Get your goat: So you want to move to the country and raise goats - A podcast about change
Get your goat: So you want to move to the country and raise goats - A podcast about change
Season 3 / Episode 47: Karla Combres: Charting a Path from Civil Service to Honoring Life Transitions
Have you ever felt the gentle tug of your heart steering you in an unexpected direction? Karla Combres knows that feeling well, and she's here to share her story of leaping from a traditional career in the Canadian Federal Public Service to the deeply fulfilling calling as a legacy guide and life cycle celebrant. Her journey is a testament to the courage it takes to listen to life's whispers and follow your "heart crumbs," even when the path ahead is uncharted.
Karla talks about the subtle yet persistent "niggle," that feeling of discontent that often lurks beneath the surface of a secure yet uninspiring job. Her encounters with individuals who challenged and expanded her perspective on life and death played a pivotal role in her career transformation. Volunteers at a hospice, participants at death cafes, and singers in the Threshold Choir all contributed to a profound realization of mortality that ultimately steered her towards a path of deep connection and meaning.
Karla's journey illuminates the possibilities when we dare to listen to the heart and embrace our true aspirations.
Welcome to. So you Want to Move to the Country and Raise Goats? This podcast features stories from people who have gone through change. We hope that their insights will help you better understand and deal with the changes in your life. I'm Peggy Koenig and along with my co-host, catherine Greiva, we chat with insightful people with interesting change stories. We hope you enjoy our podcast Today. We welcome Carla Combris to the podcast.
Peggie Koenig:As a young girl, she aspired to be a part-time preacher and a part-time teacher. She embarked on a journey of self-discovery through travel, learning and with a business degree and finally a Master of Science in Sociology. She embarked on a career path with the Canadian federal government. But Carla realized over time that she was not aligned with her true self and she started to explore and pay attention to those little sparks and what she refers to as her heart crumbs. Carla's story is about following where her heart told her to go. Heart crumbs Carla's story is about following where her heart told her to go. Now, as a legacy guide and celebrant, carla helps others shape their legacies by following the whispers of their hearts. Join us as she shares her inspiring story of listening to her inner voice and making life's moments truly count.
Catherine Gryba:Well, I'm delighted to introduce our guest today, carla Combrays. And Carla joins us from Saskatoon, and Carla has a very interesting story. She actually got her Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of Saskatchewan and, carla, you went on to get your Master of Science in Sociology from Turkey and sounds like you were having a very successful career with the Canadian Federal Public Service. So how did you decide to get into commerce and choose that as your career? Tell us a little bit about that.
Karla Combres:When I was 19,. So to back up, I originally thought I was going to become a teacher. So I did my first year of university in education, worked in elementary schools doing French language activities with kids and sort of thought you know what, maybe education? I saw a lot of burnt out teachers there may be even more burnt out teachers, but doing their best but with minimal resources, and so I wasn't entirely sure that's what I wanted to do. And then I took a year and traveled with Up With People.
Karla Combres:Do you remember Up With People? I do remember Up With People, yes, people. Do you remember up with people? I do remember up with people. Yes, I've held internationally for a year with up with people doing musical theater, living with host families, doing community service and different community activities. Everywhere we went, traveled with a cast from I think we were 21 different countries represented in our cast and as part of that I did because there are lots of logistics to organize I did a logistics internship and I also did an advanced work placement where I found the meals, you know, did all the things to get ready for this cast of 100 plus young people from all over the world and I really liked it. I liked this kind of project work and I thought, you know what? Maybe a commerce degree would have more doors open for me. I saw more paths, more possibilities, and so that's what originally got me thinking about a practical path, and it was.
Peggie Koenig:So were you a performer as well, Carla.
Karla Combres:Yes, yep, one of my favorite things to do is to sing, especially to sing with others. I used to do a lot of theater, although I haven't for years, and I thought lately I've been thinking once my kids are a little bit less busy, or keeping me busy.
Peggie Koenig:maybe I'll get back into that a bit, but I do still love to sing and do it as much as I can now what an interesting opportunity no kidding wonderful opportunity and allowed you to really utilize your natural talents for singing and also to see that you had other talents that maybe you didn't know about, around project coordination.
Karla Combres:So just opening that door and going down that path I think probably opened up a lot of other opportunities for you up a lot of other opportunities for you, it did definitely, looking back a lot of you know, you kind of see the snowball effect of different decisions you make along the way and how there are often little pieces of what you've done in the past that remain in whatever next steps you take. So that one was definitely a pivotal one for me as a young woman.
Catherine Gryba:So you embark on a career with the Federal Public Service for Canada and it sounds like you were doing quite well in your career, moving along. But there was something inside you that you just said this isn't for me, this isn't my forever job. Tell us about that. Was it always a niggling feeling, or was it just kind of one day you thought, oh, I can't do this anymore?
Karla Combres:It was a niggling feeling, I would say. Probably from the time I went into commerce it didn't really feel like it was really me Although again in retrospect I see how it served me well. But I felt sometimes like a bit of a fish out of water. I'm a big feeler, I like philosophy and all these different things and it didn't always kind of fit. And then I got into the federal government through another sort of international experience. I had working at the Canadian pavilion at Expo overseas in Germany. I was like a guide in the pavilion for people coming through and a job opened up in Ottawa just as I was finishing my marketing degree doing business sponsorship for Canadian presence at International Exposition.
Karla Combres:So my boyfriend now husband, my boyfriend at the time was living in Ottawa already for work and so it was kind of like everything just came together and it fell in my lap.
Karla Combres:I mean, I applied and went through the process, but it fell in my lap.
Karla Combres:And then the thing I found I had several years within the government. Once you're in it's very easy to stay in and if you don't particularly feel like a job is a good fit, you look for something else in government, sometimes at the same level, sometimes higher, and I would say that I was constantly kind of orienting towards something that I couldn't quite put my finger on, thinking I might eventually get there, and I think the closest I got was the last job that I had, which was working in immigration, refugees and citizenship, on policies and programming for creating welcoming communities and newcomer integration and that kind of thing. On paper it looked like a great fit, but it was still really not directly connected with the people. It's the people who are working, doing the ground level work in the immigrant serving agencies, who are really touching. I mean, I think those policies and programs are important, but I am more of the person that needs to be on the ground and connecting with, so it never really quite felt like it was perfectly aligned.
Peggie Koenig:So, carla, this niggle, this niggle, because I think a lot of people find themselves in work situations, in jobs where they're not quite sure what it is, but, as you call it, it's the niggle. So what advice would you give to people around dealing with that? Because a lot of people feel, oh, I've gone to university, I've invested my time, I'm a little risk adverse I'm, I can't give up, like can't give up a good pension. So how do you, how did you, move through that and eventually come to the conclusion that you had to find something else?
Karla Combres:I would say I'll just drop the bomb right now. Do it. It really was. I moved to North Carolina with my husband and our two young kids. Our second child was newborn and my husband had a fellowship there at Duke, so we moved down there. It sort of extracted me from the government town, helped me to see that there are other things out there, other ways of living, other possibilities, and I really wanted to use that time outside of Ottawa to try to figure something else out while also being busy home with kids, and so I started taking people out for coffee who I found interesting, even if I didn't see myself doing what they were doing.
Karla Combres:It's kind of like what you get to do in your podcast, actually, you, you fall and get to hear their stories, and that's what I was doing. I was like what I want to hear about your journey? I want to hear how you ended up here. What do you recommend? And one of the people who I met with her name is Mitzi. She had become a friend there through the music community and she's a grief and bereavement counselor. And Mitzi, I was telling her that I really I want to do something that's heart-centered, where I connect with people. Not sure what it is like. Is anyone ever going to pay me for this kind of work? And she said you might want to just start by volunteering with hospice. She was very involved in Duke Hospice and so I did.
Karla Combres:I started volunteering with hospice there and then I started attending death cafes.
Karla Combres:And if you're not familiar with death cafe, just briefly, they happen all over the world at any given night or day and it's basically just creating a place to normalize conversations around dying and death over coffee, tea, dainties, that kind of thing.
Karla Combres:And so I started attending them there and then we moved back to Saskatoon after being away like I said in our pre-recording chat that we were gone for about 13 years and when I came back I returned to work for the federal government, but from here I was teleworking and in the meantime I was trying to carve out time to just explore these, those I called niggles, like something's not right.
Karla Combres:But here I was trying to explore the heart crumbs, as I kind of call them, like the little sparks that were lighting me up, without really knowing. It was tough because I didn't know where it was leading or what the end result might be or could look like. But I was just trying to follow them and so I started hosting death cafes here, and then I became the person who's interested in death, and so people kept sending me things oh, carla, you would be interested in this or that. And through that I co-founded, along with a local person, catherine Green, a local chapter of Threshold Choir to sing at the bedsides of the seriously ill and dying, and I did a home funeral practicum and there were just all these things that were coming together around death, and meanwhile, you know so, my own mortality started to become more clear At a certain point.
Karla Combres:I just thought you know what? If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I will regret that I didn't at least give something else a try. I had a baby, not for that reason but I had another baby a third and never went back. I took a leave of absence as long as I could, just to kind of have that safety net, and then finally severed the ties a couple years ago.
Catherine Gryba:So I'm really curious I love how you described it your heart crumbs. So did you feel when you were exploring that? Did you feel a different energy about yourself, like was your being different? Did you have more energy, more positive, and did you notice at the time that you're actually in a kind of a better state than you were, you know, in your career kind of thing? Were you conscious of that?
Karla Combres:career kind of thing. Were you conscious of that? Yes, I was. That's a great question and I don't want to fast forward too much but in all of there are so many times in my work where I come home and I'm like cheeks are flushed and I'm lit up and I I feel like embodying and it comes easy. You know, it's like just being in a flow state sort of thing. It's. It's a very good feeling to to and I I don't think people necessarily need to quit their jobs and attention and benefits to do this, but finding something that lights you up in that way, I think, is essential to truly living.
Peggie Koenig:But I also I think that maybe many of us are not prepared to be really aware of noticing those things. I think there's a level of awareness that one has to have in order to see these hard crumbs that were lighting, that were lighting you up, and be able to follow those. Um, did you, did you always know that you were going to follow the things that were lighting you up? Or did you have any sense that maybe it was too risky or you didn't really know where it was taking you?
Karla Combres:I felt all those things all at once. So it wasn't an easy decision to make. It was very scary. I'm privileged in that I have a husband who's very supportive and had a stable job so I could take the risk. I also am grateful that my kids were the ages they were. Although it was a really busy time, I felt like it kind of gave me an excuse to take some time away from the regular nine to five and try something different. So, but it was not a cut and dry easy transition to make.
Karla Combres:I wouldn't say, but you know, you said was I always aware of those heart crumbs and I'm sure we're getting there and I'm trying to hold myself back and jumping too far ahead. But my first kind of foray into more heart-centered work was through all these different volunteer things death cafes, threshold choir you know those different things, threshold choir, the you know those different things. And then I went and retrained as a life cycle celebrant and that really was like a. I realized part way through that it was really like a return to something that I've always known as a kid. If you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said I wanted to be a part-time preacher, part-time teacher, without really thinking much about it, it was just what came out of me. I did come from a family of teachers.
Karla Combres:I've always been a person who is very much oriented toward deep connections, awe, spirituality, and I'm not afraid to sort of go places that some people feel like they might have a block towards, and I think that's part of what I try to do and what I think people who have worked with me, I hope, have found is that, like creating an opening to that there are all these different levels of the way people can approach things, and for I'm a good fit for some and not for everyone, but I think for some people it's like an entry point into, okay, what, what is essential, the celebrant work a lot of the work that I do is funerals, memorials, weddings and baby blessings, and part of that, I would say, is because a lot of people don't remember that it's possible to mark transitions throughout our lives.
Karla Combres:It's like we've kind of thrown the baby out with the bath water, with religion, and then these are the big three that we might still do something for, and often they're very much kind of surface level and they don't get to the essential, and so that's what I do in my work is I help people to get at what. What is essential in this story, in this experience, in this transformation whether you're adjusting to life now without the physical presence of a loved one who's died, whether you're going from your life as two single people to a new chapter together, whatever it might be, honoring who has been with you along the way, what has shaped you, who has shaped you and all of those things.
Catherine Gryba:Carla, this is fascinating. I'm curious is there an industry of life cycle celebrants, or did you create this?
Karla Combres:It's a thing, it's a certification that I got through the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, and so I'm connected with Lifecycle Celebrant colleagues, mostly, I would say, in North America, but in other parts of the world as well. What connects us is this approach of really upholding the values and beliefs of the people we work with. So my beliefs are really irrelevant and unless it really transgresses some you know ethical mind, I seek to uphold whatever is valuable for the people their values, their beliefs, their story, their personalities, right, and so I always start with the story, not with the structure of a ceremony, but I will say that so it attracts a certain kind of person, a certain kind of listener, heart-centered, usually, all of these things. But every person is so different because of the nature of it. It's a creative vocation and so people bring their whole selves to it, and you know your whole self is different from mine. Some have yogic backgrounds, some, some are affiliated with faith traditions. You've got like people who might be clergy or be a lay person in their faith tradition but want to offer these types of services to their community. You have meditation instructors or lots of. So it is really possible to find the person that's the right fit for you.
Karla Combres:So has the niggle gone? Just continue on like this and this work that I find quite soulless. Or you know what? Am I going to have to give up all of these things? What will people like? I said what people want to work with me. Is this something that people want? Is it just me? And when I discovered that, oh, this is a way I can bring all of these seemingly disparate things and parts of myself together into one offering, it was a beautiful thing that touched me deep inside and I've always known that that's not it, that there is more and that I will continue to learn. I mean, I didn't stop at that certification. I'm constantly doing other classes and reading and all kinds of things, and then the experience that I get, every person that I work with is a whole new world of story and experience and lessons and teachings, and so I'm as much a student on this path as I am helping or guide people on theirs.
Karla Combres:So, um, and I would say the niggle you ask about the niggle, so had another niggle about this time last year. It was one of the classes I was doing was for professional officiants and actually I took it with. I'll give a shout out to her. Her name is Maureen Cotton, she's in Boston area, she has a website called the Soulful Wedding and we have similar approaches in the way we work with people. And one of the questions she asked me as part of the course was you know, she suggested that I might want to look at having different websites, different social media presence for my weddings, for my funerals, to not confuse people. She thought it might confuse newly engaged couples to land on my site and see Celebration of Life or, you know, bring family land and see newly engaged couples, and so that made me really think about, because it didn't really sit right for me. So there was that niggle.
Karla Combres:It's like what is essential for me in this work and why don't I want to separate them? Because I really do see them as integrated. And that's where this idea of legacy guide has come from, because for me, ever since the beginning of this transformation, this big change in my work life, it's been death sort of as the thing that's given me the guts to try something new, something new. And you know, when I work with people, in those milestone moments, those are like you asked about the flow state before. It's like when you're in that ceremony, space, if it's done well, it's like you're in a different time and space. There's a shift that's happening at a soul level and it can be felt not just by the people who are being honored but by their community if it's done well and with intention and attention. And I'm realizing that you know well.
Karla Combres:There's the fact that no one ceremony or event is happy, joyful, a hundred percent. No one is full of grief and that's it. There's always. There's like this messiness to life, and I think we can access those things all along the way. And each you know, in a funeral, I'm getting to know the story of the person, and it's not one vocation that they did or one specific story, it's the story of their life, and the story comes out because of the relationships they had and the decisions they made. And so my work as a legacy guide is to help people tease out what is essential, not at this milestone moment, but in your life, and how do you want to live into that? Look at, how are you in alignment with that? How do you want to live into that? Look at, how are you in alignment with that, how do you want to live into it, so that, when you get to the end, which we all will. You're not looking back with regrets and would, or should.
Peggie Koenig:You've mentioned soul a couple of times and I guess in my experience soul is, it's always associated well, it has been in my experience with spirituality and with religion and I'm not getting a sense from you that that's what the soul means in the context of a legacy guide or a celebrant. How does the soul fit into these constructs? You know my constructs of what religion is and spirituality.
Karla Combres:I would say, first of all, that language is very loaded and can carry a lot of baggage and, depending on your history and how you grew up and your you know, traditions that have moved you or disgusted you or enlivened, you will shape how you react to certain words. So even when I'm working with clients, I try to offer up all kinds of different ways of imagining what is this thing that is transcendent or bigger than us, and how do you experience it? And for some people it's a nameable other bigger being. For some people it's tucking their kids in at night and feeling their heartbeat and feeling this overwhelming sense of love. For some people it's being out in the middle of a lake on a sunny day. I think there are so many different ways to experience it and any way that we try to define it, we'll never measure up to what it is. So it's hard for me to describe really that. So it's hard for me to describe really that and I think it's feeling and an experience that if you know, you know if you've had it. No, and I guess this is part of my work again and why I've been grateful to not be in a hurry, to have tons of clients and get out there and be busy full-time with working with so many people, because I've been able to take a real deep dive and help people access a place that sometimes they're ready to go there, have a rich spiritual life, and other times they might not have the language or the experience around it, and so it's like helping people access this side.
Karla Combres:I remember this is slightly different, but I remember singing at the bedside of someone who was dying in the convalescent home a number of years ago with Threshold Choir. We were invited into their room by the family. The person was laying in bed dying. There were three, I think, family members there. It was quite tight in the room A person on the chair on one side of the bed, a person on the chair on the other side and then a person kind of wedged up against the dresser and we had to kind of wedge ourselves in there too. So it was quite tight, pre-pandemic and I remember sort of not being able to kind of take everyone in the room in just because of the angle and it was a bit awkward. I couldn't quite get a sense of how this was landing on that person at the end of the bed.
Karla Combres:We were there to sing for dying person, but it can be a real gift for the family as well. And he was I'm going to go with a very like the stereotypical judging mind of you know he kind of looked like maybe a farmer or he didn't look like the kind of guy who would necessarily ask you to a threshold choir to come sing lullabies for their dying person, as judgmental as that sounds. And afterwards we went out to the lobby as we were leaving and he came out and he said I've never experienced anything like that in my life. I'm not a religious person, I'm not a musician or whatever, but you took me to a place that I didn't know existed and it's like finding that opening whatever it is for a person. We all have this inner world going on and we're able to access it with the right approaches that are gentle and that are open to the fact that there are a multitude of ways to experience transcendence or deep connection, meaning making all of those things.
Catherine Gryba:What a gift, carla, that you have and what an amazing journey you've been on, and you know, I think it really speaks to the importance of listening to those signs that we have for ourselves. But you're right, it can be as much a challenge as figuring out what do I do with this? What is it? I know what it's not, but I don't know what it is, and so you know, to hear your experience going through to finding you know what that looks like, I think is quite remarkable. So thank you, thank you very much.
Karla Combres:Thank you both very much.
Peggie Koenig:If you've learned just one thing about change while listening to this podcast, please subscribe on Apple or Spotify and share with a friend this episode recorded via Zoom audio. Producers Peggy Koenig and Catherine Greiba. Executive Producer. Koenig, leadership Advisory. Theme music La Pompe, written by Chris Harrington. Music Publisher Envato Market.