The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
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The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
141. The Quiet Revolution of Spirituality in Business Practices with Spiritual Embodiment Coach Daria Drake and Lena Mech
Ever felt like the fast-paced demands of the business world are at odds with your spiritual journey? Together with BAM community members, Lena and Daria, we tackle the delicate art of weaving spirituality into the fabric of our businesses and daily lives. Lena, with her playful spin on experience design, opens up about her app Spirit World, which promises to infuse self-care with joy. Daria, meanwhile, shares her wisdom as a spiritual embodiment mentor, guiding us through the realms of intuition and the natural rhythms of life as a means to overcome stress and embrace freedom.
As we navigate modern culture's pressures, we often get caught up in the pursuit of external validation, losing touch with our inner compass. This episode is a beacon for those feeling adrift in the sea of prescribed success formulas and societal expectations. It's a candid conversation about the transformative potential that unfolds when we guide ourselves and our clients towards self-discovery and personal sovereignty. Learn how embracing our spiritual path can lead to profound shifts in personal fulfillment and entrepreneurial success, all while staying true to our most authentic selves.
The narrative takes a personal turn as I share my own struggles with anxiety and the search for mindfulness in an age where technology can be both a source of distraction and a vehicle for peace. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to those looking to deepen their connection with themselves and the world, offering a fresh perspective on finding balance amidst the digital noise. Join us as we explore the art of creating accessible spiritual solutions that speak to the soul and ignite a gentler, more enlightened way of living.
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Lena Mech is a playful experience designer on a mission to make self-care more accessible and fun. Utilizing her expertise in game design, theatre, and meditation, she crafts playful rituals. Her latest endeavour is Spirit World - a self-care app in which you take care of mythical creatures by taking care of your own well-being.
Daria Drake is a spiritual embodiment mentor and somatic yoga practitioner guiding people back home to the wisdom of their body. She currently facilitates womb healing circles and
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello and welcome to the Rooted Business Podcast.
Speaker 1:Today I've got dear friends and BAM community members, lena and Daria, and this episode is inspired by a group coaching call that we did last week and in that conversation, this concept of spirituality and what place it has in business, what has scared us away from incorporating spirituality into our businesses and how, as people feel insensitive and empathetic humans, how can we bring spirituality into everything that we do in a way that feels really empowering?
Speaker 1:And after we had that discussion, I was just sitting there and thinking, oh my God, other people need to hear this, and so I invited Daria and Lena on to the podcast so that you know, I think that was just like a little like 15 minute blip of a conversation on our coaching call, but I really want to just like sink into it and really do a deep dive with you too, because I think it's going to be such a juicy conversation and you too, in particular, brings such depth and warmth to these concepts. So thank you so much for being here. So before we get into these concepts, I'd love to have you just do a quick little intro and share with folks who you are and what your work is about and what sort of go from there and see where our conversation takes us.
Speaker 2:I'm Daria and I am a spiritual embodiment mentor who claimed this title. That kind of encapsulates what I do through this mentorship in BAM. I was dancing all around spirituality and have many different tools to help people get out of their thinking brain and then just dropping into their body so that we can be the feeling and intuiting creatures that we are and start like getting better and healing our bodies from pain and emotional distress and anxiety. And, yeah, just really wanting to like I see, I see freedom for for all beings if we can be tapped into and embody our, our own spiritual nature.
Speaker 3:And I'm Lena.
Speaker 3:I'm a playful experience designer and I'm on a mission to make self-care more accessible for people, because I feel like, when I look around the world, so many people are stressed out and anxious and depressed and there are so many tools out there that one can use, but it's a bit, it can be daunting to get into it, or it can be feel a bit boring, or one feels like, okay, now I have to sit for half an hour on a cushion and meditate, and so I'm creating this app called Spirit World, in which you have bite-sized self-care techniques that are mixed with the game to to have a fun experience that people are already used to.
Speaker 1:I think two pieces that I like want to like put a little flag in and come back to feel is this idea of ritual, lena, that feels like something that is something that you help cultivate within your game slash app is, how can we bring back ritual? And to me there's there's such deep ties to animism and spirituality when it comes to ritual. And then for Daria, I just want to name that. You know you said that you claimed this title through this process that we went through and bam, but it was really just giving vocabulary to something that you've always done.
Speaker 1:You know, like you came in with a very simple toolbox and it's really just about how can we put a name to that so that you communicate that to folks, and I feel like that's what a lot of this, like machine space, the spirituality feels like sometimes to me is like I feel this all the time, walking on my property, going for walks in the woods, hanging out with my horses, and the struggle is is how do I put language to it in such a way that it makes sense to other people and I can find community and connection with other people, and so, like I'm hoping that that's what part of our conversation is going to be about is is really putting a language so that we can bring this as a, as a connecting piece, because I think that for a lot of us who do have our own sense of spirituality and oftentimes is connected to animism in some way, it can feel like we're really kind of alone in this.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I just want to like name those two pieces and I'm sure this concept of ritual is gonna is gonna weave its way through, because how can it not? But before we get into it, I'd love for you to share what your idea of spirituality is, because if we start with a big vocabulary word like spirituality, having a sense of what that means to each of the speakers, I feel like is an important place to start. So let's play with that just concept of naming what spirituality is to you first.
Speaker 3:When I think of spirituality, I think of my own journey through it, where in the beginning, when I started on this spiritual journey, I felt like spirituality is about what is outside of myself and about the spirit and God or Goddess or universe, and I was looking outside for answers. And the more I dug deeper and the longer I was on this journey, I learned for myself at least, that spirituality is actually inside of myself and not, and even more, inside of my body, so like the embodiment part became so, so important, because I feel like spirituality is my ability to access my intuition, my ability to be in sync with nature, my ability to be in sync with my own rhythm, my ability also to see what needs to be done in my business in a very centered way, instead of again looking to the outside world to see what I'm supposed to do, coming back to myself and listening in and then acting from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, lena, and I think, like, what ritual and meditation and these practices give us is that opportunity to like turn off the outside world and connect with those parts of our body that are communicating with us, like that is spirit communicating with us.
Speaker 2:So for me, spirituality is definitely about being connected to nature and the elements are cycles and seasons, and you know this idea that rest is productive and ritual is productive. For me, spirituality is something definitely that is deeply within myself and anybody who, like wants to explore their own spirituality, like, just like you said, lena, it's already inside of them and in Eastern medicine, the heart, the heart holds the spirit, and so, like, my practice is so much about using the wisdom of the heart as like a compass, or like is our map, and then, like the body is the compass that's kind of like pointing us in the direction, through, like our sensing and our feeling. But the map is already inside of us and I think it's just. You know, for me spirituality is also about, like, recognizing the divinity that is within ourselves and then being reflected out also in the world and you know that, that weaving of connection and energy between like beings and animals and plants and the earth and elements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like probably so many, so many people, this idea of spirituality just got so disordered from, from our life experiences, which I which was a huge turn off and definitely it was like a friction point in me wanting to say, like I am here for the will of my spirit and I'm here to like talk about spirituality and be in my practice and share that with people because of like the distortion that you know, my previous life experiences, you know, created inside of me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for me that that were distortion, like rings of all, because for the longest time, spirituality felt like, like a word that I wanted to get far, far away from, because I grew up with grandparents who were and continue to be, you know. This is not to say that all Christianity is bad or that I, you know, have a rift with Christianity, but the way that their church practices in particular feels very pressurized, feels very manipulative, feels very extractive and hypocritical, and I saw that from an early age and I wanted to get as far away from that as possible and that was my only sort of concept of what spirituality was. Because I grew up, also in a very suburban, like cookie cutter houses, with, like you know, malls and and and so you had to actually like go and like look for nature in my, in my childhood was my experience, and so, you know, I feel like I grew up thinking that spirituality only meant spirituality in the way that I saw my grandparents practicing, and so when I had, you know, spirituality breakdown, breakthrough, however you want to call it in my early 30s, it really was this return back to, you know, as you were saying, one of this, like who you always were this concept of being able to go back to like what is within and have all the answers within, and to me, like that is what true spirituality is. It's like it feels subtractive. We don't have to look to any sort of higher authority, whether that be a God or whether that be somebody who's higher up than you in the church. It's really about you have all the answers within you and can you find guides and mentors who will help you get closer to the answers within, versus, like, look to them for that sense of authority.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that is, you know. That's. That's where I feel like a lot of the people who are in the church, a lot of them, I think a lot of us carry spirituality wound, if it feels appropriate to call it that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I would say 100% spirituality wounds like when you witness hypocrisy, and spirituality like that is definitely a wound because you took something that is like my birthright.
Speaker 2:And you, you manipulated me with it. Basically, I mean, I definitely experienced like that hypocrisy and the hierarchical. Like you know, you shouldn't be doing that and you need to stop doing that and meet these requirements or whatever so that you can be a part of this church. And yeah, there was, like that, that inner friction where, like it just doesn't and, as a child, like we see it so clearly and feel it so clearly like that friction between, like what is true for us and like what we're being told and we're like this is not matching up. That's what I experienced, yeah, yeah, for me.
Speaker 3:I'm wondering also, like where, where does it come from that we look for answers outside, you know, because I just it reminded me so much when I just started on this virtual journey and I have these amazing teachers in Denmark.
Speaker 3:Every time I asked a question, they were like like directing it back at me and they were like, and what do you think? And I was so annoyed I was like can you just give me an answer? You know, like I just want to know what to believe, basically, yeah, and so I think there is something in us, ingrained, and definitely from school, where you know like there is one right answer and you just have to remember it. But it might go even further down the line, right, but there is something interesting there that, like we want that, we want somebody to take, basically to take responsibility for us. I think there is a lot there as well of like how can I take away responsibility for my decisions, for my health, for my wealth, for my happiness, and put it on somebody else, because then it's safe, like it's something that I don't have to put myself at risk of failure to try something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that has to do like oh my gosh, this idea of like you have the answers within versus like you have to look outside for answers, like that ripples through so many ways of being. I'm struggling to find the name of this book, but I'm in the middle of reading a book right now. I just started it and he talks about putting ourselves through challenges as a way to like tap into. He doesn't call it spirituality, but you know, I think that he's talking about one of the same, because he's talking about connection with nature and connection with self and connection with you know, your broader community. And there's a whole chapter about like rites of passage that a lot of sort of traditional cultures put their children through, and like.
Speaker 1:It's not like you just pop that kid out and mill the wilderness and be like okay, go figure yourself out. It's like the preparation of raising the child is to have them be ready to look within for their answers so that when you do, you know, like the Aboriginal communities in Australia, when you send your kid out for a walkabout and they're 12 or 13 ish, you know they already know that they have all the tools within them and they don't have to look outside to somebody who's older to like fix that problem or take responsibility for them, and I think that that is something that is really, really missing in our modern culture is, when we take away this concept of you have all the answers within, we also take away, like sovereignty and autonomy and the ability for us to take, like you were saying, when I like, responsibility for our own life in a way that feels empowering. I'm going to look up the name of this book, so one of you guys take over for a second. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is very much related to, you know, doing business and doing our out of the world. It's like we've been traumatized, all of us in some kind of a way and to to have a business for yourself, like you have to be, you have to have a sense of sovereignty and also like, interbeing. You know, I wouldn't be able to get where I am without the support of, like, the community and what I'm. You know, what I'm thinking of in particular is, like you know, the authority over that had me looking outside of my internal compass for somebody who was going to take responsibility and save me and help me turn my practice into something that was going to provide money for me, and it doesn't. You know, I have learned it doesn't work like that. Like we can't just take somebody else's template or what worked for them and apply it to our own unique codes and expect it to like not get contorted again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's the name of the book before I, you know, lose it. It's called the Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. I'm just a couple of chapters in, but it's quite good so far. And I, you know, that's one of my biggest pet peeves in particularly the online marketing coaching world is this idea of like hey, if you just download my template, hey, if you just looked at me as the authority, you know. These are all the reasons why I'm going to tell you to a six figure income versus hey, like, like.
Speaker 1:This is going to be a long and hard road if you want to build a business that's sustainable and you have all the answers within you. I'm here to ask questions and make sure that like it always gets directed back towards you, but it's really about like, having a conversation between you and the unique spirit of your business. You know, and so you know, I get a lot of clients who come in having taken a lot of those courses and those programs, myself included, and feeling like but there's something off about this. You know, there's something that doesn't feel right about this. I'm thinking about a client in particular, lori, who when she first came to me, she was just coming off of a different program who told her hey, like you know, if you want to make money, the place where you need to go is, like marketing to C level, you know, ceos and corporate women, because they're in pain and they have the money to be able to pay you.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, the face that Daria is making right now is pretty much the face that like, and you know it feels like really attractive, right, and what we came up with after working through this in BAM is she really wants to do like ancestral medicine or you know, and it doesn't really matter. You know the job title that you have. It's really about, hey, like are you curious about your ancestry and you don't need to know the exact people in your ancestry to be able to do ancestor work, like I can help you know, to guide you to those places within again, you know, and so I find that the people who are drawn to BAM are also people who want to practice in this way of supporting their clients, to look within and always be looking within.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was like this. You know, they're like I do this for these people so that they can do this, and it's like you feel just like this when you do that. Yeah, like I am a robot and it just like it just robs you of like the magic of your uniqueness and of your spirit and of your medicine. And that's the simplest way I can put it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, also always find, like I've done many of those courses too and where I also ended up was feeling so depleted and like there's something wrong with me Because, like I've read so many books and I've done so many courses about online marketing and I still haven't started, and it's okay. But like before BAM, I would be like what everybody's doing? It like what, how hard is it to put one post a day? Like it's just, it's not that hard. And the thing is like going through the understanding, going within again and understanding okay, why are you afraid? Like, yeah, I'm afraid, maybe for people to think that I'm weird or to shine, you know.
Speaker 3:And then also, like one of my biggest understandings was like it really hurts when you post something and nobody reacts to it and it's very human. And it's like because it's as if you came into a room and you said something and there was just everybody would just ignore you. You would be like what's wrong with me, you know, like why is nobody like am I invisible or am I just stupid? And so like really treating ourselves so, so gently through these things. I think it's missing so much. There's so much of this like push energy around business and it's so I think it's really harmful, because I think a lot of people burn out this way because you know they push through all of these like yeah, like that, because I think there is one one hand there is like trauma and wounding, but on the other hand, there's just this like human thing of like yeah, it sucks when nobody reacts to you and you need to hold yourself very tenderly when that happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I think that what is taught nowadays is, instead of holding yourself tenderly, it's like oh, you're not doing enough, which goes back to this concept around our modern culture that has divorced us from nature, that's divorced us from natural cycles, divorced us from our bodies, and you know, I think that that way of doing things is now the normative way of doing things, which is just push through, just, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway, and this whole concept of linear growth, like that's kind of the world that we live in now, but what we forget is that's not the world that has existed through the majority of human history. From our conversation last week, lena Yu recommended this podcast called the Emerald and I was just drawn to this episode, to listen to this particular episode, just based on the title called Animism is the Normative Culture, and you know, one of the concepts that he talks about, because it's so easy to feel like, oh, I'm alone in this virtual journey, all by myself, and I'm the weirdo and you know I there must be something wrong with me because I can't seem to like find my people is like when you go back into history, you know, 99% of our, our ancestors existed in the Paleolithic era, which is the golden age of animism, and it was just the, the. We didn't even need to have a name for what animism was, because it was just what was. It was just the water that we slam in all the time, and he gave this really, really beautiful example.
Speaker 1:That really helps sort of contextualize things for me, because you can say like, oh yeah, like I get it, 99% of my ancestors cool, but I guess in 2020, there was a comet called the Neowise Comet that we could see from Earth for the first time in 6,800 years, and that means that the Neowise Comet has, you know, shown up for us to see on Earth 50 times since humans have existed on Earth, and only one of those times is during this like modern era that we live in, which is all about productivity and growth for growth's sake, is about how can we become disembodied in order to be more and do more, rather than, like you know, the 49 other times that that comet has passed through, our view has been with people who were connected to rocks and trees and plants, and mountains and animals, and so to me, when I say that, like I talked to rocks, like I don't feel so alone in the world, even if, you know, maybe like 98% of modern humans don't quite understand that, but I'm hopeful that that is a growing number as they become.
Speaker 1:You know, we sort of have to, like explore the edges of discomfort in order to come back to ourselves, and so I'm hoping that we've got, you know, the momentum of folks who are wanting to come back to nature and come back to our own bodies.
Speaker 2:I mean this you know, the BAM container has been such a big part of, or is such a big part, I feel, of this movement that you're like you know that you're wishing for a cat. It's, you know, facilitating people getting out of their body, you're getting out of their heads. It's facilitating people getting out of their heads and into their bodies, like for their business. And us having this conversation like I'm so excited because before, when you know something like the word spirituality makes me feel uncomfortable, I'm like, oh, we're just not going to use that word, and if I like just kept eliminating things that people don't understand or that our world has contorted, then, like we're not talking about anything of substance anymore. And so I think the conversation is so important so we can pull this back into, like into the conversation, into like the energy that weaves through us, so that people can define spirituality on their own terms and instead of, like you know, hiding from it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, I just lost the thread. Yeah, it's interesting with spirituality and and like being it becoming a bad word, basically like for many different reasons, and also the ostracizing people that are talking to rocks or like making fun of them, and what I realized I also listened to this podcast episode about animism. What I what really broke my heart when I listened to it was that we in the modern society, we somehow decided that spirituality doesn't exist anymore and that intuition is something like it's just not really useful and we set it aside. And what really breaks my heart is that we still are intuitive, we're still are spiritual, like that just doesn't go anywhere. But the sad story is is that we don't have the tools to access it. You know, nobody teaches us that, and then we're walking around half people or maybe even less than half, because we just live in our heads and we're like, oh, but why does everything feel so out of place? Why am I so anxious constantly? Why am I so depressed? And and it's just really, really sad.
Speaker 1:I just read that Silicon Valley declared loneliness as a health crisis like this week, and to me it's like yeah, of course, like that is.
Speaker 1:You know, I have some corporate clients and that is the land of doing versus being, performing, versus allowing, always being on screen instead of being out in nature.
Speaker 1:And so, like, even though Silicon Valley is like, so rounded, like beautiful nature, like people are not accessing it because spirituality and nature and animism no longer has value in that world.
Speaker 1:And so, like, like I read that I haven't had a chance to like, actually do any reading about it, but it was just like a headline that popped up on my Instagram feed yesterday and like that it was like an, of course, like. This is what happens when we have, you know, don't give ourselves the opportunities to like, actually sink into into who we always were and and start to look outside of ourselves, which is, you know, one of the reasons why I find your work so fascinating, lena, is like, instead of like, my inclination is to just like fight and be like people just get off your phone, you know, and I love how you're like, okay, so like, the thing that we have to accept is that, like phones are here, phones are here to stay, and so, instead of fighting that like, can I bring in spirituality and can I bring in connection to self through this thing that we can't avoid, you know, and so I find your work completely fascinating in that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I find like I think as a, as a designer, but also, sorry, yeah, I think I have an archetype of a translator inside of me, very like, strongly present, and so I've always been fascinated with spirituality and finding different ways. How can I bring them to people? Like before I was doing theater for some time and then like physical games and now it's now it's a mobile game and the thing is I, I really I always had this feeling of like I would love to meet people where they are, you know, and because there is no way to force people to do anything, like they will just push back, and I just really hope that I can create something that can, like ease the pain a little bit, because I felt it too. I've been. I lived with anxiety for most of my life, like I just couldn't exist without having constant criticism inside of me and doubt, and just like feeling pain inside my chest, and for me, it took my mom to pass away to wake up, and I just really hope, or my aim, is to bring something to the world in a very accessible way, that people don't need to go through such a huge crisis in order to, to, to slowly, little by little, wake up to who they are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and again. With the phones, the thing is is just like they're here, technology is here, and even though sometimes, like I'm sometimes like can I just go to the mountains somewhere and live there alone without anybody ever talking to me, like I have definitely hermit inside of myself. But then, on the other hand, when I look also at, like the crisis that Gen Z's are going through, where there is like I don't I don't know the name for it, of course, but there is something that they're like so distraught about the future of the planet, and that's again that something is like you're looking outside, but like what is inside of you, and so my, my, my mission is to like okay, we have this phone that you constantly use when you're, especially when you're stressed out or bored or anxious. Can I create something that is actually of value to you and can bring you to peace, instead of more agitation through I don't know social media, for example?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you know, I think that there are it's. I would. I would say it's a relatively new concept to bring mindfulness into. You know, a technology, but there's a wave of products out there that are coming through. Like you, you were showing me like a like a sleep app where one of the activities was, you know, coloring is like a coloring book, like a 3D coloring book to help you sort of wind down. And you know, I've used like a meditation app before and you know, a lot of us are really familiar with calm and you know, I think, that a lot of other people are starting to look at technology and being like, okay, so like technology is fair to say and can we, you know, harness the good of it instead of, you know, looking to it as like another way to extract from people? Can we help people get back into themselves? And I feel like that's a really important piece.
Speaker 1:Moving forward is, like, you know, as much as I want to fight technology and be like people are going to get out their phones, like the generation that come after us, you know, I think we're all millennial age. They never lived in a world where these products didn't exist, you know. And so for us to say we got to get rid of these things in such an extreme way would actually not be helpful for them. So I love that you're doing this work of like meeting people where you're at. As you were saying, we've got to meet them where they're at. If this is the thing that they are going to spend X amount of time on every day, can a certain percentage of that be the help bring them into regulation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2:There was something you said, kat, and then Lena said and we're you're talking about like rights of passage and how like those are moments where we get to that, where we get to meet spirit and like have that moment.
Speaker 2:And I think about what that looked like for me growing up, like what kind of rights of passage I went through and like, specifically with the church they do like this confirmation, and what I remember about it was you're like you're writing answers and with a you know to like a form basically, and you have these two mentors that are adults and they spend time with you and kind of coach you through it, but like there was no spirituality in that for me. And then I think about like having my first menstrual cycle. That would have been an amazing moment to have some kind of right of passage spirit moment of like welcoming me into young, young womanhood. And yeah, like again it's, the concept of spirituality just has been expressed in in a way that has not really been supportive of of my life. And yeah, using this moment in my life to reclaim that is is a really big deal. Yeah, I would say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like that's where the concept of ritual comes in, in a way, where, like, how can we create rituals for ourselves? Because, at least in the Western world, we don't really have the rituals of our ancestors, are lost or depends, of course, but like, more or less, they haven't been, we haven't gotten them from directly from our ancestors. But I feel it really like beautiful, this thing of like, okay, inserting little rituals into your life as a way of marking, marking something important, so like, as you were saying, okay, my first meant my, the beginning of my menstruating life. Like it is a big deal, it's something that like then follows you throughout your whole life, basically until you, of course, stop. And so the question for me is always like, okay, how can we start adding these rituals back into our lives, because we have so few of them left? You know, we have Christmas, christmas dinner, we have birthday, maybe for somebody depends, and that's kind of almost it. And so, like, how can we? What is, maybe?
Speaker 3:I think also, the question is here like, what is worth marking for you, for each of us, you know? Like, what is it that you actually want to put a point into? And like, okay, this was important, and I think this is also a way how we can not let life slip away from us with all this like, okay, more, more, faster, faster, and it's like what is the end of it? I remember there was some kind of quote I read at some point where I was like where are you running to? The end goal is death, you know. So, like, what's your like? Are you really rushing towards that? And so, like finding the ways of what is important, like for me, for example, it became important to have a ritual every single morning, and like drinking my cacao and welcoming the day, because it brings this slowness to it and it brings this like okay, what do I feel today? How do I feel today? What is my rhythm? How do I want to step into the day?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like groundiness, yeah Like and just to your point, lena, like not even just these high moments, like, yeah, we can have ritual, like special ritual for these high moments, but even our daily ritual. Because I can tell you, every single day, if I don't do some practice to get in my body, then my energy like just wants to be in my head and then I can end up scrolling or just kind of piddling the day away because I haven't like rooted myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I feel the need to differentiate Like I too have an inner translator, lena differentiate between ritual and rites of passage. Because what I'm hearing and I don't think I've ever had to like really differentiate this before, but like what I'm hearing is like ritual brings a sense of connection, whether it's to yourself or like in the case of, you know, coming into menstruation, connecting yourself to what other women who have also menstruated you know. But I think rites of passage needs to have significant challenge, with a fairly high chance of failing. I think about my business as being a rite of passage. You know there's a pretty high chance that, like businesses, the way that we're running them might not work out or might not work out in the way that you envision it in your head. And so can you believe in something so strongly that, even the face of it potentially not working out, you still for your heart and your energy and your love into it and the effort is enough. You know, I think about the rites of passage that you know traditional cultures will put their kids still similar right, like there's a higher than like normal chances that that kid might not come back. You know I also.
Speaker 1:You know in this book that I'm reading. One of the things that one of the stories that he highlights is there's a doctor who runs a program in Santa Barbara. He runs it for professional athletes and he specifically, you know, has all this technology to help them like, really understand you know, different body patterns and movements and how they can improve you know, performance for professional athletes. His passion project this guy's like the doctor's passion project is twice a year he puts on what he calls a misogy challenge and it is like a physical challenge that they're potentially not going to be able to do as professional athletes, and so one of the things that he like one example is a 25-mile paddle boarding challenge from, you know, I think it was from the coast of Santa Barbara to like one of the islands, and you know the particular day that they set out to do this, there was like a lot of wind and like everyone was falling into the water. And so it becomes this challenge of like hey, instead of like looking like I need to get there in 20 miles. It was.
Speaker 1:Can I have like one perfect stroke in this moment, like one foot in front of the other, and one of the basketball players said that he used it as like a concept that he like came back to during a playoff game is like you know people would be talking to him about like okay, so like we need to win this game. He was like no, I just need to like have one perfect stroke, one step at a time. And I think that that's what like rites of passages do for us is like when we have something that seems like a fairly big, impossible goal and we might fail at it, like what can we still gain from those lessons? You know, it made me think of my my at the time he was my boyfriend, but he's now my husband.
Speaker 1:I remember one time he just like on a whim, decided he was like I'm going to walk 100 miles in a day.
Speaker 1:He was like I really want to do this and you know, at the time he was, you know, more fit than he is now, but like not like what you would think of as like an ultra marathoner at all. Like he's like a big, burly guy who carries a lot of weight and I think he got to like 14 or 15 miles. So like he didn't reach the goal, but in that process of of doing that challenge, like he was able to come away with lessons around hate. Like I actually went further than I thought I would. He was, like, you know, I wanted to do 100 miles but like I didn't know if I could do three or four miles even so, the fact that he, like, he was able to like get to 14 or 15 miles was like a big thing and, you know, he was able to walk away with different lessons that, like I think that people are just so afraid of failing that they miss that there are lessons within just doing the challenge, just doing that hard thing, double narrow, middle, middle, middleklein.
Speaker 2:I'm wanting to come up with a challenge for myself now. What could that be? Yeah, kat, as soon as you said that you started differentiating between, like, rights of passage and rituals, I was like definitely, business is a right of passage. Yeah, definitely, no guarantees, and it's like just keep following your heart.
Speaker 1:basically, yeah, and you don't know, like you know, I say this as somebody who has several quote unquote failed businesses. You know, I started out as a calligraphy artist and then that business quote unquote failed. And then I shifted into my acupuncture business and that quote unquote failed. And then I was a relationship coach, and that quote unquote failed. And now, like I'm a business coach but like everything that I learned, from the calligraphy business, the acupuncture business to the relationship coaching business, like it goes through my work now and so, like you know, we're collecting lessons all along the way and we don't know what the end goal is. I honestly don't know if this is going to be the thing that I do for the rest of my life and and this business may also quote unquote fail, but for sure, like it will have been worth doing. Regardless of whether it's, you know it's going to sort of be a success in the way that, like other people would define success, which is like it lasts for 30 years. You know, I don't know.
Speaker 3:It reminds me of we talked once with my. It reminds me when we once talked with my partner and he was saying of like oh, I'm above 40. And what have I done? Like some people who are my age, they, I don't know they're making so much money, they have a Tesla and they have a house and so on and so forth, and and I was telling him like yeah, okay, that's, that's fine, but like you had these, all these businesses that, as you say, like quote unquote, fail. But have you what have you been like? Have you been doing what you really wanted to do the whole time? And his answer was yes, and I feel like that's also one part of it. Like I, for example, I had a business that it kind of failed, but then I also sold it, which was in the end. It was a huge success actually.
Speaker 3:But I've been struggling for so long and I've had like almost no money and like really living from paycheck to paycheck, but I was living my life like I could take a free day whenever I wanted or you know, like I could just I could go out for a walk and just be in nature if I wanted to.
Speaker 3:So there is always these things of like. I think the question is more like, are you doing what you really want to do? And then yeah, and then, of course, the challenges come. But I think that's also what the rites of passage can teach us. Like I was once on a it wasn't exactly a vision quest, but it was inspired by a vision quest where we were alone in the woods spending, I think, a week in total, and there is something about, there's something so beautiful about being outside of your comfort zone, where you, first of all, you really learn how incredibly strong you are it's like unbelievable. And then also you find your edges, like the real edges of the comfort zone. You know like okay, this was too much, and so I think that's really also really beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's like, there's definitely a trade off. You know we were talking about humans and comfort. Like, are we, are we choosing the comfortable life where we have somebody who's in authority, they give us a paycheck and we get to drive a nice Tesla and maybe we can drive, you know, a nice Tesla when we have our business? But you know the journey of becoming. You know I think I mentioned this before or we talked about this before of it not really being about the destination, but it is like the challenges that you meet every single day and how you move through them on your quest to like follow the will of your heart and like, be in integrity with your spirit and your purpose.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, like, the trade off is maybe, lena, we're going to live paycheck to paycheck for a little bit longer and then maybe one day, we look back on these days and we're like, wow, I, you know, I never gave up. I believed so much in what my heart was telling me and I persevered and I met these challenges every day and I didn't hide and I learned so many things and like, how much more like fulfilling and rich, that part can an abundant, and thinking of the word abundance like an experience compared to like the comfortable journey of yeah the comfortable journey, and I mean I think that, like that, comfortable journey can be a little bit of a misnomer as well, because you know, I have plenty of clients who work in the corporate space and they struggle with a lot of the same things that we struggle with, you know, it's just in a different outfit.
Speaker 1:So instead of us needing to hold boundaries with our clients, they need to hold boundaries with their. You know, boss, or you know like we struggle to sometimes find the time in the space for ourselves within. You know all the things that you have to do as an entrepreneur like you are a one person show who is doing the practitioner in, you are doing the like, scheduling in the booking, and then all the things that we have to do as entrepreneurs, and so you know it's up to us to figure out. Okay, so we need to carve out. This time is sacred times for for me to step away, and so I think my corporate clients who drive Tesla's have to do the same work, and so it's.
Speaker 1:It's also about choosing. Your heart is, I think, as human, and so we I think our souls are here to like, really try to figure something out. I tend to think of that as like the journey of the Dow and really trying to understand what your purpose is, and like you can try to figure out how to live in alignment with your purpose by, you know, working for somebody else, or you can do that also by working for yourself, and you know, it's not like one path is better than the other. I think that it's just about choosing which hard is going to be the most in alignment for you. Yeah, yeah, I'm curious. I feel like we've talked a lot about like rights of passage, but what kind of rituals? What are the rituals for your personal life and for your business life, or is there not a differentiation between the two for you?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure if I differentiate them or not. I think it's like a continuation. But yeah, for my personal life I always start a morning with a cup of cacao and meditation and sometimes yoga, and then I try to follow writing. I have like a notion, different questions for the day and also gratitude journals. So then I, just before I start working, to get into the mood of being grateful, then also asking I ask my business what it wants to tell me today. So, just like then I jot a couple of notes and then I started also to decide on the one to three things I'm going to do today. So it's just like very small amount of things to do. And then for bigger rituals or maybe I would call them ceremonies, even though I don't actually it's always has been a bit hard for me to differentiate between the ritual and the ceremony, but I feel like ceremonies are a bit bigger in time and space and also effort.
Speaker 3:And once in a while for my personal, especially for my personal life, I do like in a way, death ritual, where I like I have an altar by my bedside and I always like collect rocks and take them away and then put them back in. And then, once in a while I'm like okay, it's time to clean it out. And I think that's the time when I'm like, somehow subconsciously, I know that it's time for some of some parts of me to let go and let them die. And so I collect, I like feel into all the things that I don't want on my altar anymore, and then I and they are also sometimes connected to my business as well and then I go somewhere in nature and have a ceremony. Where I arrange depends very much. Sometimes I arrange them in like a mandala and let them there, or sometimes I like hide them away around the forest or throw them in water and so on.
Speaker 1:So I love that. I don't think I like maybe I have like a slight like hoarding tendency with my ritualistic things when, like I, I've never considered putting them back. That's an interesting concept. I'm gonna start with that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it happened to me for the first time when I it was on my vision quest.
Speaker 3:I created this like really weird but really beautiful tool where it had like a heart, like it was like made out of a branch, and on one side it had a spoon. On the other hand, on the other side it had gosh, what was on the other side, I don't remember. So it was like three, three. It had like three spikes One was a spoon, one was something and the third one was like a spear and in the middle was a heart. And I was like this is my tool for like healing, nurturing and killing what needs to die.
Speaker 3:And and I was like really proud of it and I was really attached to it because I carved it out myself with like a knife over many, many days. And then one day at a somewhere I was at some kind of cacao ceremony or something, I think and I stepped on it and it broke and it was like and I was like so upset. But then it just came to me. It's like, yes, sometimes you need like you need to let go of some of the tools. It's time for it to go. And so from then on, I think I started to be like oh okay, this doesn't feel alive anymore for me. I think it's time to say goodbye.
Speaker 1:I love it. What about you, Daria?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I'm still like I just moved a couple months ago and I'm still like finding my new rhythm here. But most of my my practices are I too, enjoy having a little cacao in the morning and just having a moment of quiet with that to let whatever needs to come forward come forward. I find it to be like incredibly, an incredibly grounding way to start my day and I'm somebody who is always dropping into body practices and then, like, from those I may do a meditation, and there's always a journal kicking around with like lots of different colored pens and sparkly pens and neon pens. And so my, my like body practice is I might put on like two or three songs and just move or and sometimes that turns into like shaking and just like bucking around basically in my studio and then like when I, when I get quiet, you know, because a lot, of, a lot of times there's like a lot of build up in our bodies and so like that movement just helps move the energy up and out and through, and then so like there's like this, the still waters that come after that, where I can hear my heart speaking, and then I keep the journal there, so like anything that comes up, it just goes in the journal or my notebook.
Speaker 2:I've, like I have a shelf of just notebooks and yeah, cat, you asked if there's a differentiation between, like personal and business, and for me, as like a spiritual embodiment mentor, it's all the same, because I want my life to be a reflection of spirit, which is like the work that I'm here to do in the world, help others like yeah, and myself like reflect spirit out into the world and like bring our spirituality into the world and like bring our spirituality into our everyday lives.
Speaker 2:And so I know like if I need a certain practice, it's serving me personally, then it's also serving my business, because I for me to override the personal, like that personal need in order to like do my business or my work.
Speaker 2:That's just like I'm not an integrity there and whatever comes out of me like it's not quite, it's just not quite the same. I mean, I think there's still truth there and there's still, like you know, there is still that direct transmission. But, like you know, I have a part time job and like I can open up my laptop and do a few things the part time job but like what comes out of me then and there, compared to when I'm like in my body and moving and meditating and whatever, whatever else. Then, like it just looks completely different Because the direct connection is like much more palpable in that way. I have a yoga practice, I work with mantra and sound healing and singing and, as Kat mentioned, I there's like a whole two kit and I definitely just into it like what I need in every moment and give it to myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's great. I hope that people can hear some amazing examples and bring them in for themselves or or think some ideas for themselves. I think for me, the two that I want to bring into this space is like a hopeful inspiration is in my personal life now being on this land. There's this concept of like chocolate carry water, which I don't have to do quite yet, but the thing that I do have to do every day is move horse poop, and so, you know, my horses live in their fancy arena slash barn. I have to clean up poop, and then I've been moving it out into a space that we're hopefully going to build our house on in the next five to 10 years, and in the meantime I really want there to be a really vibrant vegetable garden, flower garden out there, and so we're building out that bed space. But over the wintertime I couldn't cart the horse poop out and so I actually left a pile of it. I can actually look at it right now as we're talking. I left a pile of it like on in the front of our property and the other day my neighbor was like you know, like I come and bring the tractor and like move that for you. And I had this like moment of like. No, but my ritual is to like move poop out like with a wagon, you know, with a little hand wagon and and so there's something about like not taking the convenient road all the time if it helps you be in your body. It's something that you know Andre, who's my business partner, but he's also my ex romantic partner. Like he, when he makes a meal, it is like a full day situation where he has to like grind the spices in a mortar and pestle, even though we have like an electric grinder. You know like it's. It's like there's something about doing things with your hands in the ways that, like we've always done them without the technology. That I feel like it feels really connecting, at least for me personally.
Speaker 1:I think that folks who sort of follow my work and understand what I mean when I say like I'm a woody type person, like I think woody type people need to like move things with their hands and with their bodies, and that can be a ritual to bring in, and a business ritual that I do now is I think that I grew up only having these like big moments celebrated, so like if I got a good grade on a, you know, report card or if I passed some sort of test or you know, these sort of like externalized ways of like bringing in celebration and like marking that moment.
Speaker 1:And so something I've been doing with my husband is like like celebrating the small things, like you know, the more internal things, like hey, like I held a boundary with a client and it was really hard and I really like like that's not something that I would necessarily be, like that deserves a gold star, but I feel like the internal work that it took to like have that hard conversation with somebody, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that those moments also need to be celebrated, and so that's why I have the celebration channel in our like band slot group is because I want to be able to celebrate not just the like tangible hey I launched or hey, I signed a client but also the more intangible things of like, you know, I followed my creativity and I like, like I think I have the start of an offering, you know, and being able to celebrate those little moments before they're ready to share with the world, because that like first step is like a really, really brave moment. So those are the two rituals that I think I want to just like share in this space and hope that you know folks who are listening can take what they wish and you know, using the wisdom, that when I brought in is like really what doesn't work for you. So, yeah, wow, my dear, I feel like that was a really lovely way to start my morning. Anyway, I love talking to the top of an allay yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much. Also, I have so many like prickling thoughts about other things I can't wait to think about. It Just sparked so many ideas in my head and so many thoughts. That's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely ideas for my own practices, and yeah, yeah, we could probably talk for another hour.
Speaker 1:And after reading this book I feel I really sort of like compelled to come up with some sort of like right of passage, like physical challenge type of a thing. I don't know what it is yet, but yeah, I think I need that too, Kat.
Speaker 2:My tendency is to fall into like very yin and almost immobilize, and so my practice is always like no, I gotta be strong in my body and like definitely some kind of a challenge I think would help get me there. So I'm gonna be thinking about one too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Maybe I need to do like a yearly BAM physical challenge, where we do something on my land and it's like hey, we might fill out this and it's okay. Yeah, horse poop is ritual. Yeah, horse poop is ritual for sure, beautiful. Yeah, alrighty, my dears, have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you so much for being here. Before we log off, I would love me to drop in with how people can find you.
Speaker 2:You can find me on my Instagram. Oh my gosh, ruby. Sorry, you can find me on my Instagram. My handle is alifealignedco.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you can find me on Instagram too, and the handle is intospiritworld.
Speaker 1:And Ruby always seems to know when Mike calls her pretty much over, so she can over here to say hello, hi, ruby.
Speaker 3:What's your?
Speaker 1:Instagram Ruby, hi Ruby. Well, my dears thank you again. Lena, do you have?
Speaker 3:something to say? I actually. I just wanted to ask how was that book called? Again, I forgot oh it is Gosh.
Speaker 1:It's not the catchiest title. Hey, like Comfort.
Speaker 3:Crisis Comfort Crisis. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 1:And it's. The author is Michael Easter. Yeah, perfect, embrace this comfort to reclaim your wild, happy, healthy soul. Nice, okay, love that. Thank you, of course. We'll chat soon. Bye.
Speaker 3:Thank you.