Moving Through Season Of Life With Acceptance & Integrity

i'll see sometimes in clients who are wanting to transition into into coaching say they work so much on the business before ever like doing the thing that they're actually going to be doing every day it's like no no like you actually need to just go coach people and like get in there and get scrappy get dirty with them you can have the most beautiful website and the most picture perfect instagram but if you don't know how to coach like yeah and if you don't even know if you want to coach there's no point so please like experiment try test iterate welcome to the thrive her podcast i'm your host amy sanders i'm a fitness and wellness pro mom stepmom second wife and master certified life coach i'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create the thriving life you love welcome back to the podcast this is amy sanders your host and i have a special guest speaker with me today her name is shannon shotler and her and i i feel like we're soul sisters like we met not that long ago and i'm like i need you in my life every single day she focuses on specializing in life and career transitions and all of that like messy middle stuff when you're going through like the hard that is what she focuses on she also does some energy work which you know that i love and somatic work which you also know that i love so girlfriend i'm so happy to have you here welcome to our podcast oh thank you so much for having me and that the soul sister vibe is totally mutual totally mutual i'm like where have you been my whole life right we have so many topics i'm like yeah i want to talk about that and that and the next thing too with you i guess for the next year we're just hosting each other on each other's podcast. This is great. I love this plan. I hope the listeners do too.

Honestly. Okay. Well, honestly though, she's amazing. She's passionate about creating sacred spaces for folks to restore.

One thing I love about her is how down to earth she is and how she literally talks about the things that a lot of people don't dare talk about, but that is the real stuff, right? That is where transition happens when we meet people, even ourselves in that space and then work through it. So that is what we're going to talk about today. Can you tell us a little bit more about you and your journey to come like to the space of what you're doing now?

Yeah, of course I can. So, so about me, I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have this odd coaching specialty that sometimes I'm like, will anybody know what this means? If I say transition coaching, which is why I like to call it.

Come on and share it with other people so they understand. But yeah, my passion is totally about what I call messy, mucky middles because turns out I've been through a few in my life and I remember how alone I felt and how much shame I felt in moving through them. And I just don't want anybody to feel that way. Transition and change and making change in your life is one of the most natural things that can ever happen.

And so my passion is to be able to do that. And so my passion is really to support everyone in letting go of the linear life, like letting go of the belief that life is just supposed to be up and to the right, you know, and just like getting better and better every year. And if that's not happening, that you're somehow doing something wrong, you're not doing anything wrong. There's seasons in life.

Life is cyclical, just like there are seasons in nature. You're going to have seasons that are up and to the right, and you're going to have some seasons where it feels like you're turning to goo in the cocoon. You're questioning everything in life and you emerge again because nothing lasts forever. I love that.

And that's like the focus. You actually do emerge again. We don't ever stay in that terrible space with that. We, we are labeling terrible, right?

It's just part of our lives. It's part of journeys. Yes. So can you tell us a little bit about one of your experiences and how that was as you were going through it?

Oh yeah, I can. I'm like, which one? I mean, well, let's talk about the big one. Like the one that really led me to this work.

So a few moons ago, I used to be a person in a corporate role and like, quite honestly, Amy, I was in the middle of a major depression. And I get at the same time I worked for target corporation and I was presenting to everybody. Like I think of the CEO, everybody on his board, everybody in his leadership team. And they were so enamored with it.

And I was like, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And I was feeling dead inside as I was doing this. A week later, my husband and I go to this beautiful vacation in Kauai and I'm like, not enjoying it.

Well, what was going on in my personal life at the time? I had lost six people in six months. Like, yeah, like talk about grief, talk about, and it was like this, this beautiful human that I worked with who dropped dead on a run at 29 years old. It was a high school classmate of mine who died of brain cancer at three, you know?

And it was just like, I felt like we've already talked about our woo Amy and our synchronicity there, but it just felt like the universe was knocking on my door being like, wake up. What are you doing, honey? Cause this isn't it. I was totally a work addict.

I would work myself into the ground and I really needed to change and get in touch with, as you have talked about before, like find the inner voice again. Because I had just kept climbing the ladder. I just kept doing the things that were moving me up and to the right, so to speak, but it wasn't creating the felt sensation of the life that I wanted inside. And so that's really the beginning of my own journey through transition was allowing that to totally dissolve, just like letting it dissolve all around me.

So I quit that job without a plan. Don't recommend it. People don't have to do it that way. And I really needed to take deep stock of my life.

So sometimes we have major transitions. Sometimes we have many transitions. This was a major transition for me. It was like everything wanted to change who I was, how I was showing up in the world.

I mean, I can keep going, but I'll pause there for a second. Well, so you're getting, you know, the biggest people in the company are applauding your work, which means, you know, you're doing an excellent job. You're noticed, you're recognized. Yeah.

You still feel dead inside, which you talk. So, so when you left that job, that must've been hard as well. Like, okay, I need to change, but that's, I'm assuming part of your identity at that point. 100%.

My identity was high achiever. Yeah. And like, if I wasn't achieving through work, who was I? What was I?

Yeah. And I remember having a coach that asked me at that time, the, like this big question of who would you be if it all fell away and just being, yeah. gutted by that, but thinking this is exactly what I need to figure out. If I can't, like, God forbid, if something happened to me and I literally couldn't work anymore, who would I still be?

What would I describe myself as? And it was in that restoration, that reflection time that I came to find parts of myself that I had totally forgotten about. I am a deeply caring person, very devoted to service. And I had just like, forget that.

Like, she doesn't exist anymore. I'm just this corporate robot now. And so in that process, like one of the many experiments that I ran in my life, my husband and I became foster parents because it was like, wow, I have totally forgot about the side of me that has a lot to give and a lot of like love that wants to be poured out. So that was a big part of needing to remember about myself.

Also, y'all, I had a scrappy upbringing. I grew up on a farm, right? Like I was this farm girl, like so much more capable than I was actually. I was so much more capable than I was actually.

I was so much more realized and that was a part of me that wanted to come back online to remember my scrappy roots my like entrepreneurial roots frankly yeah how did you bring how did you bring that back into your life so you did you became a foster parent yeah how did you bring your scrappy roots back into your life yeah I mean two ways that that came to life first was truly just spending more time at the farm like reminding myself of who I am I call it the season of cocooning for folks you know so how do we allow ourselves to drop into that restorative space I made playlists of all the cheesy country songs I listened to when I was a kid growing up you know just like really drop back into that time of remembering and then of course eventually this is going to sound so much more linear than it was but part of my journey into scrappiness was was becoming an entrepreneur was acknowledging that this was a part of my identity too ironically enough when I left my corporate role they were giving a lot of trainings around what's the difference between coaching and I was fascinated by coaching and so within two months of leaving I was experimenting with coaching but I had that was such a non-linear path I had so much to figure out of like what kind of coaching did I want to do for a long time I tried to be like that corporate buttoned up executive coach which was just comical like looking back now I'm like that is so not who I am at my core or the energy that I want to exude in the world I want to be fully human and not support a paradigm that says how do you have executive presence and like that's the only thing that you ever carry with you no we're fully human living very much fully human lives like having talked to you it's hard for me to even envision that that's like the kind of coach you want to be because like I can feel your heart and your energy like through the screen you know we're looking at each other through zoom right now but but yeah it's there it's like that heart is humongous so it's kind of funny to be like that's what you just said it's like that's what you just chose but I mean of course that's what you chose if you're like well what have I done before okay you talk yeah well yeah and you talk so much about self-trust and I think that's so indicative of what my own transition journey was like it was like oh I'm still figuring things out I was still listening to other voices before my own yeah and I needed time I needed time to learn to make that shift sometimes I'll tell folks like you know you're transitioning when you're ashamed to tell people like for a long time I was ashamed to tell people I was a coach you know because it was like oh I'm I'm one of those people that went to do that thing and like couldn't hack it in the corporate world quote unquote but I distinctly remember the moment where it switched for me and I was ashamed to tell people I was still doing contract work my old employer that was like I just it's so not me I am woo I am right spiritual I am um embodied and I'm not saying that corporate people can't be embodied ironically enough I coach a lot of corporate people now but they approach me with such a different energy underneath because they know I'm not going to coach you on how to just like check the boxes that's not what we do here that's not what we do no but isn't it great look at how far you've come isn't that so great it is good to be able to embody it and just own it you know this is totally totally yeah it is hard though when you move from one thing to the next it's hard to be able to embody it and just own it you know this is me to then be able to be like oh this is what I do and in the coaching world let's be honest it's very broad and it's like anyone's becoming a coach and so there's the people who love it live it breathe it own it they're all in and then I do think there's people who it's like a phase of their life right it's like it's I look at my life and I'm like yeah okay so I've pretty much been coaching my whole life now I just don't it totally I resonate with that so much it's what is that quote of like what's the question what's the thing that you can't help yourself from doing you know that's just always lives inside of you yeah and that's what it is for me and also just to normalize this like transitions get to be scrappy I've already spoken to that yeah but for me it was like I experimented with coaching before I ever went to get certified because certification can cost a lot of money and so I wanted to be really sure that this was something that I wanted to jump in and I wanted to be able to with both feet so listeners out there permissions to try something permission to just get your feet wet and see what you think this is the other thing let's just go there Amy that I'll see sometimes in clients who are wanting to transition into into coaching say they work so much on the business before ever like doing the thing that they're actually going to be doing every day it's like no no like you actually need to just go coach people and like get in there and get scrappy get you can have the most beautiful website and the most picture-perfect Instagram but if you don't know how to coach like yeah and if you don't even know if you want to coach there's no point so please like experiment try test iterate with with anything right whether it's coaching or anything else it's like just go do it and see how you feel yes just see how you feel there is one this has nothing to do with our podcast but it's come up so I'm just gonna do it talk about it yeah so I had this dream to be a piano teacher and it was this dream that had lived inside of me for so many years and I just thought one day I am going to be a piano teacher it's gonna happen for me I mean I played the piano all the things but I just I like had it on this pedestal or whatever I don't know until I finally did it and I got some students and I actually got quite a few students really quickly so I was proud of myself you know entrepreneurs like making it happen yes and after doing it for like two years I'm like I literally hate this this is the worst yeah and I did and then I felt like I couldn't quit it you know but I wasn't just like listening to myself and to my body it's like I finally did it to see if I like it it took me years to do it very slow and then once I was doing it I was like oh this isn't all it's cracked up to be the kids don't want to play the piano they don't want to be here I'm fighting them they don't love it the way I love it there's like all these things that I had like made amazing until I actually went out and tried it right and then I was like yeah this is the best thing I've ever done I've ever done this isn't for me but what I do know is that I don't have that like nudge anymore yes and I know that it's that I tried it and it worked but it wasn't for me you know yeah you can check the box and honestly I mean I could say this now my daughter is adopted but even foster care was an experiment for us in this transition process we didn't know if we wanted to be parents or not and we thought okay well this is a way that we can do some good that I can engage with a part of my identity that had been fallen to the wayside yeah and feel in to see if parenthood is a part of what I wanted the next chapter to be feel in for coaching I was doing some um like strategy volunteer work for a major non-profit that I loved because I thought maybe I want to be in an executive director or non-profit someday you know it's like how do we really give ourselves permission to test out the possible selves the piano teacher possible self that might be inside all of us but maybe I just want to go to the farm and play with ponies all day like whatever yeah play with it all and allow your body to share with you the signals of like oh this is a full body yes let's keep going and also can we feel for the difference between what's just like fear and anxiety how human how understandable we're all going to be nervous as we're trying new things versus what is still the embodied yes even if we're afraid of what's going to happen you can have that right you can have that fear and anxiety of doing something new getting uncomfortable while still feeling that expansion of yeah this actually feels good my soul is saying this is a yes yeah that's parenting for me every day every day maybe you do parenting parenting it's a whole it's it's a whole thing in and of itself right yeah so tell me you take people through like even on your podcast and in your work like four stages can we talk about those yeah let's talk about it because this is this is my passion point to again let go of the linear life so there are four stages that folks tend to be in at any point in in their lives right so one stage that we can be in is the go for it phase I call that the in sync phase it's like the up into the right time of life it's like oh my gosh everything's working I have a vision I'm so excited to wake up every morning I'm building towards this future dream that I have you're feeling so energized high vibe optimistic right that's a phase that I'm sure we can all look back on in our lives and be like oh that was when I was doing this thing or when I was in this city how normal how wonderful that's beautiful and also that's only one fourth of life a fourth of life yeah so then the next phase that a person might be right after that is the go for it phase I call that the up into the right time of life after we go through go for it we enter a phase that's called the doldrums this is a sailing term have you ever I didn't I didn't know this was a sailing term until I learned about this do you have you heard of well I've heard about the word doldrums like put in sentences and stuff I didn't know it's a sailing term is it yeah they're just not going like the sales yes yes it's like I'm trying to keep sailing for me it was like I'm trying to keep smiling as I'm presenting to the CEO of Target Corporation about this thing but I am just in the dis phase I am disenchanted disengaged like unmotivated it's often when we're moving through seasons of loss so I spoke early to on the podcast I'd lost six people in six months for other clients I see it show up as illness as betrayal potentially and and sometimes these things are things that we choose oftentimes though they're not it's not something it's totally involuntary that these strikes happen in our lives what can be most important though in the doldrums to support us a person and moving through that is letting go right yeah it's only when we keep trying to stay in that boat where there's no more wind where we're not going anywhere we we dig ourselves a deeper hole so the way to get out the way to get through the doldrums and move into the third phase that we'll talk about is by letting go so for me was letting go of the corporate career it was surrendering it was saying okay universe okay god I am open to being redirected in any direction now and how did that look for you like when you let go then what happened was it like oh everything worked out just great I mean of course not Amy like you're scared for me I was scared crazy like I didn't I thought I had gone crazy I was like this is not a logical thing for someone to do but there comes a point I think in everybody's journey at least I hope where we begin to put aside logic for love I love for truth yeah for being a person of integrity and for me I could not the pain of being out of integrity was greater than the fear of stepping into the unknown but that has been change happens right it's like that crossover where the discomfort is worse by staying where you're at like it's okay that's also going to be uncomfortable but this right here that looks better than this right here so I guess I'm doing it I'm just I'm gonna move through and I say this all the time I swear so many times but it's a quote that I've always loved that the treasure you um seek is I just said it wrong I said it so many times the cave you fear holds the treasure you see and you don't know what it means because you don't know what it means because you don't know so you're gonna have to go through have you ever heard that i just i love it yeah i just love like you have to go through that scary cave it's gonna be dark you're really not sure there's gonna be some unknowns but that treasure is inside of that cave so you gotta go in there you gotta go get it and a lot of good things happen when you go through that that cave when you just step into that uncomfortable space yeah yeah but first you have to step into the cave you know and so that's that's the transition from doldrums right that second place that you can be out of the four and then into the third place of cocooning right so cocooning i think of as the rest and reflect space so you just went through the doldrums you just went through a really hard time where you felt pretty miserable so it's understandable that you're going to need to take some time to just restore yourself and reflect a little while and i really do encourage clients to approach it in that order because we cannot reflect on an empty tank like okay you can keep trying to like get this car to go somewhere but you have no gas so doing whatever you can to restore yourself so for me what that has looked like and honestly every that transition and every transition i've had since then it's the farm it's getting back to the farm it's petting it's beautiful ponies it's listening to music it's getting out in nature it's going for a hike in my favorite state park growing up and really taking care of myself and learning how to trust the inward turn which i know is something you talk about a lot and like learning how to trust the inward turn and learning how to like let that be okay for you to have an inward season in your life i know both of us talk about the inner child but that's literally what you're doing you are like loving that inner child that loved the farm right that's still just you're kind of connecting back with her while also putting yourself in nature feeling that you know that high energy that comes from just being in nature but yeah i love that you're going back to those roots of you're going back to those roots of you're going okay this feels really good and then you're allowing yourself to you're like this this is good for me i'm gonna do these things and i think a lot of times we don't you know we just we get too busy or yeah it's a fine i don't know you know but you're you're taking the time to do it so important and for me to sit down and play the piano that's what i love about piano right like i love to sit down and create music that feels good to me not so much teaching i know that now yes yeah and that's a beautiful example restoration can look different for everybody sometimes i'll say this to clients and they're like well you want me to just like go sit on the couch and i tend to coach a lot of type a like high achieving people right and it's like no no no that's not what i'm saying for you it may be playing piano for you it might be running marathons for you it might be uh training for an iron man i've definitely had that phase of life but it's just to pay attention to what actually restocks your well what is actually helping your energy rise again and doing more of those things and then once we've done that restoration worker we've got a good tank of gas inside ourselves again then it's moving to the inward a little bit deeper to the inward turn to reflect and if we do it at just the most basic level can we give ourselves time permission space to say what do i want to hold on to like what was actually good about this life chapter i was just in so for me my my husband was good i didn't need to leave him behind but my job wasn't you know so it's like i wanted to hold on to my husband i wanted to hold on to my family i wasn't interested in leaving my family i liked my house you know sometimes we can think everything needs to go but it's like no there are a couple things that i want to keep so holding on what do we want to let go of right i had to let go of the corporate life and even more painful after that honestly amy was like letting go of the relationships inside that were still keeping me drawing back to the past yeah i would get invited to these happy hours or things it would just be like no i can't like i can't keep going back there because it's just going to make me keep looking in like behind me looking in the rearview mirror instead of out front um and then the third basic basic question when we're in the cocooning space is what am i considering taking on a new so that's like the i'm considering becoming a parent i'm considering um changing careers i'm considering becoming a coach how do we really take stock of those possible selves and i think about them metaphorically as like coats that we're wanting to try on to just see what's going to fit us best for this next chapter i love that yeah one thing that i wanted to just go back a little bit is the fact that you gave yourself permission to let go of those relationships because i think a lot of times we have a hard time we know what we need to do right but like wait these have been these people have been my life for all this time these people are you know my people have back then or wherever it's like sometimes you do just need to make the cut and move forward and you saw that like you listen to yourself like okay this isn't serving me some relationships are gonna last your lifetime and others just are season and that's also okay totally and i i definitely have there's two women that i'm still deep in friendship with i would say leaving actually helped our friendship grow more deeply because i'm still in a relationship with them and i'm still in a friendship with them because we it helped all of us step into our more authentic self and there are a lot of relationships that i thought they would last forever you know i was like oh certainly this person is gonna be my life forever and they weren't because i was turning in a different direction i was daring to declare that work was no longer going to be at the center of my existence or the center of my identity and by its i'm so glad you brought this up amy because this is something i haven't talked about in a while by its very nature that's going to have people fall away from us because we're not going to be the center of our existence and we're not potentially challenging parts of their identity yeah by choosing something away from what we have all collectively been choosing before you know by me choosing to say i'm getting off the escalator this is my last stop in this corporate career that can be really scary and disorienting for other people who are continuing to stay on so can we let go with compassion too to say oh it's okay we're moving in different directions and honestly what got me through the most and still like brings me so much life is the incredible people that i've gotten to meet since i would have never gonna ask next actually oh really yeah so what does it look like now who have you met now yeah so talk about that totally i remember stepping into my coach certification for the first time and and it was the first time in my entire life that i was like oh my gosh these are my people these are the people who care about the things that i care about love the things that i love or for me it was stepping into my somatic experiencing training that i've stepped into for the first time a year and a half ago now and being like whoa just feeling the difference in that room honestly truly truly i am not just saying this meeting people like you you know like meeting people on the podcast it's like gosh if i would have never dared to step out and try something new there are whole meeting other foster parents there are whole like clusters or nodes of community that i would have never gotten to know and i would have never gotten to know and connect with if i had not had the courage to step into the cave and find the treasure to use your metaphor yeah i don't know that one just works it just sticks oh it's so good i'm totally yeah i read it once and it's like just i love using it but but yeah um for me it's the same like the people that i have met as i've made changes in my life it's incredible like the energy like you end up vibing at a higher level you end up connecting at deeper levels it's like so good when you are turning inward and when you're like hey no this feels good let's let's lean into this yes what's next you know who else am i going to meet now how is this going to change either of our lives you know it's just it's so it's so amazing so i love that you touched on that because i was going to ask about it well and isn't that the surprise and delight you know truly like every day that i go into it's like i don't know who's going to book an initial consult today i don't know i've gotten to coach some incredible people i've gotten to coach some incredible people in industries that i would have never had any exposure to yeah all i would have ever known was fortune 50 corporate retail life you know if i would have never stepped out and i love it i know doctors now who are doing incredibly meaningful change work in the u. s i know um beautiful executive directors in the non-profit space that have such passion and care of and hearts of service in their work i know incredible people in tech who are doing amazing things you know so it's just i would have had no uh connection point with them if i wouldn't have had courage to step in the cave yeah which i also love because that's one thing that we talk about on this podcast is just like thriving and stepping into that like that space that true identity and being authentic and i mean you stepped away from corporate and you became an entrepreneur and now you're helping all of these people in a different capacity than you ever have which is incredible which then has ripple effects right and that's what i always like want everyone who's tuning in to like listen to is your work whatever that is when you step into that space and you own it you step into your own power you have so much to give the world and you like i'm even saying you you have so much to give the world and you're doing it and how good does that feel yeah i mean it's the joy of feeling and integrity yeah that's such a big word that i've come back to again and again because that for me that's my body's truth you know and that's that's my body's way of saying we're in it or we're out of it um and there's nothing more in my body i feel that as like a sense of uprightness you know when i can stand up straight and tall when i can confidently look out and uh in invite the world in that's when i know i'm in alignment i'm in integrity yeah did it take you a while to figure that out heck yes so this is a statistic that i like kind of had state to throw out there the latest research tells us that major life major major major i'm talking about major life and career transitions take five to seven years five to seven years uh-huh well okay where am i gonna be in a few years i want to know so it's like i offer that to say i mean that may or may not be your experience but it's like it's okay if this takes time and i also offer that to say this is why i'm so passionate about this cycle and supporting people in being having awareness of the cyclical nature of life because you're gonna be in it more than you're not right changes only happening at an increased rate and to me there are distinct skill sets that we have to have to be able to move through each phase so for me the only thing i was skilled at navigating was go for it i didn't know how to let go and i genuinely think letting go is a skill i didn't know how to forgive i didn't know how to rest like what is this thing you call reflection by the way it was like this was all foreign material for me yeah and yet it has helped me become a more full human and now quite vulnerably as i'm navigating another major life transition my father passed away in june uh thank you so much he had a beautiful incredible life but what i have noticed is now that i have this reference point amy it's going so much more smooth this time it's not taking five to seven years this time for me to navigate the grief you know it's like oh i can recognize i'm in the drill rooms right now what do i need to do i need to let go i stopped recording my podcast all of last year so i could just be present to his beautiful end of life experience and like sending him off on his next journey okay now i'm cocooning what do i need to do i need to go play with his ponies at the farm and just feel that sense of connection i need to go collect old horseshoes that i'm finding in the fields it's like so much it feels so much smoother in my body in my nervous system like there's just this palatable felt sense of perhaps like acceptance and now i'm back to getting ready you know i'm back to that three right into four part of the circle where it's like oh now my energy is rising and i'm like oh my energy is rising and i'm like oh my energy is rising and i'm like oh my energy is rising again i want to connect with people like me again and look it didn't take me five years of i don't know like trying to thrash around i moved through this cycle in like a year yeah which i think it first of all it's admirable you've done a lot of work so that now you can but also i think it gives people who are tuning in like guess what it's okay that it lasts longer yes yes there's nothing wrong with you if you're in the doldrums and it feels like you're in it for a long time and you're like oh my god i'm back to my normal life for a while that does not mean there's something wrong with me wrong with you it just means that this is where you are so experience it recognize it feel it do all the things so you can move through it and then you know move through it faster next time like shannon well and the more that we can meet ourselves where we are so i think a lot of people whenever i will introduce this concept to clients a lot of people want to tell me that they're getting ready because that's like i think a socially acceptable answer it's like oh well if i can't be and go for it then i'm getting ready like certainly this is the thing that i'm doing because like it's not okay to feel negative feelings and it's not okay to rest so this must be what i'm doing but honestly the people i myself tried to shortcut through cocooning after i left corporate oh i did not think we all do right i mean like go-getters go-getters entrepreneurs like the doers we try to short circuit everything but this kind of stuff you cannot short circuit it does not work for you so i think it's a good work no it really doesn't like that that's what's gonna make it take longer um and be more painful in the process so the more that you can meet yourself where you are honestly like with truth like can we be truthful about where we are and therefore then like what is my work is my work to let go right now is it to rest and reflect right now is it to find some experiments right now or is it to keep myself uh so well stocked that i can help this next go for it last as long as possible yeah right okay so what would that look like so well stocked i mean let's identify it oh yeah totally honestly i the work when i'm working with clients and go for it this might be like what it's boundaries yeah because i see a lot of people burn quickly and go for it if they're not establishing clear loving limits of how they're going to take care of themselves while being in a really high energy high vibe state um so boundaries comes to mind for sure and then it's a little bit kitty corner to cocooning it's thinking about how am i gonna but but more on like a abbreviated basis what am i doing to restore every single day which is going to look different for every person for me it looks like what it sounds like it looks like for you too taking time to meditate every day taking time to for a brief reflection practice it's certainly not as in-depth as i was doing in my cocooning season it's making time to get outside it's that basic list of like what really helps me stay in this in sync can't wait to get up in the morning place yeah which what would you add much better um the only thing that came to my mind we talked about before this podcast is i like to try and stay in this higher energy right but what do we do what does keep us there and it is those things but also like i have embodied that yeah i am a goddess so how does a goddess how does a goddess show up for other people who is she being but also what does she allow into her life because she's going to need boundaries you know she's not going to let people disrespect her or walk all over her or treat her um poorly she's not going to put up with that but she also is not going to do that so yes it's similar to integrity right when we're in that integral space it feels good and it's not going to put us down it's not going to put us down it's not going to put us down it's like yes if i can do all the things that keep me vibing higher then i'm going to attract more into my life more good and i am going to feel so much better like every single day like as you're living in that space and when when i drop down i'm like hey what's going on kind of sink in reflect think about it like what's going on in my life today that's that's taking me down how do i need to do to get back up because i just know that i like feeling more powerful and i like to feel more powerful and i like to feel more powerful and i like to feel more powerful and that's that's how i look at it so similar different words similar no yeah i love that i love that and the dropping down and in from a visual we've touched on the body a little bit from a visualization visual wow visualization perspective i almost envision it like a little pendant so where is the pendant right now is the pendant right up here in my head space can i drop it a little bit lower can i access heart can i access gut right those are our three centers head heart hara hara is our gut how can we um notice because i think sometimes in go for it we can be really hattie all the time so we can be like like what do i need to do what are my strategies to do yeah strategies all the things all the masculine energy yeah which is not which is not bad you just need both we do we need and if you're women you do need a little more of the feminine than the masculine if you're a woman it's just so much better but and honestly we can have a whole other conversation on this that we you know that we won't or maybe we will because we're just going to be on each other's podcasts all your logs of how this cycle relates to the masculine and feminine yeah for me the phases that we resist is a sign of the energy that we need to cultivate so for me i was deeply avoidant of cocooning because what was cocooning it was the feminine right right no when you're allowing we're not going to do that not if we're working in corporate or we're building businesses as entrepreneurs we're not going to do that we're going to go go go do do do and you know the faster the better yeah so i really had to heal my relationship with the feminine to even allow myself to drop in to the being of cocooning um and then i mean you could go through that for every phase getting ready is like finding your sacred masculine and some of us have been so wounded and operating from the wounded masculine that the shift from cocooning to getting ready can be quite terrifying because it's like i don't want to bring that masculine energy back into my life but it's like no no you do beautiful beautiful woman and we do it from a sacred place and letting your feminine still lead the feminine is still leading the feminine is still that center of integrity that you're operating from now we're not just gonna like throw the keys to the car to your wounded masculine driver and let him take over you're still checking in on it you're still checking in on it you're still checking in on it you're still with with body and being first yeah i love that everything oh gosh feminine masculine energy all the things i'm here for all of it yeah so what would you say was your biggest lesson through going through your experience like what was your biggest lesson or the things that you'd want to share as we wrap up uh first and foremost meet yourself first and foremost meet yourself first and foremost meet yourself first and foremost meet yourself where you are meet yourself where you are how can you dare to be uh radically truthful with yourself about the phase that you are in and therefore what the work is for you to do right now and if i can put two out there i would say the biggest lesson for me was healing my relationship to the feminine yeah healing my relationship to the receiving part of me the being part of me the that it's okay to be in being energy receptionist of energy be open and not always need to be in the driving and the doing and the striving which i think that makes sense though because of where you were and what you were doing because you were working corporate so that makes total sense so yeah for those of you who are women working corporate turn inward and see how that feminine energy is going and i say corporate i mean even entrepreneurs right it's just kind of what we do we just can drop into masculine so much easier so i love that thank you for sharing and um last question i have for you is if you were to give them one nugget of wisdom from everything that you have experienced what would it be oh man amy i feel like this is the question i should have came prepared with and i did not i just threw it at you oh that was the one nugget of wisdom it's something that you preach too so it might sound redundant but it's like uh it's it's self-trust yeah how can you cultivate such a trusting relationship with yourself honestly i get oh i'm gonna go on a tangent here for just a minute i promise i'll get back on i get a little bit angry at coaches on the internet who preach about confidence too much because i think confidence is something that can feel really hard for women to access when they're in a very doldrumsy state so for me i'm so passionate about how can we cultivate a sense of self-trust how do we cultivate self-trust through belief like can we cultivate a sense of belief in self how do we cultivate belief through consistency through care through respect so what can you do today to in the small tiny steps in the making a commitment to yourself and honoring it kind of steps to help cultivate your trust because that's going to make transition so much easier for you when you feel safe to trust what the gps that is your soul is telling you to do i love without it to be it's it's so hard that was a pretty powerful nugget of wisdom thanks friend i know you're passionate about self-trust too but yes i am and all there is but when you do when you practice that self-trust confidence actually follows exactly it's but that's what i talk about sometimes i'm like confidence is the output right confidence is the output we can't just if we tell people to just be more confident they're going to be in the fake it till you make it energy i'm more focused on like what are the meaningful building blocks what really simply what are the commitments that you can make to yourself today and then honor them that's going to help you feel safer with you to say oh wait i'm actually am someone i can count on the same way we build trust in relationships with other people is the way that we build trust with ourselves are you somebody that you can count on to do the things that you say you're going to do and to be the kind of person you want to be and that that that's what it is i mean you just wrapped it up in such little words like that is self-trust what we're talking about is just be and say and do what you be and say and do yeah and then that trust grows and then everything else follows so beautiful thank you so much for being on the podcast will you thank you my friend just tell them how to get a hold of you we'll also have it in the show notes of course but if someone's like i need her in my life because i'm sure they will find you thank you so much the best place to connect is instagram that's where you'll see me the most i'm also being more and more active on linkedin you guys this is a fun place to spend time on the internet who knew i know um so those are the two best places of course you can connect with me on my website shannon schaller. com and on the podcast that we talked about at the beginning that amy is on yeah so good so good okay well thank you so much for being on we've loved having you all right thank you my friend bye hey if you enjoyed listening to this podcast you've got to come check out my signature program thrive her academy this is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation i teach you how to apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can create that life and business that you love for more information go to www. amysanders.

co forward slash services again that is amysanders.