully present for them.
Communicating with decisiveness and grace
When you lost your voice that was a sign that some deep work was happening at the throat chakra level, that invitation to go inward, to be quiet, and to really simmer in that inner work. Does that resonate with you?
I am living it right now.
I got sick in September.
I told myself that fourth quarter, all I am going to do is self-care.
And give from the overflow and not from the little bit that you have received.
At the beginning of this year I had this dream, there was this dear with a lion head.
The dear represents elegance, grace, and compassion.
The lion head represents boundaries, leadership, and decisiveness.
I knew my invitation was to step into that new level of decisiveness.
It really is possible to be a powerful woman, a powerful leader, and exude grace and elegance.
Tips on managing the your inner stress junkie
Getting everything that’s in our head onto a sheet of paper.
I keep a little notebook.
If it comes to my mind I write it down.
Everyday I look at that list and choose three things.
They are not big project things.
We have a finite amount of energy.
We have got to be mindful who we are giving it to and not push ourselves.
I would want no woman to experience what adrenal fatigue looks like.
Being gracious with yourself.
You don’t have to conquer the world in a day.
Our favorite tips from Vanessa:
Be so bold that you and others think “Who the f*** do you think you are?”
Fast-forward and think what kind of person you would want to be in Oprah’s chair and live that from today.
Embrace the baby steps.
Give from the overflow.
Resources and Links:
Visit Vanessa’s website: www.vanessahorn.com for free gifts and trainings
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
www.yourtrueselfie.com
www.inchargequiz.com
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: stress, adrenal fatigue, grace, ease, successful business, marketing, true gifts, confidence, self-doubt
Quotes
“Your best marketing strategy is truly creating a life that you love.” Vanessa Horn
“What if you can achieve the success that you want with greater ease, with greater grace, with less pushing energy and more receiving energy?” Vanessa Horn
“If we don’t connect with our own hearts, we can’t connect with the hearts of others.” Vanessa Horn
“Fast-forward and think what kind of person you would want to be in Oprah’s chair and live that from today.” Vanessa Horn
“Be so bold that you and others think “Who the f*** do you think you are?” Vanessa Horn
She who dares wins, with Tanya Targett
Surviving an abusive relationship and a tsunami and building a 6-figure business in 6 months
Tanya Targett has lived through terrifying dark times—experiencing an abusive relationship, a tsunami, clinical depression, adrenal fatigue, and mini-strokes. However, these experiences have fostered an inward journey of healing and bringing her true gifts to the world yet more powerfully and authentically. Today, Tanya is thankful for the life that she has lived. She shines as a great role model for her kids, a successful entrepreneur, and a rocking publicity trainer.
“She Who Dares Wins”
What was you call to adventure?
My dad was in the British SAS.
The SAS motto is “He Who Dares Wins”.
But I always changed that to “She Who Dares Wins”.
I didn’t want to join the military or I didn't want to chase bad people in the military with weaponry.
My weapon was pen.
I was going to take bad guys by writing stories.
There became an investigative unit. I managed to get in there, and I really did chase some bad guys.
I uncovered pedophile priests, I went undercover and hid under upturned boats to spy on politicians and got threatened with arrest by federal police.
As a reporter, I would drive into the eye of the storm, instead of away from the eye of a storm.
I kept going because I had it in my blood.
“She who dares wins” and that’s always become my mantra.
Why not me?
When I was in year 12 I decided I wanted to be a journalist.
My English teacher tried to talk me out of it, because it’s very hard to get a job as a reporter.
But that’s never dissuaded me.
My attitude has always been, “Someone’s got to get the job, why not me?”
Someone’s got to get the interview, why not me?
There were over 3,000 applicants and seven of us got a job as a cadet reporter.
I went straight from high school into a newsroom.
That mantra or being brave and being courageous and “He Who Dares Wins” has really served me well.
For those of us who think “Well, it can be me”, then it’s limitless what you can achieve, what you can do, and the access.
Weakness VS Courage
The other mantra which certainly did not serve me is “to show no signs of weakness”.
It takes so much more courage to stop and pivot, than to push through.
It took years for me to discover that.
It was only when I found myself on my own, living on welfare, when I was forced to accept the help from others.
I suddenly realized that to accept help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of courage.
To show vulnerability is to show great courage.
It went against all my programming.
The frog and the pot.
There’s a saying about a frog in a pot.
Overtime, slowly the temperature has been turned up to the point that it is so hot. You know you should get out, but you are paralyzed and you can’t.
I was in a relationship that was very controlling.
Classic psychopath behavior, I was moved away from my family and friends.
I was isolated.
All the little lifelines that I had were cut off very, very slowly.
All the things that I had going for me was all signed over to my husband.
I have become one of those women we used to write stories about. I'm one of those pathetic, weak women that were strong, that are educated, that should know better.
I was terrified.
Mine wasn’t physical domestic violence.
It was emotional and psychological.
You keep drawing lines in the sand but here’s what happens with the frog in the pot, the line in the sand comes and you don’t know how to get out.
I had no family, no backup plan, no lifeline at all, no safety net.
I’d gotten into a relationship as a woman; property and car and career.
I came out without even a car in my own name.
Broken, shattered, barely able to string a few sentences together.
I was unrecognizable.
Goddesses of support
Three weeks before I had fled, my daughter turned to me. She burst into tears and said to me “Mommy, if you don’t stand up to bullies, they’ll rule the world.”
She was nine.
I just thought, “I should’ve left sooner”.
That’s my only regret.
I found myself living on welfare.
Then I just went about madness with the support of friends emotionally, and I built a six-figure business in six months.
Signs of strength
Your outward success doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story of the recovery of your spirit because there is much deeper work that you’ve had to do
At the very first talk that I gave, the keynote talk to launch my business, I’m standing in front of a room only of 60, 65 people.
In my head I could hear him, “You can’t survive without me. You can’t do this on your own”.
I cried.
In front of a room full of people, I cried.
I drove home that night to the babysitter's to pick up my daughter. I cried all the way to the babysitter's.
I thought, “you’ve got a choice, you can turn the tears off and show strength to Olivia or you can show strength another way and you can show her that it’s okay to be broken”.
I cried for two weeks. And I came back.
I think that was so invaluable for her to see someone who she saw as someone so strong be so weak.
But it wasn’t weakness.
Someone so strong, so together, to be so broken and so shattered, to then come back even stronger and to keep going and to keep functioning.
Reclaiming parts of yourself from the deep dark places
Years earlier I went to work.
An inland tsunami came.
Killed 38 people.
My warehouse was in the epicenter of the tsunami. The business was just gone.
I couldn’t get home.
The tsunami separated me from my children.
It was absolutely devastating.
The stress of it sent me to hospital with a suspected mini-stroke. I had seizure after seizure.
I couldn’t drive for three or four months.
I had to start from ground zero again.
I was diagnosed from clinical depression, which was a fantastic turning point because the minute I got that diagnosis, I went, "I'm going to go again. She who dares wins. I can do this. I can pick myself up. I can keep going.”
I am so thankful for all of those because I can resonate and empathize.
I hope that being through this, it’s made me a better person, better trainer, educator, and leader.
I’m very blessed for my experiences and gifts.
Healing as the key to unlocking your story
What I perceived as weakness was my greatest strength.
When I was giving my live workshops, what I found was when I let my guard down or let a little sneak peak into my background that’s all people would want to talk about.
I had to heal enough to be okay to share.
Probably only four or five months ago have I actually started to share my full story.
The impact that I've had from being able to share that story is so fantastic.
That whole journey has been about healing.
I hope that I give other single parents the knowledge to know that you can have it all.
You can go through this and come out the other side relatively unscarred.
Speaking to your younger self
Healing has really been the key to unlocking that story and that huge potential to inspire others. When you're looking back at the dark time in your life when you were in that abusive relationship, what would you say to your younger self suffering like you were at that time?
If only I had have known back then what I know now.
My advice would be it’s going to be more than okay.
Everything will turn out just as you want it to be.
You can do this.
You will do this.
You are the hero of your own journey.
Make some space for all the awesomeness to come into your life.
Links and Resources:
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: relationship, abusive, business, starting, confidence, entrepreneur, mom, single
Living her right-sized destiny with Susan Peirce Thompson, PhD:
From drug and food addiction to a research and academic career to an entrepreneur success story (as in, from 0 to 7 figures in 2 years).
From drug addiction to food addiction, Susan Peirce Thompson plummeted to the darkest of places. However, drawing on a feeling at age 10 that she was destined for something powerful, she’s always been a seeker. She dedicated years of work to inner healing and understanding herself, which led her to find her true destiny. Now, she is a brain scientist, psychology professor, and the founder of Bright Line Eating that helps millions of people with sustainable weight loss.
Meeting an angel in the darkest of places
How did you go from drug addition to getting on the path that has ultimately taken you to where you are now?
I was a seeker.
I did mushrooms when I was 14 and had this really transcendent experience.
I committed in my deepest soul that I was going to do that every chance that I got.
And I did.
I sought alcohol and mushrooms and pot and acid and ecstasy.
I had a weight problem. I didn’t feel comfortable in my body and I didn’t carry my weight proportionately.
I found crystal meth and it is an amazing drug for weight control.
Suddenly I didn’t care about eating.
I did crystal meth for a very long time.
I got very thin and very psychotic, essentially schizophrenia.
I started having scary and complete breaks with reality.
I dropped out of high school.
I got pretty far down with my drug addiction.
I had to get clean and sober, which I did at the age of 20.
Not through any brilliance of my own. By dumb luck and grace.
I got taken to a 12-step meeting by this guy I met at a gas station at 3:00 in the morning – this really cute guy.
It was a strange first date but I have been clean and sober since that day.
The phases of the journey
What was the next phase? How did your journey unfold?
I had to go on another phase of searching for a solution to my food problem.
I was wanting the solution to show up with the same clarity that the solution to drugs and alcohol showed up.
It was not showing up that way.
It was this wishy-washy, confusing, some people do it this way, some people do it that way.
So I went to 12-step food programs over a span of years.
I had momentary success but nothing that lasted.
I went through a lot of pain.
An eight-year stretch of time had me ending 40 pounds heavier than I started.
I intimately got obese through that journey.
Parallel lives
I moved to the University of Rochester.
The universe was so clear, “Susan this is your home”.
I could feel my future in the walls.
Within a year I met my husband, six months after that we were married. I became a Bahyai, which is a big part of my spiritual journey. My life was going great.
But my weight was climbing.
My life turned into parallel lives.
I was having all this academic and professional success, my home life was getting really good, and all that success couldn’t seem to transfer over to this food problem.
I watched as food addiction took me to darker places than drug addiction.
Sugar and flour were worse for me than crack ad crystal meth.
They absolutely did take me to a deeper spiritual bottom, to more desperation, to more of a feeling of hopelessness.
A moment in time imprinted on our soul
You said you could feel your future in the walls, how did you feel it, how did you trust it?
There was a moment where I trusted it.
I was at Peter Lenny’s house – he was the Chair of department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
I excused myself to the living room and made a phone call to my dad.
He said words I will never forget.
He’s been such a support to me at different junctures of my journey.
He said “Stand in that living room and close your eyes and soak that feeling of being there. That is all that matters, how you feel being there. You will come home and talk yourself out of it and let your head get in the way. Remember how it feels”.
It was a moment in time imprinted in my soul.
Reclaiming the treasures of our past
How do you tune into your inner voice? In my experience it’s always the quietest voices, because the external voices and the voice of reason always tend to be louder. I need to really tune in deeper, go into a meditation, a prayer, a state of connection with my heart to really hear it.
I meditate for 30-minutes every morning.
The phrase “Bright Line Eating” came to me in meditation on January 26th 2014, as the name of a book title.
It was like a megaphone. It was commanding.
The universe put that on my heart.
I tumbled out of my morning meditation and started writing the chapter titles.
I believe that this Bright Line Eating needs to exist in the world and it is just pouring through me.
My whole journey has been priming me for this.
Things that I had written off as failures or meaningless side paths, every little bit of my journey was peppered with these coincidences that led me to where I am now.
Far better to live your own dharma imperfectly than to live another’s perfectly – Bhagavad Gita
I suffered from clinical depression and anxiety. Now I understand that going into the wounds actually uncovered the path for me.
Before I started Bright Line Eating I was working on myself really hard for 20 years.
I worked the 12-steps 13 times, in five different 12-step programs.
I’ve been to therapy since 6th grade.
I’ve done Byron Katie’s “The Work”.
I have two full-time life coaches.
I am in a couple of different mastermind groups.
I pay through the teeth for support.
I have a process for working on myself.
I know myself so well.
I am ready to be a hollow reed. I am ready to be the instrument, the channel.
I love your message of going toward to wound, going toward whatever’s hurting. Not trying to side step it.
Square your shoulders to it.
That’s where the magic is.
I don’t know where everyone’s inspiration has come from, but mine has certainly come from really diving into my biggest challenge—addiction.
My own healing around that, my own solution for that, living that experience, now qualifies me to help others.
Often people want to help the world but they are missing the true story that they have to share.
Take that mess, slowly start working on cleaning it, and bring that method to the world.
Aligning with your destiny
Looking back at yourself 20 years ago, could you have predicted your life right now?
20 years ago, no way.
But 30 years, yes.
When I was 10 and I was an actress on stage in San Francisco, I had the feeling that I was destined for something powerful.
I got that feeling back somewhere in my first year of sobriety.
For most of my life I could picture this.
This life that I am living now feels like the most congruent life that I have ever lived.
Connect with Susan Peirce Thomson, PhD and Bright Light Eating:
Did you enjoy the show? Let us know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
If you like what we’re doing, please subscribe to #InChargeShow in iTunes and leave us a review and a 5-star rating, to help more women who won’t settle find us.
Follow the links to take the quizzes we discussed on the show:
In the free report at the end of each quiz, you’ll get an invitation to join our Facebook community. I hope you accept it.
I look forward to connecting with you soon!
Until then,
Stay in your heart.
xx
Valerie
In this episode, we talk about: food addiction, drug addiction, destiny, spirituality, spiritual seeker, entrepreneur success, starting a business, weight loss