Breaking Free From Fear: The Journey Back to Your True Self|Kelly Keefe

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Confidence for me means I know who I am. I'm at peace with being who I am. If we don't vibe, I don't need everyone to like me, and I don't need to like everybody. For me, that's confidence. We're gonna want validation from different spaces, but I do a lot of work with my clients is the shift from external validation to external amplification of what you already know about yourself. For me, that's that authentic power.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

When the roles you've played, the expectations you've carried, and the fear that once kept you safe begin to feel like the very thing that is holding you back.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Sometimes awakening doesn't arrive peacefully. Sometimes it begins with a breaking point, a detour, or the quiet realization that we can no longer abandon ourselves to keep everyone else comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Today we're talking about what it means to come home to your truth and finally step into the life that has been waiting for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Welcome back to Travel Time Stories, where real journeys, real stories, and real healing happens one conversation at a time. Today's guest is Kelly Keith, an author, speaker, Reiki master teacher, and transformational coach dedicated to helping people break free from fear, embody confidence, and live their purpose.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

For more than a decade, Kelly has guided individuals through personal and spiritual awakening by blending storytelling, energetic wisdom, self-awareness, and practical tools for lasting change.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Her new novel, She explores the raw journey of a woman's awakening and what happens when she begins reclaiming her truth, her power, and her connection to something greater than herself. Kelly, welcome to Travel Time Stories.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Thank you so much for having me. I love that I need you two with me everywhere I go.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

So good. Well, we're happy to do that for you. Yes. Just let us know when and where. So everybody, grab your favorite beverage and let's get into the conversation. So before we talk about your work, Kelly, I'd love to know more about the woman you were before this became your life's mission. Like what did your life look like before you began listening to that deeper voice within you?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, for sure. So I've had a really unique life experience right out of college where I was given an opportunity to go into a startup. It started as like an internship with someone who was had some products and he was making a startup company, much older gentleman. And the interview went from, cool, I'm coming for an internship. So you know what? Let's make you director of marketing and sales. And it was just like, okay, we're doing the things. And so I got the taste of non-traditional life right out of school. The entrepreneurial bug bit me. I've seen everyone else go in and doing like the nine to five. I was working at like 80-hour weeks, but I didn't care because I was like, I'm creating something.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Simultaneously, I started going through this awakening. That's when yoga, meditation, and fairly passionate about understanding mindfulness and meditation. I was going to Buddhist classes and all of the things. But I ended up having in meditation one day, clearest day, a message came through and said, look up healing modalities. You're a healer. And I was alone in my house in Kingston. And I stopped and I was just like, What the leap was that? You know, like I was kind of scared because I was like, Yeah, I just heard a voice, but like it still felt something like safe, like I could listen to it. And so I obeyed. I grabbed the computer and I looked up healing modalities, and I saw Reiki, and I clicked on it, and a huge wave of energy went through my body. Oh wow. So this is I'm working, my entrepreneurial doing the things, you know, trying to do some side hustles, making things work. And I go and I'm like, okay, I have no idea what's happening. Reiki wasn't mainstream at this point. It very much was present in the world, but it wasn't mainstream like it is today. None of this was. I close the laptop, try to pretend like it never happened. Three days later, I took off from work, working on some side hustle, and I had a Barnes and Noble, and I'm procrastinating on Facebook. Procrastinating, divine guidance, and I see people you might know. And Seth shows up, and everything in my body is like, I need to know this person. So I add them, I message, I said, This is weird and bold, but I'm a weird and bold person. I know we're meant to be friends. I kid you not, I still have the messages. Wow, going back and forth without planning, without telling him what I was up to or anything, just you know, pure banter, just from back and forth. From three hours after that first message, he asks what I'm up to. So I'm working out of my satellite office, aka Barnes and Noble. He was walking in the doors of the exact same Barnes Noble. Oh my gosh, that was meant to be. And boom, we're sitting at the table together. So we start having tea, and he's this like super fit, dreaded yogi man, you're like the chulis in the air, and we started smoking. And I'm like, something happened to me a few days ago. And I, for some reason, I feel I can tell you. And so I tell him the whole thing. I said, I clicked on like Reiki or something. He goes, It's Reiki. I was like, Cool, yep, that feels a lot better. He goes, I guess you're ready. I said, What do you mean? He said, Come on, you know the cliche. When the student's ready, the teacher will appear. I'm a Reiki master. So I guess I'll be the first person, first teacher on your journey. And life never looked the same after that.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Wow. That is incredible. I feel like some goosh mouse.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Well, the universe opened that door right up for you, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

It was exactly that's I mean, it was a few months later, you know, I started doing sessions with him. I received my first attunement from him. And later in a meditation, I heard the heart space. Now, mind you, I have the entrepreneurial mindset. So everything was a business. You know, like I was like buying domain names like shoes, you know, like where I was like, okay, it's gonna be it. I didn't understand I was truly gonna become a lifestyle. I had no idea that it was gonna be something I was gonna commit to for now a decade, and it grow alongside me and continue to be, you know, something that I'm still learning what's the full expression that it's gonna be. So it's not going anywhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

That's amazing. Incredible story.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Wild. So wild. I love it though. God hooked me up. Like honestly, like there's been some moments in my life that truly feel like cinematic, you know, and it's like I couldn't make stuff up, but why bother? Like the the reality of what happened is too good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

There are sometimes people meet and they were meant to meet. Shannon and I were meant to meet. You and you guys were meant to meet. That was yeah. That was really gave me, like Shannon said, goosebumps, chills.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Exactly. That's what I said. I got goosebumps from it.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yeah, those are I like to call those divine appointments. You two had a divine appointment that was uh that was created well before we came here.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yes, I I agree with that. I I think that as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Exactly. So people often hear the word awakening and they imagine a beautiful, peaceful experience. But sometimes awakening begins when everything feels like it's falling apart. So, what did it look like and feel like for you? You got the story, but what was the feeling of all of that when it was happening?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Messy. It's messy. Yeah, being human's messy. I think the more we can give ourselves the grace to like just honor, like no matter what someone's experiences, it's messy and it's gonna be messy, you know? I was fortunate to have a lot of bliss happening at the same time. So I was in these, you know, spaces and Reiki for anyone who hasn't has it's very scrumptious. At the same time, as I was starting to move through those healings in that process, I was grieving the death of an ex who overdosed. Oh my gosh. I was moving through so much. I've I like to say advanced healer, advanced curriculum. Like I had a lot of material to unpack and still always get to continue unpacking, you know? Okay. So it was starting to really confront those parts. It had me starting to really see wow, there's things I've thought of what reality is that no longer feels like what reality is. And so questioning that, having that piece of I can see this vision of what I'm to create, but I'm here and being challenged with that gap in between, which is what I support people most with. Now, how do you close the gap? Yeah, it was it was messy. It was that I can see something who I'm supposed to be, but I don't know how to be it. I'm questioning reality. I'm starting to distance myself from people who have been like my main support network because it doesn't resonate anymore. Yeah, it was it was messy and beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Those usually go hand in hand, you know. So were you someone who trusted your intuition early in life, or did you have to relearn how to hear it?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

I love that question. Um yes and no. You know, I don't like to be so, you know, elusive with it, but I always my connection with spirit was extremely potent from a young age. My parents have been able to tell me more stories that beyond what I remember. Um, but from ages three to six, I was receiving visitations from Jesus on the regular. They would wake up to me in full-blown conversations with him all night. My dad would come home from night work and be like, She okay? Like, apparently they went to the doctors and I'm like, should we be worried? Like, oh, it's just a phase. But actually, it was like, you know, me getting prepared for what's to come. And I was always the person people were coming to for advice. I remember when like aim became the thing, like the AIM messenger. I would sit there and people were telling me their deepest life stories, and I was following the my intuition to share what was moving through me. And it's these pieces, like, I don't know why I know what to say here. I don't know why this wisdom and this advice and this guidance is here. So it was absolutely those pieces and the facet of cool, right out of school, yeah, I'm gonna go into this startup. And that's when that started. But I questioned myself a lot as someone who was bullied even by her sister. And I grew up in a very a house with a lot of adversity. I was really taught that my emotions weren't an experience wasn't valid. And that, you know, for me to feel things and try to vocalize, I think that was more where it wasn't so much the intuition wasn't there. Me relearning that my experience is valid and my voice is safe to be heard and to be expressed.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Yeah, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

So, what were you most afraid might happen if you stopped being who other people expected you to be?

SPEAKER_01 12:40

I, you know, as someone who supports others in this, and I understand how real that fear is, because honestly, a lot of the things I was afraid of happened. You know, of okay, connections that I had started to fade away. I remember I went through a long season with my family. I don't know how many times I heard, what's the matter with you? Just be normal. You know, and I was like, I see the world from a different way. I don't know, you know, like I remember being there, like little, like now looking back, it's just kind of funny, you know, like cool. Me, like low-key, I was so unregulated looking back at it. But I was like looking for my crystals that I put out to charge in the full moon, and they had been moved, and my mom, like, what is wrong with you? You know, so like these like little things of that. But the more I grew in and I was blessed to receive incredible teachers, indigenous elders from so many different lineages, sometimes them finding me in the, you know, out in the coffee shop in Brooklyn, like me not looking for it, just coming to me, or me being led to these different places and receiving so much support and prayer from these spiritual powerhouses, and me really starting to find my voice. And I moved to New York and was building my own world, it continued to grow with this gap. And as I continue to say, I'm gonna live my life, I eventually, it's no longer, but for a season, I was completely disowned. Where it was, you can't do this. What are you doing? I and I'm I'm living my life, you know, and I have compassion for it now, especially someone who's so well versed now in neuroscience and subconscious programming. I can understand why a human does what they do. Doesn't mean I have to be okay with it or accept it, but I can understand where it comes from. But I went through that. I went through the piece of okay, cool. Well, the people who are supposed to support me the most, you know, as I'm trying to build my own authentic life and be me, we're actually like, peace out, you know, and so I think without knowing it, that was a deep fear. But hindsight, I was blessed. I've had so much turbulence in the relationship. I was like, y'all toxic anyway, I'm at, you know, but it's so often that's what we're afraid of. I'm gonna lose what I know. And that makes sense because when we look at it from the neuroscience piece, there's those parts within us, their whole goal is to keep us safe. And all it knows is to hold on to what's familiar.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

That makes so much sense to me.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Of course, you can look back and wisdom's earned. You know, you can't buy wisdom, and there's been a lot of crazy life in, you know, still, you know, young enough to be able to stay like kind of young, but not young enough. You know, like I'm in that like weird space of I'm not old, but I'm definitely not young, you know. Um I've had a lot of life. I have guys I say, don't burn bridges. You know, like just because you're not resonating with people or friends, and that doesn't mean that like you have to completely burn the bridge and singe it off. Like just do you, but you don't gotta, you know, burn that bridge. But so many people are afraid of I'm gonna go into something I know, I'm gonna lose everything. Okay, but it'll get filled with something else. Yeah. More aligned, more fruitful, and you know, it's always working for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

I think in that moment of panic though, you forget you forget that part.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Totally. Totally. Right. Which makes sense because if we and this is why I love the path that I was brought on of cool, I was thriving spiritually, but the external world was imagine. You know, and I was like, there's a dissonance here. And again, I knew enough just from you know higher level, I'm like, okay, I'm someone who's been through a lot of life, a lot of bullying, a lot of you know, trauma, bada bada bada butt. I was like, I know that there's some some subconscious stuff going, but what does that mean? So once I started to do copious amounts of trainings and certifications and applying it to myself, as I was see, ah, we don't get to negate the human. And the more we can understand the human piece of it, now we can thrive as a spiritual human. Of course, when the panic's there, if we're talking full physiological neuroscience, when we hit trigger, if we go outside of that familiar piece, if we don't bring this part in with understanding and compassion, it's gonna continue to go into the alarms, which we're gonna hit our own space and then panic, which brings us into what's called flooding, physiologically, a whole rush of adrenaline cord is all oof goes through the body. And we need at least 20 minutes for that to settle back down. And so the more we can understand our parts and our quirks and our triggers, we can start saying, Oh, we're going into unfamiliar territory, but oh, I remember, I know this makes you feel panic, so let's slow down, let's reassure you, let's be with you, take a little baby step and build that window of tolerance. Yeah. When you're in flooding, you're not thinking from your your prefrontal cortex, it's all amygdala.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Right. Yeah, exactly. So you believe our greatest challenges can become catalysts for healing and transformation, correct? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

I don't even have anything loquacious to say on that. Just that's great. I I really do believe it's uh it's all so divinely orchestrated. You know, like what we go through to be able to support someone else later down the road. Like, there's been some crazy stuff I've gone through than like be able to see, like, ooh, there's not much that can come through my door that I don't have compassion for. Because either I've been through something similar or it's been in my proximity or something that builds that. You know, I'll never tell someone, I mean, I'm extremely highly sensitive, so I can probably sense what someone's feeling at times, but I'll never tell someone I know what you're feeling. Yeah, but I can say, I get it. That sucks. I get it. And then how do we move through it for sure?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

So it's so difficult to see meaning while we're still inside that pain. Do you believe everything happens for a reason, or do you create or do we create our meaning from what happens?

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah, I'm personally still challenged by this one. You know, of I really I can see everything that happens in our lives with the right support and the right tools we can utilize for our benef our ultimate highest good and benefit. And if we look at it from the science perspective, understanding humans, we're meaning-making machines. The meaning that we provide things is what's gonna, you know, kind of curate our perspective on it. With that to say, I think that there's some really pardon my friend shitty things that happen to people, but that is not their fault. I don't think I don't really co-sign to the piece of like, oh, you manifested that or you created that. I think that thing anything that happens, we can in time utilize it as alchemical fuel to benefit us in the highest good. Yeah, but I don't I don't prescribe to the you know, you asked for it of like anything that happens in our lives necessarily.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Yeah, yeah. You know, that distinction is so important because people can sometimes feel pressure to find that lesson too quickly, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, I have uh actually, you know, I guess in ways a former client, we did her uh closing out session today. It's been an incredible six months, and that was one of the biggest things of you know, us getting to play with of she had her own piece of the like, okay, well, I need to I need to figure out why, or I need all the answers. I need to this and that. And it was so beautiful to hear, you know, she was talking about something and it came so naturally where she was like, yeah, and and I don't know what that is, this and that. And I stopped and I said, Can we just pause and celebrate that shift that has happened over these six months? I was like, I'm not gonna bypass that. I remember what we were working through of those pieces. Again, that makes sense because we want to create safety, we want to create control, and we want to be able to understand. And I thought, cool, maybe you'll find a lesson in time, in it. Maybe I'll be and there's times we just gotta hold ourselves and just and just be with it. And sometimes you don't need to have the answer. Distant Reiki? I can do a healing session with someone in Australia right now, and then have an incredible transformational experience.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

I mean, I can tell you the techno you know, piece of energy knows no bounds. Are we gonna do this and that? But we don't have to have all the answers, just have the experience and receive the fruitfulness of it.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

So, how do we honor grief, anger, or disappointment without getting permanently stuck there?

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Well For me, as you say that, it brings me of like grief is an umbrella. So I like to remind uh remind those I'm working with of grief is uh it's a dance. And anger's in grief. You know, we have denial, yes, we have anger, we have depression, we have acceptance, and it's a wave and it can be ongoing. You know, there can be something where I'm sitting in in session for myself, because you know, everyone needs to be also receiving support. Please don't work with anyone who's not receiving support and talk about something and it hitting me going, ain't that something? I'm hitting another wave of grief on XYZ. This has been years. You know, I think the trick is to remember it's a process. And you know, this too shall pass. You know, anger, I think, is an interesting one. I'm a believer in feeling and humans we're scared of anger. There's fire. And fire can be dangerous, but it can also keep us completely safe and really warm and yummy. Oftentimes, if and anyone who's listening, if you find yourself you on something, you tend to feel anger, but then you get to sadness. It's like, oh, I'm just in this deep well of heaviness and sadness. My invitation is, and whether you know you do it on your own or find someone who can hold you into that space, even without talking to you. I'm gonna kind of analyze and pinpoint some of y'all listening. There's a fear of anger there. Sadness feels safer. So oftentimes we'll hover in sadness and not actually get to the anger, which is what prolongs it. Where we can find healthy ways to feel the anger. Do a burn letter, go for a workout with the intention of to really work through this stuff, hit a punchy back, scream in a pillow, do something that allows us to get that moving, it'll create more spaciousness. It doesn't mean you're never gonna cry about it again, but it can start to open that space because anger, it's fire. And if we don't let ourselves start to air it out, that's just going from a fire to a bonfire. Real facts make a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah. So you help people break free from fear and embody confidence. So, what do you find people are truly afraid of? Is it failure, judgment, rejection, or the responsibility that comes with them realizing like just how powerful they truly are?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Yeah. All of the above, uh, and it always, you know, depends on the individual, depends on their blueprint, depends on their background. And that's what, you know, within all of the work that I'm doing, within group work and one-on-one, we're using the heart space methodology that's bringing together both the spiritual energetics and the neuroscience. However, every single person, it's not a cookie-cutter system. It's not, okay, well, no matter who I work with, week one is this, week two is, because we're all so unique in what's there. I think it's interesting, it's a default that when we talk about fear and like kind of hitting that next level, at large we typically go to, oh, it's a fear of failure. Majority of the time, it is actually fear of success. Because fear of success is a completely different identity. And you hit the nail on the head of it, you named it later, but comes with more responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Oh, if I had to become successful, well, now I have to hold this. And us bringing in and weaving in societal conditioning, that means status. I'm gonna have to hold that status. And what if I then fall from that status? And then what's that gonna mean? Am I gonna be able to hold it? Because who am I to be able to move through this? And so really is this expansion, it's a fear of expanding into power. With that is being seen, being heard, a fear of being misunderstood, because we all just want to be understood.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

You know, and that fear of of holding it, we can kind of boil it all down to a bit for sure.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

I suppose when you're not used to being seen or being heard, for that to suddenly happen could be very overwhelming for people.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

It still is overwhelming for me. Keeping it really a hundred with every like again, the human experience never ends. That's like the beautiful thing when we're working with understanding our core wounds and our parts. Cool. We it's not a abracadabra, poof, it's healed and it's just dissipated forever. It's actually uh understanding ourselves. I like to say it's like this is your vehicle from zero to eleven, poof, your vehicle you're driving for this life has been developed. If you drive a Jeep off the law, you can be like, oh my god, I love this Jeep. This thing's amazing. Maybe you got a Wrangler, you open it up, hair's going, you know. And a few weeks in, you realize something about like the the way the sound is on the blinkers or something. We're like, oh, that's kind of annoying. Well, it's a feature that comes with it. You love a whole lot of other stuff about your car, but that's a quirk that you're gonna have to deal with. It's your vehicle. These parts of ourselves, they're part of the vehicle. It's us learning to understand it, how to work with it. I was like, okay, welcome to your team. You know, I have a deep rooted, I'm blessed to have done so much work on it, to be here today to be able to do what I'm doing, and you know, the states that we're doing it continuing to grow. I was extremely misunderstood almost my entire life. I mean, my parents disowned me for being who I was. I can say on the record, my dad has now gone through his own awakening and he apologizes all the time. I'm like, I'll keep receiving the apologies because like low-key core wound, and like, you're good, dude. Like, you're good. To be able to be in a space where it's wow, I've been able to say people understand I have value. What moves through me, my experience I've had, we have pages and pages of lives changing. And with that, more opportunities, more, you know, more and more podcasts to be able to share. And there's still those parts that sit are just like, where's this gonna go? Just how much attention? Because I give me a stage and a microphone. Oh, I've always been a weirdo. I've loved public speaking. I love that. You're my kind of girl. My ideas can come of oh my goodness, I'm being seen, I'm being heard. People are under. I have the gift of gap to be able to bring these complex things to a way that people can understand. I love it. I'm grateful, I'm blessed. And there's that part that goes, but what does that mean? And I get to continue to say, I hear you, I know, and I understand what what comes up for you there. Let's sit, let's have a cup of tea. Let me hear where you're at. Let's find a way to make sure that you feel good in this, continue to foster that safety so we can keep going. I didn't kick her out. We're just learning how to work together better as a team.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

That makes so much sense. Why can being seen feel so dangerous, especially for women who have spent years making themselves smaller, putting everyone first, trying not to be seen.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

So it's scary.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

It's it can be very scary. It can be very, very scary. And you know, there's I'll kind of put this into two buckets of if we look at it of epigenetics and culturally speaking as women. It was not that long ago that women weren't working, that women's job was to be in the house, to be the best counterpart for a husband, to make his life better. That was how you were deemed worthy. Can you get a man? Can you make him happy? Can you keep a man? And that was the conditioning. And when we remember, our perspective of this is how the world works, this is my role within it, et cetera, et cetera, goes from zero to eleven. And we passed down our nervous system and our beliefs and everything generation to generation. So, as women, we have generations of programming that we're all lifetime getting to reprogram and be with, go us, woo-hoo. Okay, we have all of these pieces of the cultural. What does it mean to be a woman? What is a woman's role in this world? That's the one piece as culturally. And then we bring it into everyone's micro experience. What was your mother like? What did you experience as a role of a woman, of a wife, of a mother, et cetera, in your own world? People who experience sexual trauma as a child that comes with its own baggage of being seen equals not being safe. Was sibling rivalry happening in the house? Was there there's so many facets of looking at developmentally what is associated with being seen? And from there, it creates our world within that for sure. And then so many other pieces, but I'll kind of keep it there, or else we'll, you know, the rest of the time we'll be playing on that.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So on that note, a lot of women reach midlife and begin asking the question, who am I when no one needs me in the same way anymore? Especially like, you know, if you're becoming an empty nester, that kind of thing. So can identity crisis be the beginning of finding your more authentic identity?

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah. Yeah. Anytime we start questioning, like, who am I really? Like if we take away all of the roles, and who am I? Now we're getting into the juicy stuff. Like, I'm curious to see what unfolds as you know the world of like roles and jobs continues to grow and evolve. I'm not predicting anything, what it's gonna look like. It's not my that's not what I'm here for. But we're just seeing more and more people having more time and starting to see their roles, whether it is a mother, whether it is you know a career got taken away unexpectedly, or whatever it may be, and then start to say, okay, if I don't have that, who am I? You know, and the more we can start to drop into, okay, what's my real purpose here? And I don't take lightly, being a mother is an incredible purpose at your soul time for this lifetime. It's such an important job that's not to be discredited from the soul purpose.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

When we're looking at soul purpose, it's not an occupation, it's not a title. It's the medicine you bring into the world. I'm actually so proud of a new resource that we just um brought out about a few weeks ago, I think. We've been working on a behind the scenes of the simple quiz that supports in mirroring back an aspect of your soul purpose of where you're at in this stage of your life. Because it it melts. Sometimes you're the mystic, sometimes you're the alchemist, maybe you're deeply in your visionary leader right now, or maybe you're in the guide. And in any given day, you may flow between all of them. But this helps to mirror back in this season of your life and where you are today, where's your sole purpose? Really asking for you to nurture it. And it provides copious amounts of free resources and support to start to nurture that. Because the more we can lean in and say, I want to understand myself, I want to understand my purpose. That's just the medicine you bring to the world. Yeah. A mother, you're moving in the archetype of the guide, right? You're guiding someone. They're you're yeah, ideally, you're creating a safe environment for them to be able to be fostered and providing wisdom and to be able to move that forward. So I don't think we have because it's a newer research, I'll also share that with you so we can put that into the show notes for anyone who wants to dive into that as well. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Yes. So, what is the difference between confidence as the world usually defines it, and authentic power? Ooh. Just gonna drop the bomb question there. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yeah. Huh. I need to actually chew on that for a moment of like kind of meandering through, but I'll meander it out loud so people can welcome to the madness of my mind. I think for me, I love to play with uh clients a lot of my work bringing in the neurolinguistic programming. I like to ask, cool, what's your definition of this? So my thoughts meanly go to when you say like the standard definition of confidence. I on my go-to, well, I'm curious what Ann's definition of confidence is and Shannon's definition of confidence is, because mine might be very different. And I think that's also where we kind of get into a tizzy and mess up in society where we can use all use the same word, but have completely different meaning. I think we've gotten to a very interesting place where we're kind of creating a facade of what confidence is, of if, like, you know, you're doing the social media thing and you're putting stuff out there and your life looks great. But reality is, I know a lot of people doing that are extremely insecure. They're actually not feeling comfortable in themselves. And that's not knocking anyone again, me being the you know, the mad scientist I am and loving humans so deeply. Or I can see something like, oh, interesting. I can see that core belief, you know, that that they're actually trying to nurture, they're trying to seek love, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Of moving into cool confidence for me means I know who I am. I'm at peace with being who I am. If we don't vibe, cool. I don't need everyone to like me, and I don't need to like everybody. For me, that's confidence of like, cool, sure, we're human. We're gonna want validation from different spaces. But I do a lot of work with my clients is the shift from external validation to external, you know, amplification of what you already know about yourself. For me, that's that authentic power.

unknown 36:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

I know who I am, I know I'm amazing, but I also know you are amazing. So I want to know what makes you amazing, but also share myself authentically. Where, and for me, confidence is that rather than like the facade. I don't know if that answers it. It's a good question.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Yes, it absolutely answers it perfectly. I love that description. That's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah, it's an interesting world we've painted for sure. So let's shift a minute and let's talk about your novel. She.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Who is the woman at the center of this story when readers first meet her?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah. So she and she does not have a name, at least in the first book. Keep reading along to find out if that gets revealed and she finds it. She is a young woman who had fallen in love, moved in with her partner, and experiences a very unexpected heartbreak. He just walks out on her one morning and she finds herself sitting with, I just need a fresh start. Low-key if we look at it, it's definitely just kind of like avoidance and running from her emotions, but it's okay. Sent her on her quest to find herself. And so she ends up mommy ticket and moving to New York City, and she's moving through what is it to completely start over? And in the process of finding herself through relationships and art and roommates and just the wildness and funness that is New York City while gravitating to yoga and meditation and at the start of her spiritual life. I love that. It's a light read with a lot of spiritual depth woven in. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Perfect. So, what is she longing for that she may not yet have the words to describe?

SPEAKER_01 38:45

I'm filtering through of like what can we share without giving too much away. I'd say, such as any of us, you know, she's without knowing it, she's looking for herself. You know, there is a character in this book, although she's not the main character. My favorite character is Zay. I have such a deep love for Zay. Zay is this incredible, soulful, black woman, artist, multidimensional being that you know is her roommate and just a mentor to her without realizing it. And she speaks through the book of it. Zay's so confident in herself. You know, and you can feel that, and it's it's stirring in her that piece of like, I want that. So without her realizing that's what she's looking for, she's looking for that, like, I want to be me. I just spoke at an event on Sunday. There was an event here down in South Florida, and I was on the panel, and they asked us a question if you could like wish for everyone here, like one thing to grant themselves permission for. I was like, one, love the question. Two, I was like, I would love for you to give permission for you to do. I was like, there's too many micro ones I want to say, and I really want to play by the rules on this, you know. I was like, so I'm just gonna give you the umbrella of permission to do you, like it'd be so radically authentically you. It's the most spiritual gift the planet you could give.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Yep. I love that. So, why did you choose fiction to explore these ideals rather than writing another traditional personal growth book?

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Not too deep. I love fiction. I love you know, I was writing chapter books as a kid, and so it's always been a part of my being. And when I moved to New York City myself, it was very much so, you know, received your healer, did the Reiki thing, heart space came in, and then it was cool. My lease is ending in six months, and I said, I'm going to New York. And people were like, you know, of course, everyone, where you where are you gonna live? I said, I'm not sure yet. What are you where are you gonna work? What are you gonna do? I'm not sure yet. I'll have that all figured out by the time it gets here. I don't know. I I'm just following my piece here, you know? And so when I got there, it no longer exists. It's so sad. There was a program called NanoRimo, National Novel Writing Law. And writers from around the world would come together and commit to writing 50,000 words. Oh, wow. And so actually, within the first few months of me living in New York was when this book mused through me. So it actually took almost it took nine years from me writing it to it hitting bookshelves around the world, which is wild in and of itself. But yeah, it was first for me, such as so much of what we've talked about. Our life experiences become a gift for the world. I wrote it first. I love fiction, it helped me process life. You can definitely play through the book. Is this the author's life? Is this fiction? Some is very much so fiction, some is very much my life. You know, it moved through, and after it was written, I felt it. I mean, I would be writing and it wasn't conscious. I'd be going and live, I'm like, oh, who's that character? And it was the story was writing me, you know. So I really believe news coming through. Yeah, so I wrote it because it's fun, it was a part of my own process in moving through that. Now we're in the dance of you know finishing up two nonfictions while continuing to get these these fictions that was first written nine years ago. We didn't work on the trilogy through well, we've actually been work on, you know, three nonfictions with more to come, but yeah, because it was fun. Sometimes we just gotta do things in life because it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Exactly, yeah. Exactly. And and writing fiction is funner, more fun than writing nonfiction anyway. So it can be. I'm more fun to read.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah. I mean, I'm as you can tell, like I literally talk about this all day, every day. You know, it's a podcast speaking thing or like with clients, but I love it. I gen like I'm I'm so passionate about this, you know. We're like writing the non like for me, it's all it's all fun. Any any form of it, like I just live in it. I'm such a little nerd for this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

That's great. So, does storytelling allow readers to recognize truths about themselves, but without feeling as though they're being taught or corrected?

SPEAKER_01 43:24

If we look to you know, the indigenous waves, back when sitting around the fire, before we're even like writing, everything was taught and passed along through stories. Storytelling is the most powerful teacher we have available. Yeah. Even if we look at through this conversation, any of us sharing any of our stories, it gives the opportunity for people to say, Oh, I see myself in that. And it is definitely, yeah, as humans, we're funny. Our guards can come up quick. If someone's reading a nonfiction, or I'm just here saying, Well, you know. What this is gonna happen in your world, this and that. There's a part coming up that protector came out so fast and it can't. But through a story, it's oh my gosh, I see myself in that interesting. Oh, that happened to that. Oh, maybe that could happen to me. Absolutely. Storytelling is has been and will continue to be the most powerful feature.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Yeah, exactly. That's what our show is built around the belief that sharing stories helps people heal and reminds them that they're not alone. I agree. Stories are powerful.