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So welcome to another episode of Super Charge Your Souls Transformation podcast.
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And today we have the incredible Lauren Littlewood, also known as Nino.
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Joining us.
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Lauren is the founder of the Writers Rebellion where she merges the world of entrepreneurship and impactful writing from dismantling diet, culture and the patriarchy with powerful copywriting to ghostwriting that inspires and changes lives.
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Lauren's mission is to create positive change through writing.
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She believes what you think and how you communicate, it matters and that effective writing can transform businesses and lives.
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And today our topic is unmasking and finding your true self.
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So welcome to the show, Lauren.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm so excited to be here.
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I am excited that you're here today we met on linkedin and instantly, I love the way you wrote and I love your skill of writing.
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To be honest, tell us about your podcast first.
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I'm I'm super, I am excited and I know our audiences also.
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Why did you think of even bringing on a writer's, you know, copywriting and ghostwriting?
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And then that's what you do.
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You're very good at that.
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And then you literally took that into a podcast.
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So tell us about your podcast first.
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Yeah.
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So,, one of the things that I do,, so my podcast is called Words Unwritten.
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And it's the merging of,, the mindset that we have the way we communicate and the impact that that could have on your business and on the world.
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Because so much of what I do with copywriting, with ghostwriting and, you know, any type of communication in general,, it has to start from within and then we can communicate outside of us and that then has a domino effect.
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It's creating more impact in the world.
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And I truly believe that copywriting and marketing and books, and how we structure our businesses, how we communicate with customers can deeply impact our society as a whole and can help us progress towards a more abundant equitable society.
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That helps everybody rise.
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And so that's kind of where words unwritten was kind of birth because I'm obsessed with everything mindset.
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I am a writer.
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So communication is my thing, but I also deeply care about how my work.
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and my words impact the collective and, and I believe it should be impacted for the better.
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So I'm like, well, let me just like put all my favorite hyper fixations in one big old pot and make it a podcast.
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I love that.
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So tell us about your own unmasking journey and what woke you up for the need for change.
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Oh, so, OK.
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So I'm gonna try and not give you my entire life story because I feel like this has been a lifelong journey for like the first 30 something years of my life.
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I'm about to turn 34 and I feel like I didn't fully like, get to the unmasking process until I was like 3031.
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So growing up, I had a DH D I was a closet, a little queer kid and you know, and then I followed the path that I should take and I think that a lot of us who are heavily masked because we want to fit in because we can't find belonging.
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So we try to fit in because that's our innate.
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I guess it, you know, Bernie Brown talks about how that's a you know, like one of our core needs as beings because we are, you know, a societal species.
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And and so a lot of us who mask, we just try to fit in.
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And so that's where that masking comes in.
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And I did not ever quite fit in.
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So I tried really hard.
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And it wasn't until probably about 2019 that I really started dissecting things.
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I, I got divorced.
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I was married to a man, I got divorced.
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I was working in health care, the pandemic hit and I'm like, oh, this is a big note.
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So it was like everything that I had worked towards for the 1st 28 ish years of my life,, was starting to fall apart and I was so deeply unhappy, but I had, I had started to kind of unlock some of my own happiness of my own things.
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And, and it was just like, once, once 2019, 2020 hit, it was just like, ok, you have a choice now whether you're going to continue living in this discomfort,, that is familiar or if you're gonna get uncomfortable and find something that's in alignment with you.
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And that's when I started my business.
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That's when I started dating women.
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That's when I started embracing my A DH D ness and diagnosing myself and my son and later my mother, you know, and so we're just like one big old A DH D family now.
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and learning how to just kind of embrace myself and deconstructing everything I felt like I should be.
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And, you know, after I was in my business for a while, I started realizing like, oh, I'm kind of doing some masking behaviors within my business because I want to be successful and I'm afraid of that potential rejection for being authentic.
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And so I started as a health and wellness copywriter working a lot with like nutrition brands with yoga brands, like things like that.
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And then some of the nutrition brands and supplement brands, they just, they, they were perpetuating diet culture and I am just not about that And so that was one of the first things that I started doing.
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just like, OK, I'm gonna go against the grain here and I'm going to be a really strong advocate for anti diet culture copywriting.
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And that was just like that little taste of that alignment.
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And then that opened up more doors to more alignment and it was just like, OK, no, this feels so good.
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I'm just gonna keep following this.
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And then now I'm at this stage now where I'm just like, I don't like boxes, boxes are not my friend.
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So I'm going to just do everything that I can within alignment with my business.
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And I truly believe now that whenever you find alignment within any facet of your life, that's when everything clicks for you.
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And so that's my entire life story.
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Thank you for sharing that because you are telling us about unmasking and that is what we are here for.
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So talking about masks, we all wear them.
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OK?
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And I'm not talking about physical masks that we used to wear and I'm sure a lot of people still wear them.
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But what are the most common ones you see?
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And how do they suffocate our true self?
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So I think it's the shoulds, you know, we have within this patriarchal system, within this capitalist system, within this white supremacist system.
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We have very certain spaces like these shoulds that we, we need to be like, when I, when I coach copywriting,, you know, new copywriters and stuff like that,, one of the things of, like, new entrepreneurs, they fall into this rut of, I gotta work 9 to 5, you know, and they're calculating their prices based on the amount of hours that it will take and they're falling within this system that they've lived in.
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And I'm like, babe, it's your business.
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You, you can like tailor it to you.
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And like one of the things that I really advocate for because I work with a lot of people with a DH D it's like a magnet.
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They find me and,, you know, just like you can build your business to your brain, you know, you can, you can have it tailored around what, what works best for you because what works best for you is what's going to create more expansion for you.
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It's going to give you more access to do and communicate and show up in your best way.
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So that's one thing that, you know, whenever I'm working with people or,, you know, like people dealing with like a limited mindset on like, but I can't do this.
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Like, why, why can't you do this?
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You know, but I can't, you know, make a full time income, you know, just working 20 hours a week as a copywriter.
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And I don't even have a degree in writing.
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Like I can't do this, you know, and that dealing with that imposter syndrome just like that's, that's not you talking.
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The fact that you have the desire means that it is for you.
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And that was, yeah, that's something that resonates so deeply with me that a lot of people talk about in the astrology community is like if you did the fact that you desire, it means it is meant for you when you have those deep desires, like it is meant for you then and the only thing stopping you is the limiting beliefs attached to your shoulds like the that that society has placed on you.
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So th like any of those like should, if you, if you're saying you should, then that's, that's you starting that masking process like but I have to fit into my box.
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So talking about SHS, how do we really start ripping off these masks?
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Like what are the first or I should say?
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What was your first bold step to really seeing the real you in the mirror?
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Oh This, I'm I was so excited for this question.
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I knew it was gonna come because the first thing is compassionate curiosity.
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This concept blew my mind first off self compassion who she love her.
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She would like.
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That was one concept that was huge for me.
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Somebody who lives so deeply within a shame spiral because of being masked so long, oppressing my myself like suppressing who I was for so much of my life.
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And trying to hide even the smallest things like fidgeting, you know, and and so tapping into self compassion was groundbreaking for me and then taking that a step further and starting to question why without attaching that shame.
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So combining that the questioning, that curiosity with that self compassion.
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and a lot of like the principles like one of the hugest things, the biggest things for me was yoga, the principles of yoga with non attachment was non judgment and non harm or a hea like was, was so huge for me to realize like, OK, I can feel this about other people.
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Like, why shouldn't I feel it towards me?
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And then like, how can I apply that to more things in my life?
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And and so that was like before that like real like life shifting moment in 2019 and stuff like those were those seeds that were plan early on.
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Because compassionate curiosity is where you start saying like, huh, that's, that's weird that I was really triggered by that.
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Why was I so triggered by that?
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And you start thinking about your past and you start thinking about, you know, like, but I was taught that I have to do this, like who taught me this?
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Oh I always saw it from my parent and my parent always acted like this or the teachers at school would always, you know, give me so much grief for these things and stuff.
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And then you're like, oh, so maybe this is not me, maybe this is just how I've been trained to be.
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So I think that compassionate curiosity is, is the foundation of discovering your truth.
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I love that because instead of us showing just compassion to others, we're also showing it to ourselves.
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And we are questioning everything that we believe we're questioning, tracing it back to maybe a memory that's stored inside our mind.
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So that, so that's amazing.
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How would you answer this?
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Which is, let's say there is a woman right now listening to this podcast at the moment.
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And obviously, she has a lot of masks on maybe a mask for her boss, her mask for her husband and she hasn't really revealed her true self.
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What would be some things that we could really, you could really tell that woman, like, what's the first step that she should do besides compassionate curiosity?
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Like what would be like, the next thing, the next thing would be building the awareness.
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And I know this is something that you talk about a lot too is like, you have to have this awareness in order to create these changes and stuff.
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One of the things that I really love is journaling because I'm a big talker.
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And so I can't always just like chew my best friend's ear off and stuff and sometimes I just need to like vomit it out and So, journaling really helps to process a lot of these thoughts because I got a lot of them.
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And so it really, really helps to get through those.
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And then one of the other things is explore new things because we, when we mask a lot, we start losing or, or detaching from the things that truly bring us joy because we're just going through the emotions, we're in the habit of just being the person we should be instead of being the person that we are.
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And so sometimes that takes a moment of like experimentation.
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Like, do I like lemons?
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I don't know, I just always thought I didn't like lemon.
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So like let me try lemons, you know, and lemons could be anything.
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Lemons for me were women.
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you know, and so, you know, like you've, you've got to get out there and exper experiment with life because I actually wrote something down explore new things and take chances on possibilities.
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Hm, I love that.
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I love that.
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Just take chances on possibilities when you're exploring new things.
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So what were, and I'm curious, what were the biggest hurdles that you faced in your journey of self discovery?
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Like how did you smash through them?
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Oh, gosh, the biggest hurdle divorce, divorce was hard because I have a son and so trying to manage that, you know, also being in that marriage was really hard working in health care during the pandemic was so hard and those things happening at the same time, you know, like within that same time frame and it just being like thing after thing after thing happening,, it's one of those things that just, it, it's like it all had to fall apart so I could put it back together.
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Right.
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And I think that's, that's one thing that I, one of the many things that I took from all of those hard things kind of falling apart, was because I had to, it, it caught, it forced me to stop.
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Like so many people experienced like in the pandemic, like the pandemic forced us to stop.
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in so many ways, it forced us to pay attention.
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So that felt crippling at that time.
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But when you're faced with those monsters that you've been running away from for so long, you have to turn around and face them, friend them in a way.
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So that way you can heal from the other side of it, you know, like, OK, I've gone through this hard thing now and like, let me just like give that monster a little bit of love and like realize that that monster is just the pain of all of the hard things.
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And so that was, that was big for me to just face it, face it, you know, face the hard things, face the this isn't working and now you have to figure something else out and it's really hard and it's really uncomfortable.
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But the only way you're gonna be happy, the only way you're going to be like, because we, when we're unhappy in one facet of our life, we're only one person that taps into everything else.
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So, if I'm miserable in my work that's going to affect, affect how I parent, that's going to affect how I show it for my son and,, how I, like, make new connections in relationships.
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Like, so I had to find a different way.
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I was so miserable in health care.
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And so I had to find another way and that was through my business and it was so hard because like, you know, like when you first start a business, it does not make money.
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And I'm sitting here like pandemic, working part time in health care, homeschooling my son going through a divorce like all at the same time.
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It's just like, no, I see the vision.
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I know I have to make this work and pushing through those, those difficulties and facing those challenges, like head on and not ignoring them while you're going through that process is so important.
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I love that.
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So you did talk about the relationships, especially with your son, that your relationship with the man that you were married to and then you eventually went through a divorce and I'm sorry to hear that.
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But sometimes I'm not sorry because I believe like every divorce is, is taking us to a whole different level of us being connected to ourselves, including me.
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I went through one divorce already.
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So I would love to know as we start unmasking ourselves.
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How does it ripple out to our relationships and our overall vibe?
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What would you say?
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Especially for you?
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Now, now that you feel like dating women is my thing?
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Yes.
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Oh my gosh.
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And I talked to my clients about this and you know, even in like marketing, like this is so applicable on so many levels, like not just like any relationship, whether it's a client relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship, a platonic relationship, a familiar relationship.
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When you show up as you, the people who are not aligned with, you find their way out, they fall out with you like they walk out or whatever like that, they, if you're in your highest, your best self, like your most aligned self, the ones who are going to tear you down and dim light will be out and then you can show up so much better for all those other ones who matter.
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In addition, you attract more of that sameness.
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We are energy and we attract that energy, right?
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So when you show up as somebody who is compassionate, who is in alignment with their themselves, who, you know, is makes genuine connection with people because you feel confident and, and good within your body, then you start attracting those same people, you know, for the most part because, you know, I know there, there are people,, me included where sometimes our vibrations, you know, the way, the way we are and stuff like, attracts people who are just like, oh my God, you're so nice.
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I've only ever had that bad people in my life help me, you know, and that, like, like sometimes we have space for them in our lives and we can help them and, and be a support and be a friend for them.
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And that's beautiful.
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But you're not a bad person if you are not capable of that right now, if you're not available for that right now, you just, I feel like I need to like just throw that out there.
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I'm curious about another thing because this is, this was not on my agenda to ask you, but my soul wants to know this.
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And I'm sure a lot of women who struggle with this identity, right?
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Like, especially when they're married to a man and in society these days and again, I'm not an expert in LGBT Q plus or anything or any of those topics, but I'm not an expert.
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But if a woman is married to a man and she's in this marriage and she hates it to the core and I'm talking to you.
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So, so when you were in that space, what would you tell a woman who was exactly maybe 10 years, you know, in the past as where you were.
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And then she figured it out that, hey, I don't even like being around men.
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You know, I like being around women or women is my thing.
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Or maybe I'm more drawn towards loving a woman instead of a man that confusion, that state of being confusion, not coming out of the closet.
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And then you eventually come out of the closet and then you announce it and then you own your deepest truest identity or authentic self.
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How did you do that?
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Was it?
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So it was so hard.
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I grew up in the South in a very, very religious area.
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So I had a lot of internalized homophobia.
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I had a lot of religious trauma that was attached to that.
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And so it was so, so hard.
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And I I remember looking on social media and seeing this lesbian couple that I followed and just looking at them and just my heart aching so deeply and just being like, well, I'm just gonna have to accept it.
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This is my life.
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I made this choice.
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I made this commitment.
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I just have to accept it and it was like, never even admitting to myself it openly just identifying like, oh, that hurts right there.
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And then moving on and never really admitting it.
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And like that was, that was the first thing like you have to admit these things to yourself, you know, and that goes even beyond being LGBT Q I A plus, right?
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That goes, that goes into like if you're just in a marriage that is just not working anymore, you first have to admit it to yourself before you can even start that process.
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And so one of the things that, you know, because I initially came out as by and then shortly realized it was a little bit gayer than that.
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And one of the things that helped me was researching this concept called compulsory heterosexuality.
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And it is a facet of the patriarchy because, and I personally think that it is very applicable for every human because we are all living within the patriarchy.
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So we're all conditioned to be a certain way based off of the gender society attaches to us.
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And so, you know, like learning about Ket was something that really helped me work through like, oh when you just decide that you like a guy because they're the most popular and conventionally good looking guy.
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Like that doesn't mean you like the guy if you can just like, say, yep, I pick you, they're not Pokemon, they're humans.
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This is not how that works.
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That's a good sign that you might be a little queer, you know, and that was really super eye opening for me.
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And that was, that was when I started making that transition between like, oh maybe I'm not by and then really, you know, playing with those labels and that's that other part of the experimentation is as a, as a, a person, but especially as a queer person, like we have to try on these labels sometimes.
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And for some of us, like labels are just like me just like, you know, more on the ra I'm on the rainbow spectrum over here.
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But for others, it's like, oh, this really helps me contextualize and understand who I am and how I show up in the world.
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And then sometimes those labels change and that's totally OK.
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This is part of your journey, the process of coming into your true self and that person can evolve.
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You know, because you 10 years ago could be super aligned and super in your truth.
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And then 10 years from then you're completely different and both can be true.
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We can have both.
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It's OK.
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You know, you don't have to box yourself in at every stage.
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You can continue evolving.
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And so that's, yeah, I love that.
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Basically give zero fuck about what people think if you are somebody 10 years ago and you're completely the opposite today.
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It's OK.
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You're still you and there's nothing wrong with you is the message that Nino is giving to all us women who are out there trying to unmask.
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That's amazing.
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So any last words or any steps that you would recommend someone listening in today who's in that space like you and you really wanna be her cheerleader.
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What would you say?
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So I got, I got four simple steps.
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OK?
26:35
So first have compassionate curiosity to build a, a shame free awareness.
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So that's step one.
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I love that.
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Number two, explore new things and take a chance on possibilities.
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Number two, number three is face your monsters and heal so you can move forward with an alignment.
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And the last one is follow your desires.
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You wouldn't have them if they weren't meant for you.
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So the last one is amazing.
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I love that.
27:10
Can you tell us a little bit about the fourth one?
27:12
So you need to follow your desires because technically, if you have a desire, it's implanted from some consciousness into your mind.
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It came through somewhere.
27:22
So tell us about the fourth step.
27:24
Yes.
27:24
So, you know, those desires that are just so like they're deep, they're those desires that are like in your bones.
27:34
You know, I had a desire as a kid to be a writer.
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I tried to write my first book when I was like 11 and then because I was dyslexic and because I had a DH D I wrote it off as I'm just dumb.
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I can't do this.
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I shouldn't touch this.
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The only thing I was ever good at was poetry.
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So I just dabbled in a bit of poetry and then I just, I just wrote it off.
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But I always wanted to be a writer, even working in health care.
27:58
I would just like, you know what there's this kid I know who's going through some struggle.
28:03
I should write a book to help these kids that are going through this teenage, you know, this teenage stuff.
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Right now, I've been in so much like I get, I know some things that can help them.
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Like let me write this book, you know, or things like that, like always just feeling called to writing.
28:18
Right.
28:18
That was this deep desire when I looked at those pictures of that couple that I followed and I just had that ache in my heart.
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That was that deep desire that I was meant to love a woman.
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And it wasn't, I wasn't fulfilling that desire.
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So following those deep desires is where you discover your truth because that's when you come into those moments, when you radiate when you see people that are just ra like I some of our favorite artists, you know, and that's what I talk about.
28:55
A lot of my podcast too is just like, like the first episode is like approaching entrepreneurship with an artist mindset or whatever.
29:01
And you know, we, we look at how we go about our life no matter what part of life that we are going through.
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or looking at when we come at it with this like artist mindset, with this growth mindset and this way of like, what am I being called to?
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Because artists they think with their heart, they don't think with their mind.
29:26
Right.
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And so if you're thinking about your relationships, if you're thinking about as simple as how you wanna dress, how you wanna show up in the world.
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If you're just like, looking at that short hair and you're like, oh, that looks amazing.
29:41
I can't do that though.
29:43
I can't.
29:43
No, if you want it, it's meant for you.
29:46
And I mean, we can get real woo woo with astrology and stuff and talk about like we have certain things within our birth chart.
29:54
Like it's even more in depth in vedic astrology.
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And that goes way over my head because it is like freaking calculus of astrology.
30:01
But, you know, it's just, you know, there's, there's so many things just like we're so conditioned to be especially in our work life.
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But I think to an extent also in our romantic lives just chipping away and unhappy, you know, just like, well, this is how it is.
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I've always been told, ok, your happiness ends when you turn 18 and you have to join the Real World.
30:29
And that's, that's bull.
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That's how that is part of a system of oppression.
30:36
Yes, that is just a tool of the system of oppression that keeps us in line.
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It keeps us punching in and punching out and doing the things that we're supposed to do to keep the rich richer, you know, and so when you start following those deep desires, you find a way and you don't bow down to the barricades and the blockades and the mental boundaries or the, you know,, all of your limiting beliefs, you don't bow down to those things and you follow those, those desires.
31:10
That's when life starts expanding.
31:12
That's when you're like, holy crap.
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This is how good life can be.
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I want more of this and then you can keep growing, you can keep going.
31:20
And that's when you say Hallelujah.
31:23
Thank you so much, Nino, we loved having you.
31:26
Where could our listeners follow you?
31:30
Where can they find you?
31:31
I'm on tiktok and Instagram at Nino's Writers Rebellion.
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And I have my website which is writers rebellion dot com.
31:40
My podcast is words unwritten.
31:43
It's on Spotify, Apple and I also have it on youtube and linkedin if you want, which is Lauren Littlewood on linkedin.
31:54
And we will add her website on our show notes as well.
31:59
So anyone wants to follow, please follow her, especially if you want any copywriting or ghostwriting services or you gonna pick her brain, her beautiful brain, go follow her.
32:08
I highly, highly, highly recommend Nino's work.
32:12
I'm a big fan of her work because I myself am writing a book and that's how I followed her on linkedin.
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And I'm like, oh, I love the way she writes and I need to speak to her and that's how we got connected.
32:23
So, thank you so much.
32:24
You know, it was wonderful to have this beautiful conversation with you and you helped us to unmask ourselves and find our true self.
32:34
So, thank you so much.
32:35
Thank you so much for having me and thank you for all you do for the world with your podcast, with your business with how you show up in the world.
32:43
Thank you so much for being a light.
32:46
Thank you Nino.
32:47
And for all of our listeners, always remember metamorphosis, not medication, Namaste for all of our listeners.
32:55
If you have any question and you really want the answers for it, then feel free to book a 20 minute free consultation with me.
33:04
And if you love this episode, then please give us a review on itunes.
33:08
Thank you so much and see you on another episode.
