Endings.
What does it truly mean to 'finish strong'?
How do endings carve the path for new beginnings?
This episode takes you through a thought-provoking exploration of endings and closures. From the dissolution of an educational funding organization to the transformative journey into coaching centered around sexuality and spirituality. We share our raw, personal narratives of growth—ushering in the Goddess Kali as an emblem of the fierce severance—and the introspective challenge of redefining our professional identities.
The end of 2023 is a tapestry of endings interlaced with the threads of potential. We ponder the resonating impact of grief, the cyclical persistence of life patterns, and the metamorphosis of self that accompany the farewells we bid.
Our dialogue ventures through the energy dynamics that whisper when it's time to part ways and the creative resurgence found within the 'fertile void' of fresh starts. You're invited to sit with us as we reflect on the past year's lessons and muse over setting intentions for the personal and professional growth that the new year heralds.
As we weave through this episode, we also dissect the art of questioning, a theme that has shaped the year and influenced our approach to legacy and long-term vision.
Join us in contemplating the shift from a reactive existence to a life steeped in purpose and alignment, guided by the inquiries that cut to the core of our being. We examine the courage required to ascend life's ladder, to let go of what no longer serves us, and to embrace the transformations that beckon us to who we are becoming.
We love hearing from our listeners. You can email us at juicypodcastHQ@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @juicypodcast.
Olivia @olivialaraowen
Lola @lola.fayemi
Endings.
What does it truly mean to 'finish strong'?
How do endings carve the path for new beginnings?
This episode takes you through a thought-provoking exploration of endings and closures. From the dissolution of an educational funding organization to the transformative journey into coaching centered around sexuality and spirituality. We share our raw, personal narratives of growth—ushering in the Goddess Kali as an emblem of the fierce severance—and the introspective challenge of redefining our professional identities.
The end of 2023 is a tapestry of endings interlaced with the threads of potential. We ponder the resonating impact of grief, the cyclical persistence of life patterns, and the metamorphosis of self that accompany the farewells we bid.
Our dialogue ventures through the energy dynamics that whisper when it's time to part ways and the creative resurgence found within the 'fertile void' of fresh starts. You're invited to sit with us as we reflect on the past year's lessons and muse over setting intentions for the personal and professional growth that the new year heralds.
As we weave through this episode, we also dissect the art of questioning, a theme that has shaped the year and influenced our approach to legacy and long-term vision.
Join us in contemplating the shift from a reactive existence to a life steeped in purpose and alignment, guided by the inquiries that cut to the core of our being. We examine the courage required to ascend life's ladder, to let go of what no longer serves us, and to embrace the transformations that beckon us to who we are becoming.
We love hearing from our listeners. You can email us at juicypodcastHQ@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @juicypodcast.
Olivia @olivialaraowen
Lola @lola.fayemi
Hello, welcome back to the Juicy Podcast with Liv and Lola. This is our first episode since we shipped, launched, dropped the podcast live, so we are back in the recording seat and we're excited. Yeah, today we're going to be talking about endings. We are recording this in December, we are close to the end of the year and if you do listen to this, when we drop this live, it will be Christmas 2023. And we thought that we'd have a conversation today that really honours the ending, really honours what ending is, and I think this is a really beautiful thing to explore.
Speaker 2:Hey peeps.
Speaker 1:Nice to be back.
Speaker 2:At the end of the year, the end of 2023, which has been a biggie for both of us. Talking about endings, something that we have probably spoke about a lot in our friendship actually, yeah, and something I think we've got some skill around, right.
Speaker 1:I want to say endings well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just. When I say skill, I suppose what I mean by us having skill around that is, we've given them a lot of attention. Yes, we've spoke about them a lot, we've raised our awareness around it a lot, that kind of thing. They tend to be something that we don't have a lot of capacity for. There we go. Capacity, that's the word. I don't think most people have a lot of capacity for endings, and I think that is cultural. I think that's very much something that's been in our culture of more and more do, do, do, go, go, go, start, start, start, rush, rush, rush. Endings don't really go with urgency, so I think they've got lost along the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is a juicy thread Not having the capacity for endings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even though we've got skill, we both find them bloody hard Still.
Speaker 1:Well, I have this memory of us. You know, certain times of year, like Christmas, is the same every year. It's in December. It has some of the same qualities you get a tree, you tend to go home, you tend to be with the family, tends to be a lot going on, tends to be very tired, tends to be like just a real kind of battle of how do I prioritize my time and attention when my body is exhausted and it's winter and the days are short and it's dark and I just want to do nothing. But it's December and it requires a lot of things that require capacity that we don't usually tend to have. So, obviously, the first thing is like feels like we totally go against nature in the way we do endings of the calendar year in this culture. Anyway, I just remember of us. I think this is probably six years ago, so I want to say it's 2017. It's December 2017.
Speaker 1:You and I are working at Spark. It was a very stressful time. It was that like terrible December and we were like all of us, the whole team, was like crawling to the end of the year, and I remember you and I specifically talking about this, because at the time I think we were both reading Daniela Port. I think we were reading which one. I think it was like White Hot Truth had come out. There was like some new Daniela Port book that had come out.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest, I don't want to give her any credit. That's real.
Speaker 1:And I don't think I ever finished that book. It might have actually been the desire book.
Speaker 2:Okay, you'll just sit up and give her credit.
Speaker 1:But carry on, all right, cool. Anyway, daniela Port was in the mix. It's just, I think, what happened to desire I don't know, anyway, something around that, but I remember you saying something to me at that time that was like how can we go for a slow finish or strong finish? It was a strong finish and I was like, oh, I do it, like yeah, a strong finish, like as in. Strong finish meaning I actually finished this year well and I don't like bust my arse to finish this year. And in my mind, strong was like yeah, to the end, just like felt on the accelerator, and you were like no, like I really want to be intentional about how I end this year and strong finish and this. I think this conversation had happened before we had the really kale of December, because I remember thinking about it very intentionally for the first time, like, oh, what if I could do this differently, like that's a really beautiful nugget and like seed to plant in my consciousness around this time of year.
Speaker 1:This was six years ago and I think that was such a stressful time for both of us. This is before we left the organization. This was actually 2016, if I remember, because we left in 2017. So, kind of in December. But we knew both got sick, we both like got the flu or something like December 20th and we ended up not even going into work that final week. Remember we were sick as dogs?
Speaker 2:I literally don't even I'm just listening to you like really Tell me more Liv, I don't remember.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I remember this so well. It was like super stressful. We both got the flu but we were both talking a lot, like we were doing a lot of very intentional planning and reflecting of the year and it was the first time, I think, that you and I had really been super connected around the end of the year. I think it was like a real deepening of our friendship at the time. And I always think back to this because even though we are what six, seven years more experienced now, I don't know how much better I've really got in that period of time. I think I always come with the framing of it now but I still do so many of the things even now, six, seven years on, that I was doing then. I would say I've got like incrementally better in places, but the culture of overdoing and running myself into the ground and ending the year like sick or stressed still happening on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:I would say that you, the fact that you hold a space for endings and acknowledge an ending to mean means, like I said earlier, I think we've got more skill, but I was. But why mean? By that does not? I don't mean like necessarily that we're good at it. I just want to apologize for any background noise, if there is any background noise, because I've moved house and I'm still I'm still orienting myself to my surroundings and I'm recording the podcast in the place that feels like, okay, this maybe is a good place to record the podcast. I don't know if it actually is, so I'm just saying, in case there is any background noise, just get it out there.
Speaker 2:Ending so interesting listening to you talk about that and that year 2016. I remember like the sort of it was one of those years towards the end of it as well where things got. So you know, when you're like you need to make a decision and you're struggling to make a decision and then life kind of makes the situation so fucking unbearable for you, it's like a really easy decision to make. It was that kind of year and so that's what I remember about that time and, for context, where that sat in my world at that time was I was navigating many, many, many endings. So the context of where that sat was a lot was ending in my life. I was going through a lot of significant endings and in hindsight there was more ending than I was even aware of at the time and it was a lot at the time. Before that, I just didn't do endings at all. I don't do endings, I just skip that step. You know, I barely worked notice periods. Do you know what I mean? Like if I'm done, I'm done, and I'd be bouncing. I was very bouncy Like I'm done off. So I've absolutely zero skill in ending at all. I'm a startup. I'm a natural starter. We met working in the startup. I was like the second employee. That's my job. I'm a natural starter. I'm a natural starter. We met working in the startup. I was like the second employee. That's my jam. The minute the structure starts coming in, I'm out. I'm one of those rare individuals that's built for that kind of world. So I'm good at making things out of nothing. I love that.
Speaker 2:I don't really know what to do about this ending thing, but what was happening was at the time my long-term relationship was coming to an end. The place we were working was coming to an end. We were both unhappy by this point, or just done in, completely done in, and thinking about the next step. There were things happening in my family that were rumbling. There was big transitions happening and that place where we started working together Bob, who we've mentioned before on the podcast I was working. He was like my mentor to start off with and he really supported me in doing the work there. So it's like a mentor, coach kind of role, and this was the place where I first started to learn about endings in my work with him.
Speaker 2:So it was a few years prior to this and what had happened was because a lot of the work we were doing was actually around my feminine energy, Because up until that point I had no real conscious connection to it until I was doing that work, or even any connection to who I was as a woman. So in that work we were doing together, there was a point where he introduced me to the goddess Kali. Hmm, Carly, and I remember, and I'll never forget, him telling me about this goddess and the energy of destruction that she has. And yeah, I mean, look it up. I'm not going to start going into a whole thing around who Carly is. There's plenty of internet on information on the internet K-A-L-I if you don't know. But she is because I was.
Speaker 2:So what was happening with my energy, my feminine energy, and it was like I was being called at many in many ways to step into it right, with more consciousness, and I didn't know what that meant because it was all mixed up with gender, like the gender stuff, the normal gender stuff in the world, which didn't always relate to me. I was never felt like all of me had room there, you know. And so through our work together, we he was expanding my awareness around the feminine and feminine energy, because, kind of, what we get is quite a narrow, sanitized thing and it was including all of the real fears because my feminine had a lot of this kind of energy in it. So as soon as he, I, was being introduced to these kind of elements, it was, it was very exciting for me Because it's like oh, my God, yeah, this is more me, like, this is so much more me, right, and he was the first person to say to me that a lot of what you, a lot of your qualities that you think are masculine, are actually feminine. Again, it was just in the frame of the way, the basic understanding of it in the world, which is rubbish, it just there was no room didn't contain me.
Speaker 2:And so Carly and her destruction. I'll never forget when he, I think even the word destruction he said, and immediately I was just like oh no, no, no, I'm a no, I'm a no destruction, bad, no, I'm a no to this. And how we it was reframed was that because I had such a love of endings, you know, because it was like destruction, Endings could also be part of destruction, right? Or destruction is a form of ending, let's say like that. And then there are other forms of ending. Because I had such a love of beginnings, the simple notion of you don't get any beginnings without endings was like, oh okay, I'm in, I'm in If we're going to get to begin after I'm in.
Speaker 2:What I didn't realise at the time because for me that Carly, energy is like burn it down, Burn it the fuck down, burn your fucking bridges, so you cannot go back. Burn it down because it needs to be fucking burnt down. And what I didn't realise at the time was how much in my life actually needs to be burnt down, because I wasn't doing endings right. So that mean I had tons of fucking shit in my life that needed to end. But because I wasn't doing endings and I reckon you probably got better language for this from the mix it's only just coming to me now If you don't do endings, you end up with something like lots of something in your world. That's not quite right. I don't know how would you phrase that what I'm trying to say there.
Speaker 1:I think you get it stagnates, you get clogged. It's just full of shit. It's like literally full of shit, but the pipes are full of shit.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was how it felt. That is how my life fucking felt Full of shit.
Speaker 1:And that's like where the mould starts growing and rusty and contamination Things get sick because it's stuck and it needs to move. It's like a river that's not flowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was where that sat. So, brother, what you're talking about, I'm about, I don't know two or three years into this process because, after decades of not ending anything, it wasn't going to be like oh I'll just, it'll take about a month. It took years, took years actually, to slowly. Oh yes, listen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone listen to that. It takes years. It takes like years. Yeah, I think about like.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest ending processes I went through was the ending of education, which was my nonprofit that I ran from the age of 19. And it was a seven year process of creation and I think it took me two years to end it fully. I was not skilled at ending this. I felt so many things. I remember that that hadn't happened at that time. I was still the time you're describing. I was much in the creation, build execution mode of the cycle of building that organization.
Speaker 1:But when it did come time to end it, I remember feeling so unskilled with how to close the doors, especially on all of the relationships that were involved in nonprofit. Work is essentially being an advocate for something, being an advocate for a cause and enrolling lots of people in backing it, supporting it and financing it and pouring their love, care and attention like having getting people to care essentially about this thing, like saying, hey, this thing is happening, I think it's really meaningful and important and I want you to. I want I think there's an opportunity for you to think that and so it ends up creating a whole family of people, supporters, people that are educated by it, the benefactors, like the actual people involved. In this case, what we used to do was fund education. So we had lots of young children, we had lots of teenagers, we had lots of young adults. There were so many relationships to end and complete.
Speaker 1:It was super painful for me, like a divorce times 100 is what it felt like and I felt so guilty that it took me so long. It was painful. It was painful Like imagine like nails down a chalkboard for two years, like kicking and screaming, knowing you need to end something. But just doing it is such a messy way because I felt so bad that I had to do it. And that's what comes to mind when we like I've only ever run two organizations in my life and I've only ever ended one of those. One of them is still running. So I've only ever had to do that once, that kind of ending A relationship, ending like romantic relationships. I've done that a lot of times. So I have so much more skill and awareness of who I am in that context than I do in like a business context. So I noticed for me that it's different depending on the context of something.
Speaker 2:I remember the pain. I've got a good Kali story.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, go on. I just it was coming to you as you was talking about Kali. So during this period of time, kind of like 2016, 2017, I was pretty early in my coaching game. I was doing a lot of training and at that time I still had my old life, like talk about what needed to be burned down. I was on the same train that, as I came more and more into alignment with my, the new truth of who I was becoming, I realized that the work I do now, which is coaching and particularly specializing in the sexuality and desire and truth and transformation and spiritual work like that, wasn't part of my life.
Speaker 1:I was a charity CEO. I was a nonprofit worker. I worked with you. We did, you know, we were raising money for these organizations. We were working in these organizations. It was very different to what my calling then become.
Speaker 1:So for me, similar to you, that was a period of time where there was lots of things burning down in order to make room for the new, aligned version of myself. That was kind of being born and being birth. I know, you know this is a very relatable thing and I also want to say it's a very courageous thing. I think it's very courageous to follow that truth when you start hearing it knocking on the door. And I could have stayed doing that forever. I really thought I would do this forever, which was why the ending of the nonprofit was so painful, because I really had an expectation naively, because I didn't know any different that I would be doing this forever, and there was never a reality I could have imagined for myself or I wouldn't do it. So the version of who I actually was underneath was somebody that was willing to let something go for the sake of being an integrity with myself and my life's work, but it required me to face parts of myself that I didn't want to admit were true, like I was willing to walk away from something that was that meaningful in my life, and people were very judgmental of that, and I was so fearful of who I was becoming because I hadn't really met her yet.
Speaker 1:And so, in the process of meeting this new version of Olivia, I did all kinds of crazy shit, all kinds of programs and experiments, and I've always been a big investor in my growth, and so there was a period of time when I invested in this year-long program. I think it was maybe the year, 2017, maybe 2018. Big program for a year where I got to do I actually wrote about this the other day Massive program, big investment, and part of the package was I got to work with a coach, one-to-one, for a year, and at the time I was in my sexuality consumption era, where I was experimenting with lots of different types of relationships, lots of different men, women. I was really allowing myself to figure out who I was in the arena of sexuality and I had this period of life where I had lovers in every port. So I would travel a lot and I would usually have a lover in each place I went and I was one One lover that I really, really liked. He was based in New York and he had all the things that I enjoyed. We had great communication. He was very interesting, went on nice dates, had really nice sex. He took me to his work, christmas party, we got dressed up. There was all these kind of things about our relationship that were really juicy and fun.
Speaker 1:At a certain point, something changed. I think he had to move to the West Coast or something, and it came kind of clear that our relationship wasn't going to work out in the fantasy that I'd had because I was coming to New York a lot but I was going to be on the West Coast very infrequently. It was kind of like, okay, I don't think this is going to work. We had this kind of connection between us that was hard to let go of on both sides. Both of us were kind of really into it.
Speaker 1:I remember him saying to me once that the reason he was drawn to me was because he was like you really remind me of Goddess Kali. I was like, oh, interesting, interesting. So I can't remember what happened, but he did something towards the end of this kind of long distance relationship that we tried to keep alive. He did something that really pissed me off. I really to this day cannot remember. I think he may have disappeared and promised something and then he totally I think in the end he wasn't a particularly good guy in the end. I think he did some shit that I didn't like. I remember saying to my coach well, he thinks I'm Kali, so I'm going to show him Kali and I'm going to write him a letter as if I'm Kali. She's like okay, so I write this letter, she does not stop me. She's like girl, you got to do what you got to do Write the letter. It's a savage email. A savage email. I'm tearing the sky pop in this email In a loving way.
Speaker 1:You thought you destroyed him. Yeah Well, I think it was more like hey, I actually am in love with you. It was very passionate kind of, but clearly this needs to end and it was just super, super intense. I definitely have it because it says like, with love of Kali, I could find it. Anyway, I ended up sending it and he never responds. I never hear from him. We ended up we don't end up seeing him. But I remember my coach at the time saying to me like years later, when we became friends, she was just like, oh yeah, when you did that, like I really knew this woman is. She's a real player. She's like really willing to just do the thing, to like end the thing and say the thing and let it burn down. She was like I was not getting in the way of that. She was like it was actually the moment for me where I really got to see you.
Speaker 1:I was like oh, thank you so much for saying that, because I looked back and had like a little bit of embarrassment that was that intense. But it was really one of those moments where I was like, no, I think I needed to do that to let the thing die.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think actually in the process of learning to do endings somehow I don't really understand this, but it's becoming clear. As I'm listening to you speak, I became friends with my intensity. It was like, oh yeah, I'm an intense bitch, deal with it or don't deal with it. I tell you what won't be happening anymore. I won't be trying to dial it down, because this is not really working for anyone, is it? I don't know? But, um, god, do you know what?
Speaker 2:As we're talking about endings, I feel that kind of ending vibe, right, and I don't like it. I really don't like it. When you were speaking earlier about the pain of it, oh yeah, like I can really feel, I can feel the pain as we're speaking about it. And as you were speaking about ending education, and I was there with you and it did.
Speaker 2:It took a while, because these things do take a while and you kind of get a sense of the new coming in, because that's the other thing in endings, there's always like a seed of the beginning as well. You can feel that and it always feels like for me anyway, it always feels like there's many, many, many times in that process where I feel like oh, I feel like it's time for the new and then I'm bitch slapped back like no, it's not. It's still ending, bitch, you know what I mean. There's still more to let go of, and that bit always blows me away, actually, how long it takes to end, even though you've got a sniff of the new thing coming through. Yes, the other thing about the pain when you were speaking that I remembered was quite possibly that's why, subconsciously, we don't do endings Right.
Speaker 2:Because, there's a lot of really uncomfortable feelings that come with it. It's really uncomfortable. Shit, man. It's horrible.
Speaker 1:It's what comes to mind is like, in order to lay something to rest completely, to complete, you have to feel so much Right. It's why people don't grieve a marriage when it ends Right and then immediately the next thing right, or like we have numbing techniques around loss right. The actual reality of the capacity it requires to truly acknowledge all of the different emotions, sometimes very confusing, like grief is confusing. Grief, for me, has always felt like you're kind of going around in circles. Sometimes you're going back to a place you thought you'd moved on from and then suddenly you find yourself feeling something again, realizing, okay, I don't think I really went all the way through this that time, I didn't have the space.
Speaker 1:And then there's the denial phase. This is happening. There's all these kind of obscure things that happen to us when we are in places of, I would say, high emotion, that delicate spots in life where I think endings can feel like immense loss and in loss we can feel lost. So, like what you were saying earlier about how long something takes, I you know the example of education, even now, years on, 2020, was when I was like January 2020, when I sent the public announcement. By that time felt like no one was even around to hear the announcement because it's so long.
Speaker 1:But just like I was like oh my God, I can't, you know, this is, this has been dragged out, but it was the best I could do at that time, that it took everything for me to get to that moment and I so wanted to be someone different and I was like this is the reality of what I'm capable of in this time and I'm sure there are bridges I burn in that process because I didn't have the capacity or skill to fully acknowledge everyone that had been involved in that kind of project. But I learned from that like the ending sort of reflected. The ending reflected the type of dynamic I had with the project itself.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's codependent.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. Yeah, and I saw this with my parents divorce like their divorce reflected the marriage right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Like the ending reflected the thing itself.
Speaker 2:You cannot outrun your karma. You can't outrun it. You know, and I remember years ago a lady that I think I was in a container with she used to be a chaplain in a hospital, so like offering pastoral support and care for people in hospitals and chapels and stuff and she said oh, what was the phrase? She said people die, people die or people tend to die, as they lived.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that's what I'm hearing you say. When it's like so the yeah, it's got all these kind of like reaping what you sow, not in a sort of punishment and when I say karma, I don't mean that as in like a sort of I don't know petty punitive thing. I mean quite simply like kind of getting out what you put in, or consequences to what you do or how you do, right, intentional, unintentional, you know. It's like if you plant, if you plant a seed and you don't know what you've planted, you will know when it grows, you'll know what seed it was. It's something about like that, right.
Speaker 2:I also wonder around because I'm just thinking about when my dad died and this applies to lots of different other types of engines as well, but this was a significant one, so it felt quite magnified. I think there was something in the process of grief there where it was like I was his daughter. Now I'm only two people in the world's daughter, right, and it's different, you know. I mean it's a different flavor of being a daughter to my mom, as it is to being a daughter to my dad, and so that part when he died that's gone. Whether I want it or not doesn't matter, but it's like I'm just wondering about in endings we kind of lose who we were in that situation. That's, that's what's ending. I'm wondering if that's what makes it that sort of emotionally, psychically, energetically hard piece. Is about the fact that that's over, like I was that in that. I was that in that setting, that identity feels like it's an identity thing, right. So it's like an aspect of your identity that you are ending, that you are closing in the ending, and maybe that's what makes it such a hard, uncomfortable and long process to do properly.
Speaker 2:Because we also see what happens when people don't do it. There's lots of evidence of people that just get on with it, oh, they just like. They say things like oh well, that's life. Or you know, there's all sorts of things that people say to kind of which is basically like we're not going to dwell here. You know we've, we're idolizing, moving on and we're making it sound noble. But what I'm really doing is I'm bouncing from discomfort because I can't handle it Right. And then you have other problems, because I know that place too, because I've done endings terribly in the past and I've also had to self-medicate a lot more numb out, a lot more right, because those. Not that I knew they were related, but I can feel like there was definitely a knock on consequence of not having the hard conversations, feeling the shit, feeling guilty or ashamed or whatever it is that I need to actually feel to move on.
Speaker 2:It's like from learning to navigate endings the way that I have over the last sort of however many years I see it as I don't want to walk. My motivation now is I don't want to walk into a new environment with like muddy feet. I don't want to bring the mud from over here into this. I don't have to do that. That's my choice. I want to walk in clean and I want to take. I want to compost whatever I've experienced over here. I want to take the gold. I want to leave the dross and I want to move into this new environment.
Speaker 2:I want to purified, if you want, from the last experience.
Speaker 1:It's making me think that, because the first one I was just listening to I was like it makes me really sad that so many people, so many of us, parts of us, feel like we just can't handle it and we don't actually give ourselves the gift of the end. Because to me, I think it's really about love and coming back to a place of love, and I really I think this is one of my favourite places to hold people. I really love holding people in endings and transition. There's a way to do it where you make space for the ever-changing landscape of it. Every day is a different day.
Speaker 1:I hear so much about how and I think we have fairytale culture to blame for this, like Hollywood, because we get really obsessed with closure and closure being when something changes outside of us or when we have a certain conversation, and it's like I don't forget all the times I've been driving my car and I've been having a conversation with someone, and if only I could have this conversation with them, I could close this thing well and forget. And actually, for me, closure has always been very gentle and very slow and a ticking clock, gently moving in the direction of completion and healing, and it's very rarely done in an intense interaction with someone or the moment I had the courage to say the thing and it changed everything forever. I mean, sometimes you can have sort of life-changing moments, like the Carly email, where you're just like all right done, like that Thing needed to happen.
Speaker 1:But so much of endings is something that happens inside of us as we give space and time for the healing process, and I think the thing that makes not being able to feel so easy to avoid is we don't have the space and time to even notice that we're avoiding.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:What if people now are right to say listen to this 22nd of December. This is so much obligation around this time of year family and kids, and cooking and traveling and being there and showing up. And I'm going into this year with no expectations which is rare for me, actually, because I do really love to show up my family this time of year but I'm spent and I said to them come in, my presence is my gift. That's all I got. That's going to be enough. So I'm like what is the reality of where you are at this time of year? If you could just be honest with people. We've been talking in the last few weeks together privately about how every year can look different.
Speaker 1:Certainly amusing I've had last year. It's the very big year for me. I had a lot of resources, I was able to buy gifts, I traveled. I went home kind of with like a Santa sack on my back, so excited to see my family and my nieces and nephews, and I really had. Okay, I'm going to pour all this energy I have into a new Christmas for my family. We've been through so much. Obviously, not all of that went to plan, but I did put a lot of intention into it, whereas this year I do not have those kind of extra resources. I do not have the money for big gifts, I do not have the time for extracurricular new family activities or the capacity to hold the creation of shepherding the herd to a new experience over Christmas, which is very hard to do. I have the capacity to go home and just be and be with whatever is there, and that's different.
Speaker 2:I definitely think you've got to tune in each year because there's no hard and fast rule and also you never know what it's going to be. So I feel like I'm in an ending. Am I in the beginning? I don't know, but I'm in this kind of weird soup at the moment. All year I've been working on this move moving house and now we've moved. Like a month before Christmas we moved.
Speaker 1:Let's just celebrate that.
Speaker 2:And that's what I want to say. I think that's the thing about endings Part of endings as well is celebration, acknowledgement of what you've just been through. There's something about acknowledging like, yeah, of course, millions of people buy homes, sell homes every single day maybe billions, I don't know. It's not like it's a unique experience that I've just had, but I hate it every fucking minute of it. Man, it's like it's so hard. I just find that that type of thing is really that's my kind of kryptonite, right, and my body is now like it's just done. It's like okay, we're done.
Speaker 2:And most years I like to have a generous amount of time off over December, but not too much, I don't need too much. And there was one year where I broke up too early and it was a bit boring actually and it was like, oh, okay, I just need I don't know what it is two, three weeks, whatever over Christmas and that's enough just to do nothing. But this year actually, I probably need the whole of December off because we've moved and we've still got boxes and there's things to do and there's lots of things to change over and you know, renovations to plan and stuff like that. I just I don't feel any obligation, because I've been playing with Christmas for a long time now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel it. I really I feel it. You're really good at this.
Speaker 2:I've been doing this for a long time, like a really long time I've, I've I'm talking over at least 20 years with Christmas. It was something about it from early that I was just like this is weird. This is really weird the way we do it and all the things are expected, and so I've had years where I've just experimented with buying. I had one year I didn't buy anyone any presents because I thought I wonder what that feels like. You know, I don't like doing things from. I really do not like doing things from obligation, like it's not good for me, not how I'm built, it's not, doesn't turn me on, it's horrible and it's a very obligationy type of year. Right, it can be, and maybe as well, because I grew up like Christian as well. So it's quite an exciting time. You know, there's things about Christmas I love. I don't dislike Christmas, but it was just. I try to just do every year things I want to do and I think it would be a very quiet one and that's fine, like I'm okay with that. I don't want to see anyone. I've got a couple of things I'm going to do and apart from that, whatever the rest of it is just going to be about a chill and also an acknowledgement of what we've done this year, what we've been through. You know, a pat on the back, a sigh of relief, that's all I really have in me, right, and also getting ready for next year there's something about that, you know entering into 2024. So this place is rich.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the most important parts of development is grief. You know, transformation. Grief doesn't get spoken about enough. I think grief is not understood. Grief is a process. It's not an emotion, it's a process and it takes what it takes. And it's not always about the grief that's in front of you either. You know, sometimes, I think, when you haven't been acknowledging endings and griefs, there's a backlog. Like you said, you're clogged up inside. So sometimes other bits of grief will be like oh, grief, we're grieving. It's like a clear out, like it's almost like a D, like a D Right, there's grief. Hello.
Speaker 2:You can skip, I'm just going to skip, because you're like sometimes you're like what the?
Speaker 2:And I think as we get to the end of the year just thinking about like the end of the year I'll be. Everything I want to say about the end of the year is I can't call bullshit on this as well. I don't know, I don't have any evidence or science to fuck that and I'm not interested in that. This isn't the end, I don't know. There's something about the end of December. I'm like it's not the end. I don't know why it doesn't feel like an end to me because January isn't a beginning. I don't believe that, like when I get into January, for me, january is like a reflection month. January is like the month of reflection because the years over you know the best kind of reflection you can have is when you're out of a situation, not while you're in it. So there's something about reflecting on the year it's been in. January makes so much more sense and taking January for a whole spacious month of reflection.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is something I love about you and I have definitely told my clients about this over the years We've practiced this little method of the new year actually starts from February 1st.
Speaker 2:Well, no, it starts to equinox for me, so it starts like March, about the 21st, 22nd March. Yeah, yeah, okay, and he says so.
Speaker 1:Adaptation that I've always taken, as Feb is the beginning of the year and the I can even feel in my body like some years. I love it. I'm like my God, the whole of January yes, sick, and you actually take January off. It's also your birthday month, so I always think of you when it comes to you do spa time in January. But I can already feel right now I've already, I've already had some things with the books for January. I've could already feel the like Ray sauce inside of me. It's like, yeah, but you know, we'll do this year's reflection month in December and January is coming along and I'm going to be like a rare into go and there's a battle. I feel the battle and so, if we like put it in the context of this conversation, and one thing I do like to do in January is not go out. I also don't really like to go out in December, to be honest, but January especially don't really like to go out, definitely don't like to do super social stuff. I find that my capacity to stay in reflection for that long is limited. Yeah, I feel like by the time January comes along, I'm already in there.
Speaker 1:I've always loved New Year's, so as a kid, we used to go to these hotels for the year and I thought New Year's Eve was the most magical night on the planet. Like we used to go and there'd be like a big dinner, fireworks, all the adults were there, the kids and the adults were together. It was at the one night where the kids could come to the party and my parents were big party people. They were either hosting parties or they were going to parties, and so we were always kind of dragged along. I loved, I was like you know, they were kind of drinking and not really paying attention. So I used to go on these adventures. Like New Year's Eve was truly some of the most like.
Speaker 1:That was, for me, magic. That's what I felt as a kid. Life is magical and adults are magic and look at the celebration and the New Year's a big deal, and so that really set the standard for me. And so I started experiencing like real New Year's with, like, my mates. When we tried to like pull something together. I was like, well, this is a bit of shit. Like guys, we don't really, we're not really doing it right. That's not how you do New Year's. New Year's is a big thing and I've never got back to that and actually my favorite way to spend a new year's is like in the sauna with a couple of mates like deep chats. That's my actual preference for New.
Speaker 2:Year's.
Speaker 1:I don't love to chase the party, even though I have done many times. But for me, I've always loved December 31st, january 1st. Even to this day it's very significant for me, the actual day, it's a real changing of the years and changing of the garden. It's the time I'll call people up and tell them I love them. Happy New Year, you know.
Speaker 2:I love that and I think that's what it is. It's about knowing what is your rhythm, what's your true rhythm, and there's so many factors that influence that isn't there. Like New Year's never been a fan of, never been a fan, and actually a much. The way I prefer to spend New Year now is to be in, maybe to order a takeaway not even necessarily, and usually I fall asleep before midnight and I'm woken up by fireworks. You know I like January 1st. I do like that, but the New Year, like I said, for me starts in March.
Speaker 2:Physically, my body says equinox, something happens. I knew it was spring for years and it was only really this year. I think it was this year. I was like, oh my God, it's equinox, like, because what happens is obviously I'm in the UK, it's cold and stuff, and there's always this every year and I hear this from a lot of people, especially people with melanin in them. It's like this surprise when the spring comes of, like I can't believe how much better I feel. I cannot believe Like, wow, every year, you know every year.
Speaker 2:But I've noticed this year that that feeling kicks in on the equinox for me, you know, and like, loads of people celebrate all different types. I think that Arabic New Year I'm not sure is around March as well. You've got the Chinese New Year, which is in February. Obviously, the Gregorian calendar New Year is January 1st, but I suppose I'm just sticking a flag in the ground for, like, it's not the only new year and other people have other. Some people's New Year starts in like September. In the Jewish New Year it's like September. You know, there's all these. So it's just what works for you. What does your body respond to? What do you want to do? How do you want to do it? But I think that comes from ending. So I do think the true knowledge comes from acknowledging. And I love what you said there about the reflection and like, again, we all reflect for different amounts of time, right? So it's like it's a natural. I get it and I think that's the clue to a decent ending. Actually.
Speaker 1:But even just now.
Speaker 2:I just sold a property I've owned for over 20 years and you know the closing process has been going on since for months. Before I left.
Speaker 2:By the time I was in there for the final time, I could feel I was like I'm done, I'm done, I'm done here Because I've been closing and I think for me that's the feeling I like to feel, that's how I know that, okay, that's ended, Because it's not like it's not about flogging a dead horse, right, but you can feel it. So it's kind of like have you got the patience, trust that you'll be told when it's time to move on?
Speaker 1:Nobody else says it right, yes, that's right. But inner trust, yeah, that you will know, you will know. You will know when the horse has fully completed its life.
Speaker 2:You're not to need it, did you?
Speaker 1:just make that saying up, drag it. Well, you said flogging a dead horse. Oh right, what is this saying?
Speaker 2:You will know when the horse is completed its life.
Speaker 1:You won't need to be carting around a dead one, because you'll be like it's done my horse is dead, just following your lead, babe.
Speaker 2:Thanks, loves. That's great, you're welcome, I love it. I love it. So, oh man.
Speaker 1:I'm just imagining you with a horse.
Speaker 2:Do you like horses actually?
Speaker 1:A lot. Yeah, I always imagine. Sometimes, I think, when, like you haven't really ended something, it's like sort of carrying like a dead whale behind you, like a rotting carcass. Well, like on the ground or in the sea, that's like you're carrying this big heavy weight. You've got to let it go.
Speaker 2:Are you swimming? Is it like time to have a fun before? Oh, you're walking down the high street.
Speaker 1:What kind of whale is it, big beluga? It's rotting, it's dead. You're carrying it around and everyone can see it.
Speaker 2:Does anyone say anything in this, in this?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you. I'll tell you Because I'm an honest friend.
Speaker 2:Everyone's too polite to say anything. Can't say I didn't even notice. I didn't even notice the dead rossin whale that you're dragging down the high street.
Speaker 1:Oh, the quality of the reflection will tell you the quality of your life. No one's telling you, oh, it's too good this year for me was. I came into this year choosing the word legacy as my word for this year. What I asked the universe, god, the powers that be was and this was actually a riff from my time working with Bob. As a recap, bob's a great friend of our soul, brother both of our mentor and former coach, big up Bob, big up Bob, brother Bob, we love you.
Speaker 1:Bob's about questions. Bob's a very potent question asker and he always said to me if you're not like, this might be a butchered, take on it, but this is kind of how it landed for me as a teaching Like, if you don't like the, if you don't like your life, like, basically, your life is the answer to the questions you've been asking yourself. If you don't like the quality of your life, then ask better questions. Like, don't ask a shit question and sit and like have your life be an answer to that question, ask. If you're not getting the right answer, ask a better question.
Speaker 1:So I came into this year Like, oh my God, I had no idea what year it was going to bring, but I knew something.
Speaker 1:I was really out of alignment some in some places inside of me and I could not see where I could not like clearly see. So I was like okay, how do I use the tool of intention and the tool of some of the things I know work for me to set myself up for a different future, even if I don't yet know Like? To me, this year was a sort of experimental harvest year of wisdom that I didn't feel like. I entered this year with access to this wisdom. I knew it was there, I couldn't access it. So the legacy was my theme and I came into this year being like I'm going to sit and ask myself the important and difficult questions and my life will become a reflection of those answers. And so I started this year. I mean, I was even walking in here earlier. I sent you a message. I was like, my God, the quality of the questions I was asking myself at the beginning of the year, compared to the things I'm able to ask myself now, is night and day.
Speaker 2:So what was the questions at the beginning of the year then, and what are they now?
Speaker 1:So for me, the questions at the beginning of the year were like so, to give some more context, One of the reasons why I felt that legacy needed to be my focus was I was at some things in my life need to change. I've been living very what felt like a mouth to table. Is that the same? No Do you mean not hand to mouth.
Speaker 2:Do you mean like hand to mouth? What does that even mean? I think hand to mouth or like. I'm thinking you mean hand to mouth or paycheck to paycheck. That's kind of like, but right now, I don't know what hand to mouth means, though.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a bit like well, okay, this is the context was I was like I feel like I can only plan my life like a month in advance, like I'm so like I feel like I just do not have the resources, attention or vision or ability right now, capacity to plan more than a month ahead, and I'm like this is driving me insane.
Speaker 2:I've been doing this for years, so you're just in short term mode all the time. Everything was short term.
Speaker 1:And I was like I have to. At the time I wasn't really willing to sort of give up the things that were creating the compression that made that my reality. But I could see, okay, the problem is that I feel like I can't really plan. Everything's very reactive and I'm not really let set old enough. So at the beginning of the year and I can't remember specifically, like I'll talk on my head but I was really focused on, and I was really focused on that question Essentially like how do I live more than a month at a time?
Speaker 1:Or like, oh, this was a question at the beginning of the year who are the people I need to meet? This is a big question that are going to shape Like my life in the long term. I was like I feel like I need to meet the people this year or let go of the people this year to shift the reality of where my life's going to be in like 10 years time. I'm like it's time to actually get serious and start anchoring down more into the earth and shifting my reality now so I can actually have more of a long term vision and actually execute long term vision. And particularly, I was like I need help, I need collaborators, I need the right kind of people in my life, and so to help you, set the vision to influence me in a different way.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm not being influenced in the way I want to be influenced. I feel like I'm just getting up the questions I had the other day. I'm writing a piece on this, right. But so in the beginning it was kind of like okay, like how do I like shift? What do I want? Was the kind of questions like okay, I want to be able to have more spaciousness in my schedule so I can like be able to plan months ahead of time. It was still quite short term focus was like all I could manage. As the years gone on, the questions have got harder to answer, but they've got more impactful and so the best questions, ones that are hard to answer.
Speaker 1:Yes, so the questions I don't have answer for, what if I could move and build and create my business in a way where I don't have to buy into the belief that I should always prepare myself for incoming threat? So this was like, okay, I'm rebuilding my business. That was a big thing this year. I'm kind of really letting my business end and die Like, well, I've kind of been creating in the last few years and allowing new things to come through that really feel like me. Okay, there's kind of this belief in here that building this kind of business, you're always going to be under attack and people are always going to be coming for you and I'm like I don't want to live feeling like I'm under threat, right, actually, a big thing for me has been dignity this year.
Speaker 1:How to live and work with dignity and not be.
Speaker 2:That's dignity for all the Americans out there.
Speaker 1:What did I say?
Speaker 2:Dignity, that's sort of a dignity Doesn't sound very dignified.
Speaker 1:I like it I said that's fine.
Speaker 2:No, we're from London, babes, that's how we talk Dignity. I'll just say sometimes we have to translate. I could literally be hit up. She said what? What did she say Dignity?
Speaker 1:What's dignity?
Speaker 2:Dignity. You know, it's like when you go to the States and you ask them for some water yeah, oh yeah, you have to put on an American accent to ask for water, and then they're like say it again, if you've got any water?
Speaker 1:Try and say it in French they're like what, you're like look, and they're like what? Very hard to say.
Speaker 2:Do you know the one I found hard to ask how do you so? Oh, look, look.
Speaker 1:It's like duh. Look, you don't pronounce the.
Speaker 2:What's the guh? What's the guh? It's duh. Oh right, okay, that's true.
Speaker 1:Look, I'm probably saying that round, look.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you the word that I find hard to speak in the same French as Wazze. Wazze, it's one of my favourite French words bird, the bird Wazze. Anyway, we've digressed. What was she saying, wazze?
Speaker 1:Okay, dignity, dignity, dignity, yeah, dignity, like how do I make money with dignity, how do I build my life with dignity, like bringing dignity into my questions has like changed the game massively.
Speaker 2:I saw it really change you, by the way, this year when you put that in Big time?
Speaker 1:Yes, Big time and big up Elaine, my somatic therapist from Paris.
Speaker 2:Big up, elaine.
Speaker 1:Elaine. She is the G that everyone in Paris now all my crew sees her and she's just been life-changing for all of us. She really helped me come to this through my body.
Speaker 2:Can I pick up our support network please? I just feel like we just have some really amazing people that support us with things in different ways. Yeah, I don't know Elaine, but I've just heard so much about Elaine that when I hear her name, I'm just like so happy. Elaine is a G when it comes to body work.
Speaker 1:And she now. I don't really want to say this because she'll get booked up, but she does work remotely and, like people, have been sending letters to her. I've only just found out Right in that jet she does remote sessions and people have been having big transformations with Elaine from afar, so which is great, because sometimes I have clients and I really want them to work with someone like Elaine, and now that I can, she does a very specific kind of somatic body work, but I can't remember the name.
Speaker 1:But she's got an Elaine wizardry. That it's just Elaine. I don't think you can replicate it, okay she's on the list.
Speaker 2:now I'm going to add it.
Speaker 1:She's on your list, so 2023 best seller.
Speaker 2:So this year I didn't have as much body work this year because I just doesn't make any sense now. Oh, that's everything I was going to say. I'm going to go all over the place now. But something you said about at the beginning of the year and the questions you asked compares the ones at the end of the year. Right, and I wanted to say this about that that I always have this metaphor of like a ladder, right, so if you're going up a letter, the higher up you go up the ladder, the more you can see. Right, what you can see on the first rung is very different from what you can see on the eighth rung.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, what people want to do is they want to get on the first rung and they want some certainty about what they're going to I don't know, like how to get to the tenth rung or what they're going to see at the tenth, or they think for some reason that they can access it Like bitch. It's not a phallusy, it's not how it works. So at the beginning of the year you was at a different rung and the ladder from the end of the year, which is why the questions improved, because I did hear those questions at the beginning of the year and they just felt like really uninspiring to me personally. I'm like, oh God, just really you know what I mean. Just very the opposite of dopamine giving and kind of like it feels a bit analysis-y for me. Who do I need to take me?
Speaker 1:like oh no yeah. What's like the, the, that's all you can see, but I just want to say that's all you can see.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with that, right, that's where you are at, that's what you can see. Like I don't want, I'm not trying to vilify the first rung of the ladder here, guys. Like it's okay, we all have to go past the first rung of the ladder at certain times and we start there and we do that. But just know that your job is just to keep going up the ladder.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's where your focus needs to be on going up the ladder, because the higher up you go, the more you can see and so the more when it goes. When it comes to going up the ladder, I think I suppose what I mean by going up the ladder is always some sort of form of rising frequency for me. I suppose that's kind of what I'm talking about, right, and then as your, as that changes, as it becomes maybe lighter or something, or higher options are available at that level that you're never going to be able to see at the other rung. So hence the end of the year, you're asking questions from a completely rung, different rung of the ladder. So I just want to really say that because I felt like that's really important to put out there Like start, where you are. But sometimes you know the quality of the question. I suppose when I'm making all these gagging noises about the question, what I've supposed I mean by that is for me, is the sound of my vibration being crunched, Because that's how it feels to me.
Speaker 2:It feels gross it feels, absolutely gross, right, when it's like it's almost like a dimmin' of shine or something, or it's like it's like a fake. It's like fake question, and what I mean by that is it's like it's pretending to take you somewhere, but it ain't taking you nowhere, you know. It's not really taking you where you think it's taking you. It's not creative, it's not inspiring, it's kind of like you're first draft.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the first draft, like the commitment is, I'm going to spend this year asking questions. I've no idea where that's going to lead me Ultimately. Like you're, you know, when I think about what this year has been, it's been sort of like digging down and digging down and digging down and like re kind of redoing the roots of things and like it has you know what I know to be true now, this at this stage of my journey as somebody who is constantly kind of actively in process, right.
Speaker 1:So when I'm like, as I'm having this conversation, I'm like, oh, I know my process. I guess earlier, when I said the podcast, I was like, okay, I feel like I don't feel like I still find myself doing a lot of the behaviors I was doing six years ago, 2016, 2017. What is really different now is I have such a different process around how that all fits into the entirety of a year and this year for me, I asked for the hard path. I said something my light really feels dimmed. I feel like my vibration is somewhere I don't want it to be. I feel very influenced and very like I can't find my voice. That was, I was far away and so I've had to spend so much time coming back to myself and it has been so slow.
Speaker 2:So that is a sign. Can I just say because I don't want to lose this and I think this is important in case someone else, other people are going through this that's a sign that you've outgrown stuff. Yes, yes, hopefully I am right this way. That's a sign. Okay and that's okay. But it is a sign it's like the things might have been fine for you before. Yeah, any more, yeah, yeah, yeah, you said earlier about that. I'll be doing this forever thing. I think there's something about that that is like again, I feel like that's an internalized. I'm getting the old job for life, vibe, you know it's totally everything.
Speaker 2:Everyone was like oh, they've been married for 40 years. I don't give a fine Fuck if they've been married 40 years, if they are miserable as sin, what is the point?
Speaker 1:It's like automatically.
Speaker 2:We're supposed to be like oh my god, well done what. We squeeze it in the UK anyway.
Speaker 1:We squeeze the life out of ourselves right when we stay in things too long, we aren't able to access the kinds of questions that help us actually, because ultimately, like what are and I think this is true for even the industry we're in I Just feel like so much of my work life was based on not not asking myself the kind of questions that really meet me, my values as a person. Like this year has really been about who am I as a person? What do I actually value? There we go.
Speaker 2:Who are you? Now I want to work.
Speaker 1:Who am I now? How do? I want to work with people and If I was letting all of that lead, what would start to shift and look different, and am I willing to let that Happen? Am I willing to get out of the way and let that person I've been In? I die, die. Yeah, and it takes courage, and I think that's ultimately what we're doing when we're leading people Through processes in our work, right, we're ultimately leading them in all the things we do with ourselves.
Speaker 2:You know reminds me of, though this is another picture I get in my mind of People into myself, about this picture when you when people that don't cut their split ends Because they want to keep the length of their hair and it's like you'd need not even just a trim, you need a chop babe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I need a chop. Well, you know what I notice every day. I'm like been growing my hair this year and I've had all these outside influences that oh no, no, don't, don't try. I like to have a haircut like every six weeks. I like to keep it trim and fresh and now I've got longer hair, not like Parisian Bob. I've not been having it cut and it's driving me insane. I haven't had it cut for like six months. So having it cut this week and I've been like the boy is just a trim because you want to grow it long. I'm like I want a fucking chop.
Speaker 2:Please take at least an inch or two, because this Insane who wants little straggly bits of thin, nasty shit hanging off the bottom of their hair. Well, and then you're supposed to be proud of the length of it. They look such fucking shit. Why, like? And? But that's what we do when we I Can't remember what it is now we was talking about, but there's some reason.
Speaker 2:I brought that up when that's what it reminded me of like, hanging on Like sometimes, because what I think it's, because I know it's because when you spoke about holding people through the process, I agree right and Some, and not even just holding people through the process, because it's a process that's always going on everywhere around us, ruling Endings and beginnings and arriving at beginning, the end, on a middle and, and at some point somewhere in your life. Pretty sure, you usually something's ending right, but, um, some as an outsider, because we're not, if it's not your life. When it's your life it can be hard to see, sometimes, right, you're too close to it, but as an outsider looking at someone else's life, sometimes things are really clear to see and loads of times you see people like holding On to something that you just like babes like let it go. Literally, there's nothing you know holding on to some shitty man or something. You know what I mean. Or holding on to some job that you hate, you know well. Just loads of stuff where you just like kind of no brainer babe, hmm, not because it's like let it go and don't pay your bills, and you know.
Speaker 2:No, no one's saying that, we're just saying like, again, there's probably a question in there, but you know what would it be like if? Because if the fear is Money or something right, earning money then there's a question in there to help your brain start to find a decent answer For the life you actually want to live, right. And then question might be something like how can I make money in a way that I love? How can I make even more money than I make now In a way that I love? Let's just ask the question. That's the whole point of the question. Don't why about the answer? Because I think people have a brain often that wants to. You shouldn't know the answer, that's right. You shouldn't know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like you've a company answer you figure it out and if you don't like you become, we change the question.
Speaker 2:And that's growth. Yeah, totally it makes me think of a.
Speaker 1:Well, I think big lesson I've learned this year is the cost of being in the wrong relationship, and For me I'm such a relational person relationship is everything in my life. I feel like it's the place I have the most mastery and and practice and intention and I my barometer of like when this is not the right relationship for me, has really come online, and this is true in like walking away from romantic Relationships where I'm like, yeah, no, this is not a match. Like the cost of being in this is so not worth it for what I'm trying to cultivate my life, everything I'm cultivating is basically getting spent and poured down the drain in this like non-generative dynamic. Sometimes work relationships become like that. What was once generative becomes draining and, yeah, we are very slow to sometimes acknowledge that. Right, like how.
Speaker 1:I think this partnership that we have with juicy has been something where I'm like what are some of the qualities of it? We both love pouring into the project. We both have our roles, we have shared roles. We have things like this to come on, we do the thing, and then there's other things we do outside of here to keep the thing alive and move In that are unique to each of us, but it's alive because we're both Pouring in and it's aligned and it's, yeah, a well-functioning partnership. So I'm like this is how I can feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, how it gets to feel. This is interesting because we're talking about endings, but it's reminding me that I Can feel it all the way through, like the relationship between endings and beginnings is just ridiculous, right. So We've started doing this podcast this year. That's a beginning, right. I have definitely felt, like you just said, that there's an energy that comes with doing this podcast that is different from anything I've felt before. I really like it and I can feel the, the, the alignment in the feeling of like green light I'd call it green light energy like go this way and 100%. It is creating endings in my life. Because when you was just describing the relationships, I was thinking, yeah, that motherfuckers taking up space, yeah, space. Then there's no space for anyone else to come in, because it is this a space thing. You need to have an empty space sometimes for things to come in I think de clutter.
Speaker 2:Yes so what I've really noticed with doing this project this year and the feeling of it and what it's signaling to me around Work, and what I want work to feel like in this next act of my life, is it's creating I Don't know how to explain this. It's like, since this energy's come in, it's kind of changed things. Right, it's changed my vibe and now I'm like a frequency upgrade, right, oh, I can have this. So now some of the other things that I was doing that were fine and have been fine for a really long time. It's like, oh, either I don't want to do that anymore or I need to move away from that, or it's just like I A priority thing, like I haven't got time I have to make. You have to make cuts, right, because you've got limited amounts of time and resources, so you have to make choices and otherwise you'd be running around like a nutter trying to do everything all the time. But this has changed the standard, so there's something about Beginnings.
Speaker 1:Hmm, creating endings.
Speaker 2:Create an ending and I think, if you don't know that you might think something was wrong. Hmm but it's not wrong, it's completely right.
Speaker 1:Right. In order for things to end, you need to have space in your life for a beginning to happen.
Speaker 2:Yep, you got to hang out. You got to hang out in that void, in that fertile void. They call it the fertile void. I think it's good stuff cause it the fertile void in that work. But I think I Think we all get why it's called the void. But I love the fact that it's fertile. It is fertile, it's deeply fertile, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my life feels really fertile right now. I kind of feel like I'm in the void in between and Feels very rich. Here, beautiful things have been born.
Speaker 2:Some of my best writing has come through from this time my most honest, best best and this is the time for it as well in terms oh, if you're in a, what'll be in the northern hemisphere? Northern hemisphere, yeah. So if you're in the northern hemisphere, this is the time for it, right?
Speaker 1:It's winter, so when it's having started as it not.
Speaker 2:It's not on solstice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to first but there's definitely that whole thing around Things being darker and days getting shorter, so it's like you're being supported by the environment to Rain in, to slow down, like it's temporary, don't worry about it. Like soon, naturally, you'll be feeling a urge to Do things again. You know, um, don't fight it, work with it If you want juice anyway, because that's what we're here for right. We're here for the, the real thing, the juicy thing, and there's conditions for that. You need to create the conditions for the juice, and one of them, I think massively, is honoring endings. Amen.
Speaker 2:Anything we want to say about the end of the year In terms of Ending it, ending the end of the year. Ending it, ending the end of the year, how to end the year.
Speaker 1:Hmm, I would like to say something like I Think it's a great moment, like what if you could slow down and and really take stock of where your life is? I think the way you end this year will show you about how you lived this year. Hmm, what do you need to see about how you lived this this year so you can grow and involve into the next year? Everything's already here. It's like harvest what you've already done, we've really created, how you've already been.
Speaker 2:I'd love to. I would love to create Something I've wanted to for years and years. I know I will, but to create something for this time of year, a space For people to reflect. I see this reflection piece is like arrow, like a bow and arrow the arrow going back bit when you pull the arrow back before it goes forward and it really will affect the trajectory and the direction that you go forward in, right? Yeah, so it's them, because I do have a lot of skill here and I'm quite pumped about this kind of thing and I just felt again when you speak in there, but I just don't have the time on the space to do that. One day I'll do it. But there was a piece of me that was like, you know, it's so good to like co-hold a thing, hmm, around this, you know, around the Endings, the reflection and then the going forward, because it's so rich like this, so much to learn from what you've experienced this year. And, yeah, like what's driven you, what's important to you, where you are now.
Speaker 2:I think, in terms of ending the year, how I like to end the year is Do Christmas. I like Christmas, like the sparkles, all that kind of stuff, food, weather, and Then I like to have a two-night spa break between Christmas and New Year. I Don't know if I'm gonna get to do it this year because I tried to book it earlier and this shot and the place I want to go to is actually shut until New Year's Eve or something. Anyway, doesn't matter. When I'm at the spa, I take post-it notes, paper sharpies and I chill sauna is one of my happy places and then I actually spend some time doing like some Visioning, weirdly enough there. You know, just see what? Because there's something about the quiet, there's something about the real slow right down. You know, having the body slowed right down, having hands on you, just relaxing, do nothing, not cooking, not cleaning, nothing, you know, no work. My information starts coming through.
Speaker 2:So I think what I'm saying is about carving out space. I mean, I already know that I've only got like one. Some years I'll do like a word for the year. Sometimes I do like a theme, Sometimes it'll be a goal, a few. I feel like I've got like a goal, one goal Next year and it's around podcasting and I'm not 100% sure what the words are. But I Like this. I want to do more of this. For sure, we're gonna grow here, and so that will be my focus, and every year when I've had a single focus, I've achieved it, because I mean I'm not it's not exactly like I said I want to go to the moon, is it, you know? I mean it's completely achievable, whatever this will be.
Speaker 2:I suppose I was just say, carve out some space, carve out some space for the end of the year, reflect, go back over the the year, month by month, and, just kind of high level, remember what you would do in what went on in those months. You know, start getting your mind thinking back. The reason why I'm saying it, even though I said I like to reflect in January, is because Mercury is in retrograde From 13th of December to the 1st of January this year, and that can also be a very supportive time for reviewing and reflecting. So, being you are actually supported in doing that this year. Well, we on the 11th today as we record. So, yeah, 13th of December to the 1st of January, 20, 23, 24, mercury in retrograde, so use that. That's definitely means don't be, don't be trying to push yourself forward. You're, you're well and truly going against the grain now If you do that, love that babe.
Speaker 1:I hope you do get to go to the spa. Yeah, I'll figure out, I'll work it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I Just I want to go to that one. Anyways, I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole, because I will easily start talking about going to the spa, but, um, I Think we might be good. Should we end? Yeah, that's an ending.
Speaker 1:Endings. Thank you everyone who has become a Juicy listener in this year of 2023. It's been amazing to get it out there and have you listen and let us know you're listening and let us know what's landing. I'm loving feeling like who this is resonating with. It's a real passion project. It's beautiful gift to the world and it's a beautiful gift to us. So thank you for being our early adopters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for listening, for the feedback and the kind words we've been receiving. We're just getting going, it's only gonna get better and I really look forward to having you along for the rest of the journey. So you take care of yourself. We'll see you back in 2024. We're gonna have a couple of weeks off the pod now and then we'll see you back in early Jan for the next juicy episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah.