Desire As Medicine Podcast
Catherine & Brenda interview people and talk to each other about desire. They always come back to us being 100% responsible for our desires.
Contact us by email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
Instagram:
@desireasmedicine
@CoachCatherineN
@Brenda_Fredericks
Desire As Medicine Podcast
68 ~ How to Create Lasting Change
In this episode, we pull back the curtain of our own lives and share how we each created big change. We share how we shifted from conventional careers to entrepreneurs and lives led by desire. We highlight the initial discomfort of wanting something different.
By surrounding ourselves with inspiring people and remaining open to new ideas, we learn to listen to our inner voices and chart new courses in our lives.
Relationships are at the heart of our discussion as we explore how to transition from unfulfilling interactions to truly meaningful connections. Reflecting on our experiences, we discuss the shift from being overgivers and people pleasers to seeking genuine, reciprocal relationships.
Through coaching, therapy, 12 Step programs and self-awareness, we emphasize the significance of increasing our capacity to embrace and maintain new experiences. This episode offers insights into challenging limiting beliefs, embracing discomfort, and growing into the person who can sustain authentic connections.
Join us as we explore the courage necessary to follow desires, handle change with self-compassion, and accept life's gifts gracefully. We discuss the importance of balancing success and failure on the growth journey, the value of supportive communities, and the art of embracing both giving and receiving.
We invite you to reflect on your personal desires and the changes you wish to create, encouraging you to connect with us and share your experiences. Thank you for being part of our community as we navigate this journey together.
How did you like this episode? Tell us everything, we'd love to hear from you.
If you'd like to learn more about 1:1 or group coaching with Brenda or Catherine message them and book a Sales Call to learn more.
Email:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
goddessbrenda24@gmail.com
catherine@catherinenavarro.com
Instagram:
@desireasmedicinepodcast
@Brenda_Fredericks
@CoachCatherineN
Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire.
Speaker 2:Inviting you into our world. I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life, motherhood relationships and my business Desire has taken me on quite a ride and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher turned coach and guide of the feminine.
Speaker 1:And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married. I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of tired and wired and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker and a forever student.
Speaker 2:Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1:On the Desires Medicine podcast. We talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked being responsible for our desire.
Speaker 2:Welcome back, welcome back to Desire as Medicine podcast. Welcome Catherine, my beautiful and amazing co-host. Hey Brenda, and amazing co-host, hey Brenda. So good to be here today.
Speaker 2:Our last episode was on enough how much is enough? How do you know when you've had enough? And Catherine and I were sitting here jamming about this, as we generally do, and we're really talking about how do you create your life. Like having enough is one thing, but what about before you even get to the point where you think you have enough? What about when you don't feel like you have enough or you want something different? You want something different in your life. So what we're going to do today is dial it back. We're kind of going back to the basics today, talking about desire and how do you create your life if you want something different? Right.
Speaker 2:So you're living your life and you've kind of hit your havingness. You've kind of hit the level at which you feel you can have in your life, evidenced by the fact of you look around, you have what you've created in your life because this is what you believe. You're at your ceiling and you're living your life and maybe that's fine. And then, all of a sudden, a desire comes in. Something comes in. Maybe it's a whisper, maybe it's a tap on your shoulder, maybe it's a dream, maybe it's a flash. However, it comes for you and you're like, oh, I want that thing, I want something more. And now that can be scary and you might not know what to do with it. If you're like me, you brush it off for a while and it kept coming back for me. Like me, you brush it off for a while and it kept coming back for me. And what we want to talk about today is what do you do with that? What do you do with that desire? How do you make that desire happen for you? And I don't mean make it like we're going to force it to make it happen, but how do you lean into this desire of oh, I want something more. In my life, I saw something that I want and I'd like to lean into that, and maybe that's uncomfortable for you. How do you have it? And Catherine and I were sitting here talking about it and we are two women who have both had pretty long careers in traditional jobs and we've both left those jobs. We both have our own businesses, we both work with women, we have this podcast. We've both created enormous change in our lives, and so we really wanted to share with you today the personal things that have moved the needle for us, what we have each done to create change in our lives. I think what I want to say for myself is and then I'm going to have Catherine chime in I think one of the biggest things for myself is what I said before, that little whisper, because I was living my life.
Speaker 2:I lived in the suburbs, I was married for a long time, I had a very traditional job, I had children, I had vacations and cars and all of those things. And I just had this tap on my shoulder and I just felt like there's more. And there were no details in that flash, it was just a feeling. It was like there's more and I didn't understand it and I brushed it away for a long time, but it didn't go away.
Speaker 2:And what I've come to know now in looking back at that feeling, is that that was desire.
Speaker 2:It just didn't have any.
Speaker 2:It didn't have anything tangible in it.
Speaker 2:I just knew I wanted more.
Speaker 2:It didn't have anything tangible in it, I just knew I wanted more.
Speaker 2:And so I leaned into that desire and I started getting really curious and I had a friend who I had known for a very long time and she was doing a program in a women's community and she would talk to me about what she was doing and I started blowing my mind.
Speaker 2:I started expanding my mind of what's possible, because I had never even heard of these things before.
Speaker 2:And she would come back from her weekends and she would tell me all the things that she did and she would go into detail and it really blew my mind and it showed me what was possible. And so the first thing that I want to share for myself of how I created a life that I have now is putting myself in spaces where I could feel what's possible, because sometimes we don't even know what's possible. And that's why, for me, having female friendships, having sisters on the path who carve a path for me and show me what's possible, Show me that you can even have desire. Show me that you can even have the thought like, oh, you could run your own business, you could buy two pairs of black sneakers in one day. Buy two pairs of black sneakers in one day. You can go out to eat every day if you want. Whatever it is, sisterhood has shown me what is possible. I think I'll pause here for a moment and see what you have to say, catherine.
Speaker 1:So I love what you were talking about when you were referring back to our episode on enough, and in that episode we definitely touched on those sticky places like, oh, okay, there's desire and then we hit a ceiling. It feels like maybe I'm limiting myself or there's self-sabotage, maybe there's some familial conditioning or generational conditioning, something, some kind of something there. And then having this like, oh, maybe this is all I'm really able to hold, as if we have a cup somewhere and in this cup, in this coffee mug of mine, this is how much I can have. And then asking myself, okay, this is what's in the coffee cup, is it enough? And then I was feeling into that, saying actually, I think that there have been moments where what I have is not enough, and I think that's what you're talking about. For you it was oh, you had a whisper, you see a flash, there's more and you leaned into sisterhood to see possibility.
Speaker 1:I would say the first thing that I ever wanted that was nowhere. I couldn't see it anywhere growing up was functioning relationships. I saw a lot of unhappy women who either lived through their kids if they were women, I don't know. I don't want to put words in their mouth because I was living an experience in life where people were telling me that they were happy, but they didn't feel or look happy to me and I was like, wow, this existence is really grim. This feels so flat. And you know, as a teenager, my teenage years you're having just so much fun, right, you're in high school, you're meeting all these people. All of a sudden you, like boys maybe, you're going to parties and life is lifing and you have a little bit of like I don't know, a kick in your sap and you have a flutter in your belly and everything feels full of possibility and it just feels infinite. But I would often look at elders to see, oh, what does life look like down the road? And I was like, oh, it doesn't look that great down there.
Speaker 1:And if I looked, even just outside of, I was having a good time, even though I had grief and all these other things occurring. But there was still like a gang warfare and there were still people dying and going to funerals and I just thought, oh, my goodness, how do I get to a place as I get older, that I just really love my life and I'm not miserable? And I looked around and, yeah, I didn't see a lot of examples of that. I saw people that would enjoy a cocktail or two after dinner, I mean, or even at dinnertime, daily, right? People that were potentially sober because of church and everything was a sin.
Speaker 1:It just all seems so complicated and I thought there has to be another way, and that, for me, was desire. I had not seen the other way in any way, shape or form. I just thought there has to be another way. And don't get me wrong, I definitely my late twenties I'm sorry, late teen years, early twenties would probably right now identify myself back then as like an overgiver, so a friend who went above and beyond, definitely people pleaser. But I also saw, oh, this isn't giving me what I want either in relationship. Something is off off.
Speaker 1:And I decided I think I was potentially like 26, 27, when somebody mentioned coach and I started to have holders. I had done meditation before and I had some mentors in that energy work, meditation field, but I didn't really see strong friendships, strong sisterhood. There was something that was missing in my mind. I thought I want that. I want a different version. I had not seen it, I had not seen it created, I didn't know what it looked like, seen it. I had not seen it created, I didn't know what it looked like. It's not like. I saw somebody living it and I thought, oh, I want it like that. I wanted to have deeper conversations, I wanted to walk with people that wanted more like a depth in life versus mundane surface conversation, and that's what I started to look for. So, for me, that little whisper, that desire to have more, was around relationship, that ceiling, my ceiling. At the time, when I looked around, I thought, oh, I don't see what I would like to experience. I don't see what I would like to experience. I don't see what I would like to experience.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that we wanted to talk about today was so I'll use my example of relationships Like what actually had me move that needle right. For me, it was seeking mentorship. So at some point in time I ended up going to therapy, which had me help, which had me helped, excuse me which helped me choose better friends. Right, it helped me choose people whom I could have these friendship conversations with, sisters that I could go deeper with people that could engage with me in a way that I was looking to engage. And I went from program to program and you also meet people in these coaching programs or even in 12-step, although 12-step came a lot later, like different 12-step rooms came later. Not to say that everybody in 12-step is ideal, it's just. It is a good room to curate friendships or what they call fellowship.
Speaker 1:I would love for us, brenda, today, to be able to talk to our listeners about how we got to a place where we increase our havingness, about how we got to a place where we increase our havingness, we increase this coffee cup with what we can hold, with our actual desires right, while also talking about the difference between that and, let's say, techniques or things that help us be with the discomfort. Because what actually has it, what blocks us from having what we want right, is that we're not that person yet, for starters, who can have it. Otherwise we would have it and there's discomfort there. Show up for someone in a clean, non-people pleaser way. So I don't know how to show up for somebody without going above and beyond.
Speaker 1:So, whatever, I'm always going to air quotes, feel I mean, if I wanted to play victim, right, disappointed, for example, but rather than doing that, it's like okay, well, what if I'm wrong? I must be. What if this actually exists, the relationships plural that I'm trying to create actually exist. How do I learn how to do that and how do I meet people that also engage in that way so that I can get to have it, so I get to have it be part of my lived experience? Back to you, brenda.
Speaker 2:You dropped a ton of great stuff there. That's just really gold. It's funny because you said you wanted this thing, you wanted functional relationship. I don't know that I wanted anything specific. I just could feel, oh, there's more for me. And that was very confusing. I didn't understand it, it was very vague, but I could feel the truth that I wanted more, that there. It's not even that I wanted it, that there was more for me, and I was having this spiritual awakening where I feel like I was starting to expand.
Speaker 2:And so you know, when I was talking about my friend going to those women's community courses, um, I could feel it through her. So I couldn't see any of this, but I could feel she would tell me these stories and I was able to feel it and there was something that was matching what I was wanting, like some kind of feeling of more, and she would tell me these stories and it was so inspiring to me. It was like this whole world that I just never even knew that existed and I love that you brought it. You know, when you talked about friendships and sisterhood, the only friends I had at the time were wonderful, wonderful friends, and I think that we were very much in this very typical conditioned place that women end up in, which is complaining, complaining about our lives, complaining about our husbands, whose husband is the worst, whose kids are behaving the worst, who, basically? Who has the biggest problem, like there's like some kind of prize for being the biggest victim in your life, and it's really hard to get off that hamster wheel. And so, as I started feeling more, I did turn towards this friend and we were very much stuck in that complaining situation together, but I could feel what was possible. And we were very much stuck in that complaining situation together but I could feel what was possible. And that's where my desire came in and I leaned in and I followed my desire and, like you said, it was really uncomfortable and I did join that women's community because I was like I want to be in a space where I could feel what's possible. I didn't even have any idea what that was. Looking back now I'm like, oh, I wanted a lot more fulfillment in my life. I wanted relationships where I felt really fulfilled, functional. Like you said, I really wanted to feel my own desire, I wanted to feel my own spark for life, I wanted to feel my zest for life, my life force, energy.
Speaker 2:Up until that point I lived a very happy life and I would 100% do it again, but I wasn't necessarily thinking very outside the box and I think to have a different life you do need to think outside the box of what else is possible, and that sitting with the discomfort is a really big one. How do you sit with the discomfort Even the discomfort of owning your desire, of saying mommy's going away once a month for five months to New York City to hang out with a hundred women and learn about pleasure and desire and basically I was learning to rewire my brain and what's possible and my body and then sit with the discomfort of sharing that in my relationship, sharing that with my kids. It required me to take up a lot of space in my own life and in my family. I had to claim this desire. You know, and claiming your desire, like owning it and then backing it with action, is really powerful move, especially when you don't even know what's on the other side and when your resources are involved right your time, your money, your energy and yet you're sitting here claiming it. Anyway. You're saying I want this thing, I'm going to go away to this weekend, or I'm going to hire this coach, or I'm going to go to therapy or I'm going to get the mentor, whatever the thing is for different people and be with not only your own discomfort of owning desire. It's tricky to own desire when you're used to focusing on pain and then also claim that in the world take up space.
Speaker 2:And I asked my husband at the time he was very happy to watch the children be, you know, but that changed his life. It changed the kid's life cost me money. So there were a lot of things that were uncomfortable and really beautiful. I'm really glad that I did that because it changed everything. So, just going back to the thing, what was the actual thing that I did was putting myself in a space and then in that community I met new friends and we were all kind of on this trajectory together of learning to focus on desire, learning about our bodies, learning about pleasure, just having some freaking fun, just having actual fun being a woman, not only being a mother and somebody who's working to like build a life and a house, but going back to the roots of Brenda, what do I want to do?
Speaker 2:And I started learning all these new things about myself. One of the very fun little thing is, I realized how much I just love to dance and had this desire pop up. I just want to dance every day, I just want to dance, and that brought so much joy to my life.
Speaker 1:That's so sweet. I just want to dance every day. I love that. It brought joy to your life. I love our stories. I also had in my coaching path. I don't remember what coaching program.
Speaker 1:But no, I do remember what coaching program I'm just trying. I don't know what number if we're numbering them, what number that was but in 2014, I was at a conference. I was at a program where I met two women and I had definitely been working with coaches. I had been in different programs. I had learned air quotes, how to coach right under different umbrellas, different topics, different themes, that sort of thing coach people through various different problems. But that's where I saw my first example of woman in her power and being soft and I was like, oh, I want that. So then, that was a different desire. That was like I want to join this program that they are the head of, because I want to have that flavor, I want to own that flavor of woman. And, yes, before her I didn't know it was possible. So, like you, also, being in rooms, meeting people, seeing possibility and going for it, getting curious and saying I wonder what's here for me, like I'm going to give it a shot and I'm going to give, like you said, my time, my energy, my money in that case was definitely a program. I'm thinking to myself right now. In both of our examples, we're living life, trekking along. We feel into something. There's a desire. We lean into that desire. We meet different people. We stay curious. We're leaning into what's possible. We definitely grow into different people. We grow into the people that get to have that. You get to dance every day. You're in a different sisterhood, you're in a community.
Speaker 1:For me, the particular desire that I'm thinking about is like oh, I learned to slow down, I learned to soften, I learned to not be so harsh around the edges, I learned to chill out a bit. And one of the things that I wanted to make sure that I had was a functioning relationship. Functioning relationships. I wanted to be able to do conflict, and definitely conflict without violence, because I had seen violence growing up for so long. And when I finally got to the place where I can share my thoughts with pretty value, neutral, no real charge, I was like, wow, 17-year-old me, 19-year-old me would be so proud, even though I was in my 30s. And I say this because when I think of ceilings and I think of, oh, I hit my cup, I hit my havingness. Right, you have a desire, you want something and you have no idea how you're going to get it. We also don't have a timeline, and who knows how often.
Speaker 1:Right, I had discomfort around conflict before that. And when I say discomfort, it wasn't that I couldn't speak my mind because I could. It just came out really rude, so rude and with not an ounce of love and with so much disdain and just making the other person wrong. And I was right and that was it. I just didn't know any better until I did. And I'm sure it doesn't feel good to the other person. And then, if it doesn't feel good to the other person I'm in relationship with, it probably doesn't feel good to me in that moment either. And there I am, just in the discomfort. Right, it's uncomfortable when you're going for something you don't know quite how to do it, yet when you're going for something you don't know quite how to do it yet you don't even know if it exists.
Speaker 2:But yet there you are, just in the desire, like you just want it. Hmm, you just want it. I think, when I, when I'm listening to us, I'm, I'm realizing desire just feels to be the core of all of this, because some desire comes in and you have a choice point right then, and there you either follow it or you don't. I mean, for me, I definitely did not. I was terrified of it because I was really scared If I follow this thing, I'm going to lose everything. And so I tried to push it away, but it didn't. It didn't go away. It wouldn't go away because it was so true and it was so persistent, it was like had a life of its own. And so, for me, I did eventually follow the desire, and I think that's the core of everything is having the courage.
Speaker 2:I think it takes a big set of balls, a big set of ovaries to follow your desire. I think it's just the core. There's no way around that. You have to be willing to say I don't know what this is, I don't know what will happen, I don't know how to get there, I don't even know if it's a good idea or not, but I'm going to follow this thing because it feels so true, and I can't even sleep at night if I don't do it Because something's gnawing at you, because I really do believe that your desire is like your own personalized prescriptive elixir for you personally to grow. And saying yes to that and leaning in is it's funny, because that's a really advanced pose to do. We talk about that a lot, but it's also something that's required at the very beginning to follow it, when you really don't even know how you're. You're like learning on the street, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Totally, and I think that we get to say to ourselves this feels really hard. I don't know how. I know I want it. Do I actually want to go down that road? And maybe the answer is no, like I know we're talking about. When the answer is yes, right, but I would love for people's nose to be conscious nose, versus like I'm just closing my eyes, I don't see it. I don't see it. Or remember when you were a kid and you'd be like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, cause you didn't want to. You wanted to make sure that, whoever was speaking, that you weren't hearing them. You're like no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Not that just sort of like oh, wow, I have this desire to do this thing. It's going to require me to potentially I don't know let go of friends. Or I'll use an example of potentially drinking, even if someone's not necessarily considering themselves like having a problem. Oh, I want to be able to go out and I want to drive there. That requires me to not have a cocktail. Am I willing to not have a cocktail? Oh, and then maybe the answer is no. I'm not willing to not have a cocktail with my friends, for whatever your reason is, and then that means all right. Well then, I guess I'm not driving there and, just being clear, I'm not going to become that person that's not drinking. So what do I need to do in order to stay safe in this particular location where I'm at, or stay happy with where I'm at? And sometimes, having this? I'm going to tell a story. Sometimes havingness is, like you see your ceiling in your behavior, not necessarily a desire.
Speaker 1:So one Christmas I was at my partner's family's house and his grandmother had given me a bracelet like from Macy's, and the bracelet had a receipt on it and it said $60. And there was something inside of my body at that time. I was a pretty young woman and I felt like the $60 for an older person was just too much, for whatever reason. I was in her wallet, in my brain, deciding what was too much or not too much, and I was like visibly embarrassed. And he was like you're embarrassing me. And I remember my whole body Like I, I was embarrassed for myself. He's embarrassed, she's probably embarrassed, everybody's embarrassed, right? It was so hard for me to receive the gift, and what I mean by receive the gift is we've talked about this in, I'm sure in some episode you could probably bring it in Brenda later, because my brain's not bringing it all in.
Speaker 1:But this was a time in my life where, for whatever reason, if it wasn't my immediate partner, it was hard for me to accept something from someone I didn't feel like I was part of her family. And now I'm just giving you like all the excuses I had, whatever limiting beliefs that had me. Had it be that I couldn't just look at the bracelet and say, wow, it's beautiful, not even look at the receipt and just say thank you. I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is so expensive. He's like she probably didn't even buy it at that price, like it's fine. And I'm like trying to take the price off because everybody wants to see it. Oh, it's just in our lineage. It's called tumescence. It was just so much chaos over something that doesn't even matter. It's like so small, right. It was so hard for me to just be in gratitude and say thank you to the woman because I felt and I guess other people might call it like undeserving, right or maybe unworthy, but none of those titles helped me.
Speaker 1:All I can say is that at the time it was very hard for me to fully receive the gift and say thank you and have it mean nothing other than this is a gift.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I fully receive it. It's beautiful and that's it, and have it mean nothing other than this is a gift. Thank you so much. I fully receive it. It's beautiful and that's it. So having this can show up in other places, like it doesn't have to just be like I wanna make sure I have functioning relationships and like it's this huge thing it's gonna take me a lifetime to complete. I had that experience and I thought, oh, wow, this showed me something about myself. Good to know what is this about. And I get to just be with it and feel into it and be with the discomfort that I could not show up in a way that would have been. I was not able to receive it in a way that would have made her feel really good, which is my regret in that exchange, but it's the truth of what happened. I just wasn't that woman yet that could do it.
Speaker 2:I love this story. I really do, and I'm thinking about what you said earlier, that you wanted functional relationships and you wanted. You met those women and you said I want to be soft, I want to be in my power, and I think it's really important. This is a great story that you told, because I think it's really important to notice how these stories and these experiences show up for us, to teach us something and in order to really receive, there is a softness that needs to come, and so we need to have these experiences that might be really awkward or confronting, or maybe it's like oh, this isn't how I want to be, you know, maybe I want to be more grateful or be able to receive it more, but using these experiences as your teacher, instead of using them as a reason to beat yourself up, but really saying, oh, this experience happened for me, this experience is my teacher, it's showing me where I can be softer where I can learn to have more functional relationships and not take care of other people who are giving me a gift.
Speaker 2:So I think that you bring in a really beautiful piece here and there's so many pieces, but just like curiosity. You know, curiosity and play and openness and receptiveness to life, like as you're going through your life, instead of looking at something and saying this isn't how I want it or this isn't how I wanted it to be or I don't like this, just really looking at everything with an open-minded, playful curiosity. Why did this show up in my life? What is it teaching me? And I think that's a really powerful tool for having change in your life, because or else you're just always doing things the way you've always done them, and if you keep doing things the way you've always done them, nothing wrong with that, but you're probably going to get the same result. But what we're talking about here is how do you create change? So if you want change, then you need to be able to have some perspective, to see yourself, learn from it and then choose something different along the way, and that takes an enormous amount of willingness and humility. And I think, self love. You know we just did a whole self, love series and just the ability to say, oh, okay, I'm on my journey. And just the ability to say, oh, okay, I'm on my journey and I did this again or I did that again and I'm just going to love myself where I am and keep leaning in, like not letting it stop you and it's not that things don't ever stop you for a time, like maybe you do need to just take a break or pause.
Speaker 2:I think pausing is really important because we need to integrate as we go, like we need to learn something and then we need to integrate it. So, if something knocks you out because you had an experience that was out of range or really didn't go the way you wanted, take a pause. I have a friend who taught me this, one I like to take to my bed I just go to bed, I work from bed, watch Netflix, rest, eat in bed, just basically take care of myself, reparent myself. I think it's a really important piece as we're changing and growing, because this is not an overnight thing. This is a long game. So if you're listening and you want change, it's a marathon, not a sprint, and you do need to pause and take care of yourself along the way. Or else you're just going to get burnt out and you do need to pause and take care of yourself along the way, or else you're just going to get burnt out and integration is real. You need to actually integrate it into your body and into yourselves for change to happen.
Speaker 1:How would you recommend someone take it into their body, integrate it to their cells? What does that mean for you?
Speaker 2:to their cells. What does that mean for you? Well, I always recommend taking to your bed. That's a really good one. I've done that a lot.
Speaker 2:You know there's so many ways you can digest your experiences. You can write. You can write gratitudes. You can connect with friends. You can share your experiences with friends oh, one of my favorites going out in nature. Nature is a playground for change. You walk into the forest or you go to the beach, you're in the mountains. Wherever you are, nature is constantly reminding us of the impermanence of life. Nature is constantly changing. You just go into nature and you see how adaptable the animals and the insects are in their environment and there's just something that happens cellularly that you're like oh, oh yeah, things change and it takes time. The leaves don't change overnight, you know. They take time to change. Those are some of my examples. I think we need to digest and release, like gratitudes, and then we need to do some body things like being in nature, maybe doing some yoga. Sex is a great way to integrate. So those are some of my favorites.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for that, for expanding on that. I definitely ditto all the things that you mentioned. My favorites are just talking to a friend, sort of digesting what has come up for me, talking about what's come up for me so that I can hear myself. It gives me like a sounding board for me to be with whatever happens. So maybe I could you would be calling you and be like this happened with the bracelet. I can't believe I bought right, that sort of thing. Then maybe I have a little dance off in my house or I go for a walk in the park and I'm just like oh, you know, today's another day or tomorrow's another day, that sort of can I, can I put this down? I don't have to use my experience as a stick to beat myself up for the next 48, 72 hours. I get to put this down. And you also talked about or well, actually we haven't touched on it yet, but I just want to talk about some of the things that have come up for us today, as we've talked, when we're thinking about change and having this right, we're at a location and we're thinking about change and having this right, we're at a location. We want something different. We have a desire. We're like oh, this is going to call me into being someone else.
Speaker 1:Do I actually have the capacity? I don't know if I have the capacity to be this person. Can I have compassion, though? If I don't have the capacity? Oh, I have the willingness, though I'm willing to go for it. I am willing, and it's really easy to be like I am willing to win, I'm willing to get what I want, but am I equally willing to fail on the way? Am I willing to do it wrong, get it wrong, to just sit in the discomfort of the unknown and then like, oh, all right, I'm willing to fail. Oh, I'm willing to try, but do I have the skill? Do I have the ability that's required? If I don't, okay, am I willing to just be in the sensation?
Speaker 1:Yes, we've talked today about what it's like when we have a desire and maybe we don't know how, but we have a sister that knows how right and we can live either. Have them teach us, live vicariously in the beginning, potentially, go and get some teachers, get some mentors. We've definitely talked today about how good it feels and how helpful it is to put ourselves in spaces where people have what we want, where we get to see examples of what that looks like over and over again. We've definitely talked about limiting beliefs, and when we hit these limiting beliefs like for me, with me in the bracelet it's like I felt crappy. But am I willing to be wrong?
Speaker 1:Like I know what my mind is saying, is happening, why I feel embarrassed, why I'm like uncomfortable with the gift, but am I willing to be wrong? Is it something else that's occurring? And I'm like oh, actually receiving it in my hands for whatever reason, caused a lot of electricity in my body and I just wanted to be like I can't, I can't, I can't. Versus like ooh, if I would have known then what I know now, it would be like oh, wow, this is hard to receive, thank you, because I have so much more skill right now, right, that if I were in that same position now, I'd be like oh, wow, this is actually hard for me to receive. Give me a second. Oh, thank you, right.
Speaker 1:And it would even be coming from a thank you on two levels One, for receiving the gift I'm grateful that you got me the gift and two oh, what a wonderful gift for me to be with this much discomfort. There's something here for me to look at, to be with right, and that's where I get to have even more intimacy with myself. And that's where I get to have even more intimacy with myself. But you, brenda, are so good at talking about, like you're so good at practices right Today, we've been talking about what it looks like to create change over decades, like not the toolbox practices, but we can and we definitely plan on creating a toolbox around this, but this is sort of I don't know our extended chat on it. What else comes to mind for you, brenda?
Speaker 2:our extended chat. I really love it. I think what comes up for me is kind of coming back to putting yourself in spaces. I think that we need some kind of like a way shower, right. It's different for everyone and we've talked about a couple of different kinds, like sisters on the path, right, who have gone before us to show us what's possible. Teachers who have the willingness to like stand up there and really talk about what's possible and bring you along with them, right. And you also mentioned 12-step, which is such a great one.
Speaker 2:I spent a lot of time, I spent years going to meetings every week. And then there's also coaches like hiring a coach or a mentor. And you also mentioned therapists. And the one thing I love about all of these things is, especially with coaches, they show you your blind spots because it's one-on-one right, like you get to have someone there with you who's invested in you, who can show you your blind spots and show you what's possible, and really get to work with you one-on-one. And Catherine and I both do that, by the way.
Speaker 2:And I want to speak to this other thing. It's like there's like the magic and the mundane. There's like the magic of being in spaces with women, where you can really feel this palpable energy of what's possible, right Like the possibility of desire and that feeling that I was talking about at the beginning of my friend, sharing these incredible experiences that I had never even heard of before. And then there's the mundane In order to change, you need to chop wood and carry water. You do, and that's what I did in 12 step. I used to go to 12 step every week, sometimes twice a week, because in those rooms and this is free and I really recommend 12 step for everybody For me it was working on my limiting beliefs and some behaviors that were really holding me back, like I used to be really reactive.
Speaker 2:I used to be very reactive in relationships, I used to be very codependent, I used to be very fearful, and so I got to like, go back to the room and work on this every week and it's confronting. You know, when you talked about intimacy with yourself, if you want change, it requires intimacy with yourself, because the only way to have change is to be honest with yourself, with yourself, and that means being honest with your desires. What do you want? And also with you. Know they call it in 12 step your character flaws, whatever you want to call it, the things that are maybe holding you back, your limiting beliefs, and I think it's really important to kind of work both ends of the stick in a way. Personally, for me that's been a beautiful piece is working with the magic of it and also the mundane 12 steps is awesome.
Speaker 1:I also am a big uh 12 step fan of all of them. Well, I mean, you know there's a a in case you've ever felt like, oh, I drink a lot or I desire to drink. Maybe you don't drink it, you desire it. There is SLAW, sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, which is great. Al-anon. There's ACA, coda those are some of the ones that I've been to meetings.
Speaker 1:For me, 12-step was less about the mundane and it was about like 12-step to me helped me feel normal, like I thought I had the worst problems and my whole life was a mess and this, that, the other thing, whatever, whatever. And I was the only person that used to get uncomfortable in relationships. I was the only person that used to get uncomfortable in relationships. I was the only one in relationships that wanted to overgive. And then I went to Al-Anon and I was like, oh, I'm in a place of a thousand or a gazillion over givers. Then I was in Sex Love Addicts Anonymous and I'm listening to them talk about how they went on the third date and they fell in love. I'm like, oh, I'm not the only one that gets infatuated, this happens all the time, right? Or adult children of alcoholics. And they have this whole character thing too, about what happens to children who either were children of alcoholics or children of dry alcoholics, which just means like people who have alcoholic tendencies but they didn't drink, and children of dysfunctional families, and I thought, oh okay, so we have 12 steps and people think that these rooms are really for people that are really different, but in actuality these are just people that have the normal things that happen in the world and they just go to a room together. This is basically the whole population and they're just in different rooms. It's sort of like you're in high school and you just have, you know, 12-1, 12-2, 12-3. You just have different, but everybody's a senior. That's how it felt, like Everybody here is a senior in life and you're just plugging along. You just pick a room and in any room there's something and there's this big phrase in 12 Step that says take what works and leave the rest. And it was really helpful for me. It sort of normalized things that potentially I either pathologized Is that the word Pathologize About myself, where I was like I am this, I am that, I am this, and I was like, oh, I am normal, this is super normal. Yes, I can get better, there is recovery. I can choose to show up as a different human and I am not bad, wrong, dysfunctioned because of it. This is technically what the real deal looks like.
Speaker 1:Most people don't come to these rooms, most people don't talk about this, but as I started to watch people, I was like, oh, this person could be in an ACA room. Oh, yeah, this person could totally be in an AA room. Oh, yes, this person could be in an NA room. Oh, this person could be. And it was just I don't prescribe these things for people, but as you're watching and just walking through the world, you could really see it. So thank you for bringing that 12-step in, brenda for me. For me, it just made me feel normal. I was like, oh, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just human with these other humans. Some, some humans are willing to admit that this is a struggle. Some are not. And, yes, very few people are not human. We're just all human beings trying to do the best we can with what we have. So I think we're we're getting to, we're getting there.
Speaker 2:We're bozos on the bus. I think they say that in AA we're all just bozos on the bus. You're just another bozo on the bus. Yeah, 12 step is really good, and we are getting to the end here.
Speaker 2:And what I want to add to what you were saying about recovery, about being in a 12 step room, is that you're in the field of recovery, about being in a 12-step room, is that you're in the field of recovery, and so going to a meeting is like sanity, providing Every time I would feel confused or messed up or whatever, just I would feel upset, I was having a problem of some kind. Just I would go to a meeting and it would. Oh, just being in a room that was in the field of recovery gave me hope, as opposed to sitting by myself in the problem. And it's the same thing about putting yourself in the rooms with a teacher or a coach. You're in the field of possibility and recovery, and every time you do that, you are making a deposit in the bank. You're making a deposit in the bank of you by investing in yourself. Every time you do any of these things, you're making a deposit, and that's how you build your bank of change.
Speaker 2:And I want to also say that this whole podcast is one of the things that we talked about on this episode, which is hanging out with your sister, with your friend, talking about the good stuff, and you know, many times we talked about you and I have had quite an education in all the courses and communities and coaches that we have invested in over the years. I think for both of us it's at least 15 years of work. So, yep, she's saying yes, this whole podcast is our digestion, it's our giving back. This whole podcast is our digestion, it's our giving back. It's us digesting all the things that we've learned and sharing it with you, and we're so happy that you're listening.
Speaker 2:We want to hear about your desires. We want to hear what is it that you want in your life? What change are you currently trying to create in your life and how are you doing that? What are you bumping up against? Does anything in this episode resonate for you? We would love to hear it. You can email us, you can tag us on Instagram. We would love to hear from you. And with that, thank you so much for joining us until next time.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast Desire invites us to be honest, loving and deeply intimate with ourselves and others. You can find our handles in the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.
