Wild And Serene: The Oxymoron That Changed My Life

In this episode, I share with my friend Angie how my background and upbringing affected my ability to feel self-love and acceptance. This episode is a raw, honest exploration of the impact of cultural and religious conditioning on personal identity and relationships. Growing up in a high-demand religious culture, I struggled to reconcile societal and familial expectations with my own sense of self. Angie and I share stories of generational influences, the challenges of adhering to religious standards, and the emotional toll that external judgments can take. Through our candid conversation, we illuminate the journey of breaking free from these molds to find peace in our choices and live authentically.

Discover how I ultimately found my calling in podcasting (and talk about a cool past-life regression hypnosis session that had a profound meaning for it), a path that has brought me immense joy and fulfillment. Your support means the world to me, and I invite you to join this ongoing exploration of inner peace and self-acceptance. Your feedback and engagement are incredibly valuable as I continue to share this journey with you.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

you're listening to the wild serenity finding inner peace your way podcast. I'm your host, maryn swenson, and on this show we talk about finding peace from the inside out by shedding conformity and the need for others approval and embracing your own wild truth. Whatever that may be serene, self-love is wild, radical honesty and I invite you to come inward with me. Hey guys, I'm Maren. Most of you listening at this point probably know who I am and you're friends with me probably. But for those of you who might be brand new or who have only kind of maybe seen me from my Instagram or just my podcast cover art, I just want to introduce myself kind of briefly before we jump into this conversation that I'm going to have with myself mostly.

Speaker 1: 0:51

I am 37 years old, I live in Utah, I am a very spiritual person, I am a wife, I'm a mom of six kids, second marriage for both me and my husband. He had three from his first, I had two from mine and then we have a little guy together who is just the light of our lives. And I do a lot of things right. I don't love to define myself by my jobs. I do, especially because this is now really my passion is podcasting. I'm a writer, I love music. My husband and I are musicians. He's like a country singer, songwriter and I do sing song right, but my musical talents really lie in playing the piano and composing. But that's actually how we met was through music and fell in love that way.

Speaker 1: 1:34

On this podcast, I'm so excited to talk about how we learn to trust our inner voice, how we learn to trust our bodies, how we learn to really feel wholeness inside of ourselves and not feel like we're searching for something or someone outside of ourselves to fill that in us. I'm going to talk way more in depth about this as the episode goes on. But I grew up in a family and a culture that really did not give me the tools to facilitate that, and so it took me until I was probably like 35 to really figure out what was missing in my life and that what was missing was actually me. It was me. It was no one else, it was not anything else. It was me, and so I love sharing about my journey of kind of finding that answer and then the steps I've taken and the work I've done on myself to really get me to that point where I'm my own hero. I am all I need and I'm so filled with so much self-love and so much purpose.

Speaker 1: 2:39

I'm a really transparent, open person, at least since I turned 30. A really transparent, open person, at least since I turned 30. And on this podcast I'm going to interview a lot of people and ask them all sorts of things about their lives and their stories and share a little bit of mine, and then I'll also have plenty of episodes where it's really just me and I'm really going into the nitty gritty of the things I've been through. I have kind of a colorful life. I've dealt with things like divorce affairs, my own sexual trauma and pornography, stepping into my sexuality and owning it, loving my body, body image issues, postpartum having children, high demand religion, faith transitions, faith crises, mixed faith, marriage, overcoming shame and issues with quote modesty, having the courage to really own up to what I think and feel, dealing with incredibly hurtful pushback and criticism over personal things like the clothing I wear, having the courage to set boundaries and speak my voice about it, and so I own it all and I'm going to talk about all of it on here. I have my incredible friend, angie, here to facilitate this conversation, and so I own it all and I'm going to talk about all of it on here. I have my incredible friend, angie here to facilitate this conversation, and so we. She talks a little bit about her experience, but mostly she's kind of interviewing me, because I tried four different times to record this episode by myself and it was me sitting in front of my computer on zoom and it was the most boring off the rails thing, because if you sit there and just try and talk to your computer into like blank space and hope you have the energy of actually conversing with someone, it's not easy and I was not good at it. So after four takes and scrapping all the content, I'm finally here.

Speaker 1: 4:13

In this episode we talk about my background, the family I was raised in and the culture I was raised in and how that influenced me and left me kind of lacking in that self-fulfillment. And then we talk about how I got the idea to do this podcast and it's a kind of a fun, crazy story and then what I hope this podcast will be for myself. So, without further ado, thanks so much for joining us. I'm really excited about starting this podcast. It's been not really a labor of love but more like a passion. I'm doing it very backwards for most people. Most people have businesses that they are trying to promote and they start podcasting as a really incredible marketing tool, a way to build customer loyalty and get to know people. And I'm not doing that at all. I don't have a business that I'm running yet.

Speaker 1: 4:59

With it, something will come of it, I'm sure, but at the moment I just was really searching for what could I do that would be fulfilling, eventually give me some kind of financial independence. But really I wanted it to be very purposeful and fill me with a lot of joy and I kind of poked around a little bit about trying to really figure out what my podcast was going to be about, and it's morphed a little bit over time. So originally I really wanted to think about, like, bucking the system and fighting against conformity, and that felt kind of harsh to me because it's still so focused on outward things and I really want to turn completely inward, looking inward for peace, love, connection, divinity and wholeness, rather than looking to outward sources like other people or other entities or other systems. Even that will give that for us. So, basically, having the courage to find quote serenity by shedding conformity, the need for others, approval, external authority and, embracing your own quote, wild truth, whatever that may be, because it's different for everyone. I also was thinking this week about how we get that and why I've struggled with that so much and why that's my focus.

Speaker 1: 6:15

I grew up in a very like patriarchal high demand religion culture where the dynamic that was modeled for me between my parents was very much. My dad was the provider. He was the smart one with the answers, he led the family and all the decision making and we just followed his lead on everything. And my mother very much did that, even though she was very educated. She's very capable, she's incredible, but he was definitely the the rooster right, oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 6:47

I know I do have the same way.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Okay, um, wonderful parents, loving parents. I appreciate them and I feel like they, like all parents, did the best they could and are still doing the best they can. And so I was taught from a super young age not to trust myself myself, not to listen to my body. I was taught very specific set of rules and standards that would qualify me to be accepted. Right, I had to, like, hit the checklist in order to be worthy of love, yeah, worthy of acceptance, worthy of approval. What resonates there that I just said for you?

Speaker 2: 7:22

oh, a lot of it. I mean, I think we're just conditioned that way. It's just how generation after generation has been, and I feel like there's so many women right now that are kind of breaking that mold, and it's exciting. I mean, you're like my soul sister. I swear I'm like sitting down here with you going yes, yes, yes, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Yeah, so that was the dynamic just in my parents' marriage and what I saw and noticed, and part of that in my upbringing was related to the religion I was growing up in, but also I think it was just like generational yeah, that's how they'd been modeled from their parents, and my father is like a very, very strong personality. He's like he's a boss right, he's. He's very wealthy, he's very talented. He's like he's a boss right, he's, he's very wealthy, he's very talented. He's like biggest hard worker ever. He's a convert to the church that I was raised in.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Okay, both my parents are. My dad's family was very dysfunctional. My grandpa was an alcoholic, my grandma, you know she really butted heads with my mother and she was just kind of known for being kind of a pain Okay, and I feel really bad to say that, but like she was not a very pleasant woman, they had a very unhappy marriage themselves. I know that my poor grandfather struggled with a lot of PTSD and trauma and a drinking problem and they stayed married just because that's what you did back in those days. So I think he found a lot of solace and comfort in the system of the church and emphasis on families and that probably was very calling to him.

Speaker 1: 8:50

My mom was the youngest of three and her parents both worked full time, um, and they had a really great relationship. But I think she felt neglected a lot growing up, like she was very much left on her own while they worked. Even from being a young child her grandma watched her and I know her grandmother was mean and not a very nice lady, and so my mom met my dad and my dad was very talented. He had all the answers. She still says she's like he can talk you into anything because he makes you think he knows the best and he does a whole lot. But yeah, he was very strong and she was was, I think, very much searching for stability and love and.

Speaker 1: 9:28

I found all that in my dad and in the church, so that's kind of been the dynamic between them. My dad was super huge on going to college, getting an education, doing all the things, like we had the checklist, like I remember even as, like a 13 year old or 14 year old, I had to, like I was supposed to be spending so many hours a day doing SAT prep oh wow, and I never wanted to do any of it.

Speaker 1: 9:51

I was encouraged to go to college and I needed to go to BYU. That was the life plan set out for me, raised in the church. That was the school. They both went to BYU. All my other older siblings went to BYU. All my older siblings spouses went to BYU.

Speaker 2: 10:02

Like that was what we did Okay, so where are you in the birth order?

Speaker 1: 10:04

I'm number three. I think the focus for me from an early age was fill all the standards of the church. The focus very much in my congregation specifically, and not even so much from my parents, but the ward I was in and the leaders that worked with me there. Modesty was hit so hard over my head Modesty and dating, and I could not understand why anyone cared if there was an inch above my knee showing like in a skirt or a dress, or your shoulders or my shoulders or like if I would bend over and my shirt would come up and I was very much shamed for that, even though I was trying my hardest to dress modestly. I grew up in upstate New York and I was one of the only LDS people. In my high school I was like active at church and had my friends there who I never felt good enough for because they thought I was a wild, skanky girl because I was pretty and that was it. I was so not wild and I was so not skanky.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Yeah, which is a terrible word. We had a very similar experience, okay.

Speaker 1: 11:06

And I'm yeah, which is a terrible experience.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Okay, and I'm 10 years ahead of you but same, yes, experience, just just because of me just who you are like and I couldn't understand why people would say things like well, you go to all these parties and I was like I haven't been to a single party. Like I'm with my friends singing a shania twain and watching mask of zoro in the basement, like I'm not drinking, I'm not smoking pot, I'm not, I'm not at any parties. I wouldn't even know what party to go to. I'm not drinking, I'm not smoking pot, I'm not, I'm not at any parties. I wouldn't even know what party to go to, I'm not invited to parties. And then, but then to my school friends I was like considered kind of naive and prudish and I think they called me like Virgin Marin. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 11:36

I like it.

Speaker 1: 11:36

Yeah, I think I just always felt like I had nowhere to land because I was never good enough for either group and I was trying my hardest to be good enough for both groups. And the modesty was really difficult for me because it created so much shame in my body that it was not okay to look the way I did, it was not okay to like show anyone and that somehow it was evil if men saw parts of me, because it was evil for them to think sexual things about me and therefore sex was evil. Yeah, like, and I and it was very subconsciously stacked right.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Yeah, I have the same experience I know exactly what you're talking about yes, yes, and so there was not a lot of open communication in my family around any of that. I think my parents were not like they were not like so committed to this modest standard, but they were trying so hard to do what the church said and so it was kind of like the default was well, we just do what they do. But I remember one time I was in the homecoming court and I mean, try and buy a prom dress in upstate New York with sleeves on it, just try it. Yeah, I'm sure that's hard, it's impossible, like you cannot find one.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Yeah, I'm sure, that's hard, it's impossible, like you cannot find one. So I bought the cutest dress from a thrift store and it was like a wide strap. So my shoulders showed and my parents told me that, like after I was in the homecoming court, a bunch of people would come up to them and they wouldn't tell me who it was and had made terrible comments about how dare I show up there with my shoulders showing? I know it's so awful. I show up there with my shoulders showing. I know it's so awful.

Speaker 1: 13:03

I gave a talk once in church. I was 17 years old and I was wearing a blouse that had it had sleeves, but they had a seam on the top of the sleeve that was cut open so that it was like flappy. Okay, and so occasionally you'd see like a line of my shoulder. And after I gave that talk in church is nerve-wracking as a 17 year old girl to prepare and write your own talk on a subject they give you and then stand up in front of 300 people. A lot of adults speak. I like said amen. The meeting closed and my young women's leader came up to me and said, oh, you did a great job. And then she grabbed my sleeves the flappy sleeves and closed them and she said but this is really too open, oh my gosh. And I was just mortified, like, and that was the message. So yeah, was that? What you said is not important, how you look is important, they don't care about what you said.

Speaker 2: 13:59

They care about. If you're checking all their boxes, you have your modesty, you're you know, and it's a really judgy culture. It's super judgy. It's really hard, I mean, I look back, my parents weren't really judgy, they weren't like that, but I grew up in Utah so I was surrounded by the culture, like my high school, we only had four people that were not members of this church.

Speaker 1: 14:19

Oh my goodness, yeah, that's intense.

Speaker 2: 14:22

Yeah, four in the whole school. Oh, my goodness, we were all members. But, um, I totally understand where you're coming from, because now, as I look back as an adult and I've, you know, awakened, I guess you can say, yeah, it really impacts you, um, that you are being looked at, how you dress, how you talk, how you like. You can't even be yourself. You're trying to like to be this robot in this society of how, what they expect of you.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I at such a young age, I learned not to trust myself and not to yes, and not even to hone my voice, because no one cared. It only mattered what I looked like on the outside. Am I pretty enough or skinny enough? Because that was a big deal in my. That was a big deal for my parents. They were very particular about what people were supposed to look like, and then other people it was all about. Are you chaste looking, chaste looking, and do you appear to be? Have it all together? Do you have good grades? Do you do extracurricular activities? Are you, you know? Do you have good quote friends? No, boyfriend. I remember I was 15 years old and I had, like, my first quote boyfriend, which is a silly term for what I had.

Speaker 1: 15:25

He was just like this cute guy that I talked to occasionally and we like went on a date and didn't really talk because he was awkward and we just, like, I think, kissed him a few times. That was it. And I remember it was such a big deal for my dad especially. He was like having a heart attack about me dating this guy and having a boyfriend and I couldn't understand it because I was so naive and I like I didn't understand how sex worked. I didn't understand how my body worked. I didn't even understand the anatomy of my own body. I was 16. So after this boyfriend, before I even understood how people had intercourse, I didn't even know, like I was. Wow, you were sheltered. I was really sheltered. No one talked about it. All they ever talked about was don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Yeah, that shoved down our throats. Yes.

Speaker 2: 16:11

Anything, touching anything? Yes, nothing, nothing. Don't touch your own body, don't look at your own body.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Don't think any thought like that particular message is driven harder into the boys in our culture. But it was still a message for me too. Don't even think about it. And so I was so confused why everyone was freaking out and because I was like I'm just like hanging out with them and we kissed one time like it's not that exciting. Yeah, it wasn't that exciting.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Yeah, it's not as exciting as everyone's making this out to be yeah, I mean, maybe if it had been Pat, my husband, who I was able to kiss at that time, that would have been exciting, but this guy was not very exciting. Yeah, um, and like, my dad wrote a letter to my brother who was on a mission, talking all about how I wasn't making good choices and they were so concerned for me. And my brother wrote me a letter back, who I was not close to at all, and I was like, who are you? And he wrote me this letter in Spanish because he was serving in Chile and it was like so, so concerned, and the Lord loves you, but you need to make, do all these things to make sure you don't push him out of your life. And I was like, well, how am I making a bad choice?

Speaker 2: 17:19

I turned 16 in three months. Is that the magical age? All of a sudden, I know I hate that about our culture. I'm like why is 16 the magical number that we can date?

Speaker 1: 17:29

It's so silly, I know. So yes, so approval was based on outward things and what people really thought of you.

Speaker 2: 17:38

That's actually the key, that's the biggest part.

Speaker 1: 17:40

It was what other people would think of you and I think it's outside the church too.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Yes, it's just a generational thing.

Speaker 1: 17:47

Like an older, yes, our parents' generation is very much like that.

Speaker 2: 17:51

I remember, um, you know, my grandma would say children are meant to be seen, not heard, like just things like that. Don't make me look bad.

Speaker 1: 17:58

Yes, you know, it's all about us?

Speaker 2: 18:01

Yes, and you know I'm glad my parents weren't that way. My parents, I think we're just. I mean they were young, they had me in high school. Yeah, they were kind of just. You know, free will and you know, like they didn't know, Um they let me be a free spirit, which I'm very grateful for, but my journey um with the culture is like I had a girl when I was like seven that couldn't play with me because my parents didn't go to church.

Speaker 1: 18:25

Oh.

Speaker 2: 18:25

So I was like it got into my head like I am going to do all the things and so I went to church by myself. I'm totally immersed myself in it. My parents ended up coming to church a little bit in my teen years, but like I put myself in that culture and it's hard because you want. I'm a people pleaser, which I've had to learn to not be Um, because I felt so bad. My parents were good people Like and I can't. They can't play with me. Yeah, that was a culture we lived in.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Yeah, Isn't that crazy? It is, it is crazy and I still, I still see it happening today. Maybe not quite, I mean I haven't seen that such an extreme example, but I noticed that people will kind of quietly move out of away from you simply because of a religious change, which is sad. Yes, 100%.

Speaker 2: 19:13

It happens.

Speaker 1: 19:14

So I think I just grew up feeling very much like I just never felt good enough for my parents, for God, for my friends, and I could never understand or like as a young kid I couldn't pinpoint why I was unhappy and I wasn't like miserable and if I think people would probably look back and be like, oh yeah, she was super happy and I and I was fine, but I just generally had a sense of discomfort, unease and like I'm missing something and I kept trying to hold on to this religion that I thought would do it. I kept trying to hold on to being what my parents wanted to be, thinking it would do it, but I just couldn't win. Like I ended up having actual boyfriends in high school later and when I was a little older um, and I can never win with them. I remember I had my senior year boyfriend. He was like so convinced that I was brainwashed and at time I mean I don't feel like I was like I.

Speaker 1: 20:06

There's a lot of aspects of that religion that I really felt at the moment served me and I loved and I did feel like a lot of comfort in. But I think he could see the hold it had on me and the choked feeling I had, and that's probably what he was saying. I don't think it like he wasn't anti-religion or anything, but I think what he meant was this is not you and you're holding today's ideals, that you're like imprisoned by um. I think I just realized that as I'm speaking this out loud that's all about.

Speaker 1: 20:37

That's what he actually meant was I think he could sense the internal conflict in me all the time. I really loved him and we had wanted to maybe have a future together. He was my senior boyfriend and, like I, even kept that relationship relationship going a little bit when we went to college. And I remember coming home and my freshman year from BYU and he'd gone to school in Rochester, new York, at U of R, and we had this like horrible tear filled conversation where I was like I cannot ever one day marry you because you're not my life's trajectory. You're out of the church and I'm supposed to. I want someone who's in the church and this isn't going to work. We don't see things the right way. I just had this conversation yesterday with my aunt I.

Speaker 2: 21:18

there was boys all the time that I was like, well, you didn't go on a mission so I can't date you. Oh, immediately dismissed I cannot believe that I was so conditioned to think that that was okay. Yeah, you are. I mean, I was conditioned that I was going to marry a return missionary.

Speaker 1: 21:33

He had to have all these boxes checked.

Speaker 2: 21:34

You know like and you know.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Yes, I think that's it. It's the conditioning. I mean, I have plenty of friends who they are genuinely very happy and they don't feel the need to shove it down other people's throats.

Speaker 1: 21:46

And that, to me, is always the mark of like do you really believe what you're doing and are you good with it? Are you doing it from pure intentions? If you can do all of that and not at all be triggered by me living differently and you're just so at peace with what you're doing, like that to me is a mark of okay, you are actively choosing this and that's what calls to you, of okay, you are actively choosing this and that's what calls to you, and I love that. It's the ones who get so triggered by just the fact that you don't believe in the same religion as them that I'm like oh, you're not settled inside yourself with what you actually believe in or doing, because if you were, you just it wouldn't matter what I did or believed. But there's a mix right of people and I was very much the person who was triggered by other people living differently and very much in my household, the view of people who weren't active in the church, the view of people who were like, even in a mixed faith marriage, or whose parents had been divorced or who were active in the church and had gone through a divorce, like that was all. No, that was all failure, that was all weakness, that was all. You're not faithful enough. Something's wrong with you, yeah, and so that's how they make you feel yes, and that, particularly, was the message in my family.

Speaker 1: 22:56

The stigma around divorce was insane, and I remember being a sophomore in college no freshman in college and dating, meeting a guy and casually dating him, and my mom was having a heart attack because his parents had been divorced.

Speaker 1: 23:12

I remember her calling me up a few times to warn me out of it and express her concerns over this, and I remember a conversation between my older sister and my mom and me talking about the dangers of dating someone whose parents had been divorced, because it was like a disease you would catch. Well, if my parents got divorced, it means I'm okay and someday I could get divorced, and that was seen as like the worst thing ever, and and so that was my message was like we keep appearance of happiness at all costs and divorce is never an option. I was just from a young age. I learned not to listen to my body. Any of the messaging that we just talked about that I got. My body would say no, right, it was my gut, would be like it would seize up right, it'd feel a little uncomfortable you there'd be tension somewhere.

Speaker 1: 23:59

And I didn't even know that at the time. But I'm recognizing now like that's why I was unhappy, that's why I felt a constant dis-ease or unease, that's why I felt a constant like something's missing. So there's two parts to church, right, there's like the doctrinal teachings and then there's the culture. I think everyone in the church could probably agree that the culture is lacking right Like even wonderful people who are entrenched in it, they'll say, yeah, that there's problems there.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Um, doctrinally, lots of people love the doctrine and I think there's beautiful parts of it. For me, the just the concept of you're broken the way you are and you must be fixed and do things to be fixed. That never sat well with me. It didn't inspire like love, it didn't inspire worthiness, it didn't inspire worth in me and it was. I always felt like, okay, so if I'm not good enough the way I am, here's my checklist of things I need to do and I just could never do them good enough and feel right and I hit like the standards. Fine, I really hit like the standards. Fine, I really did dress quote, modestly.

Speaker 1: 25:02

I felt like an outsider and uncomfortable as a teenager, looking so different from all my peers who were wearing shorts and tank tops and I had to wear pants and capris and t-shirts, even when it's 95 degrees outside, and I, you know, wasn't sleeping with my boyfriend and I wasn't drinking and I did. I never even wanted to drink or do drugs, but I was very much the one who wasn't doing that. Um, but for me it was like simple things like you should be very spiritual and they would talk all the time about how you need to pray, pray, pray and read your scriptures and go to the temple. And so I would pray, I'd try to, and I would read the scriptures. I would try to, and none of that was doing it for me because I just didn't feel spiritual, I wasn't feeling connection, I would just feel bored. And especially scripture reading and I'm a reader, I love reading and I could never get into it because it didn't speak to me. Prayer same thing.

Speaker 1: 25:54

I remember I went to bed every night feeling guilty for the entire four years of my high school existence because I was in early morning seminary, which I hated going to and they would talk so much like it was just so drilled into me that I needed to be the spiritual person and I just couldn't get there because when I would try and pray, there was no connection for me because I was picturing what did not work for me. It wasn't my truth and I didn't know that at the time, but the view of a patriarchal God, the father. You know this very traditional Christian viewpoint of divinity with no female in there anywhere and and God being a male outside of me that I had to earn approval from, and I already did not earn approval from my earthly father it it. I could not.

Speaker 1: 26:41

There was something missing right. There was a huge gap, and so I always felt like I'm not good enough, I'm never going to get there and these things that I'm supposed to be doing to make me good enough, they don't work for me, something's broken, and I couldn't listen to my gut body telling me that's not the way for you, that's not your path, that's not your truth, advice and answers to things, my counsel. I always had to go outside of myself to find that I had to get answers from my dad. He knew best for me, he knew where I should go to school, he knew what I should study, he knew that I was going to be happiest being a stay at home mom and that's all that fit the boxes.

Speaker 1: 27:17

Same with my mom too. That was her viewpoint too. And then you know, anytime you would quote, mess up, you had to go like clear it with a male leader in your church, or even if you wanted to go to the temple with the other youth, you had to go make sure that this male leader thought you were good enough to go I need someone else's approval.

Speaker 2: 27:37

Yes, someone else is going to judge me. I need to make sure that I look perfect and fake for everyone to fit all these boxes.

Speaker 1: 27:43

They want me to be in it doesn't foster a sense of self and a sense of trust in yourself. So I had it on all levels. I had it in my immediate family, from my parents. I had it in my outward culture from church leaders, and then I even had it with the most damaging, honestly, I feel like to me was just my view of God. I had it from that. He was an outside source and it was a he and I had to go searching, somehow, trying to connect with him and gain his approval and gain his advice, like the answer was always pray about it and I would be. I remember being like, okay, I said a prayer and I'm not feeling anything I don't know. So either my body and mind doesn't work, or I'm not worthy for him to give me answers, or he doesn't care enough to tell me and I'm just kind of on my own. And now, as a 38 year old, I'm like I didn't have to go anywhere. I could have sat there and listen to my own body and listened to my own instincts and have come up with my own answers, if I'd ever been encouraged or taught or modeled how to do something like that.

Speaker 1: 28:44

That concept of doubt, your doubts yeah, that is very common. I think the intention behind it really is of out of love and protection, because they don't know any better. But for me, now I look at it and I think what they're really telling me is doubt what your body is telling you, doubt what doesn't feel right to you and ignore that and push it away and listen to someone else, and that goes very much against what I needed and what was going to be right for me. So doubt my doubts. My doubts would manifest, as they do in everyone tension somewhere, a little bit of unease in your gut and your stomach, maybe tightness in your neck and or just an initial right. And so if you're being told to ignore any of that, you're creating such a huge disconnect from, like, our greatest gift, which are our bodies, their connection between our soul, like that's why we came here. We have bodies here, like we're supposed to use them and love them and cherish them and treat them, and we don't.

Speaker 1: 29:42

And so here I am as an adult and I felt my whole life like, do I have a voice? I don't know, because I wouldn't even know what it says, because I've been told my whole life what it's supposed to say and the times I have had a voice and I've tried to speak up and I have expressed altering opinions or ask questions like why is it wrong for me to have a boyfriend? Why is it wrong for my shoulders to show? Why won't God answer my prayers? I'm not heard. And so so, one it's do I have a voice? Two, it's well, if I have one, it doesn't matter. So, one it's do I have a voice? Two, it's well, if I have one, it doesn't matter. And three, you shouldn't listen to it.

Speaker 1: 30:23

Right, it's my life's mission, I think, to help people, and mostly myself, because we teach what we need to really get to a point where they can, one, figure out what they want and need to learn to trust it and sense what it feels like in their body. And then, three, have the courage to express it. Because those three facets are, they're so interconnected. And I got to a point and I think a lot of people get to a point where they figure out one and two, they finally figure out what they actually think and what feels right to them. They, they can feel it in their bodies and they get on board and they're confident in it. But it's the three, it's the courage to express and it's the courage to own it. It's the courage to buck against the system and be very confident and self-assured in that that we get really lost in the weeds on, because it's so scary to step outside our comfort zone and own whatever our truth may be. Does that resonate with you? Yes, 100%. So that's been my experience.

Speaker 1: 31:22

So I really want to, like I love interviewing people who have been through really hard things, and people who have been through like what we would consider maybe not so hard things, but how they found themselves through that and how they were able to connect to their inner divinity and really look inward for peace and detach from external sources, even even detaching from like partners, and I don't even mean on a physical level, like you don't have to get divorced, but I just mean letting go of the need for approval from them.

Speaker 1: 31:50

I look at my marriage and the dynamic changes that have happened in us as I've totally stepped into my power and I leaving the church and disassociating from that faith was a part of my journey, but it's actually not the reason why things changed. It's because I changed and I let go of what that culture and religion had created in me. That wasn't serving me. And so I've noticed that the more I don't need my husband which sounds crazy, but the more I don't need my husband which sounds crazy, but the more I don't need him the more in love with him I am, and the more in love with me he is because that codependency behavior is gone and suddenly I'm so filled with self-love that people around me like that's all I see in them is what I see in myself.

Speaker 1: 32:35

And so any of his faults which he has plenty, and I do too but they don't register Like we've been married for almost seven I think it's seven or eight years in October and we've had our ups and downs and certainly some hard points we've been through. But in general, certainly now that I'm at this point in my life and really focusing on myself and stop trying to, like, change him, we're such a rock because all I see in him is a reflection of how I see myself and it's been a journey of self-love for me. And I'm finally to this point now where I think my default mode is self-love, and I wouldn't say it was like that before. I think my default mode was like complacency or just kind of enough, but it wasn't overflowing and it wasn't full. It was like a C C average. Yeah Right, I'm passing, but I could do better, yeah, um. And now I'm like I think I'm at an A plus. I really do Like I'm pretty good. So, yes, that's why I wanted to start it, or why it's mean something to me.

Speaker 1: 33:34

Friends, if you are liking what you're listening to, please help a girl out and leave a review. Wherever it is that you listen to your podcast, it would mean the world to me and it's free and should only take a few minutes of your time. I also would love to have feedback If there are questions you have for me or topics you want me to cover, or details you want from my personal life that I'm not sharing just yet, cause I probably will. But if you want more, please email me, comment on my Instagram, dm me on Instagram or Facebook, text me. I'd love to hear from you and I would love to address anything you want me to. The answer to starting podcast is actually a really cool story.

Speaker 1: 34:10

I got to this point in life where once I kind of figured all this out about myself, I was like I need to do something different. I can't be home all day anymore. I can't be a full-time child care taker. So I have six kids Three of them are my stepkids and they're not with us all the time. And then I have two of my own kids from my first marriage, and, and, and they're all older Like they range from the age nine to 21 of all the five original kids, and then Pat and I have a three-year-old together now, after my divorce, I was working full-time as an English teacher and I lived apart.

Speaker 1: 34:41

I lived in Texas and Pat was stuck in Utah. We were kind of both stuck in our separate ways because of our divorce settlements and our kids' situations. We didn't want to take them away from their other parent. So we got married and I lived in Texas and he lived here, and we did that for the first three and a half years of our marriage and lived apart like that.

Speaker 1: 34:59

And so while I was married and we were in this amazing relationship, I still had so much independence because I was my own boss and I had my own place and I had my own money and I was pretty much a single parent right. And then I had my own money and I was pretty much a single parent right. And then I had it in my head, after I knew we were supposed to have a baby, that if I was going to have a baby, I needed to be able to stay home with it, and that was a very high demand that I put on Pat. What I was basically saying to him was God is telling me that we're supposed to have a baby and I need you to make this amount of money so that I can stay home and raise it no pressure, no pressure um, and Pat rose to the challenge because he's a badass and we made life-changing strides with each other and started focusing and delving into the law of attraction and putting our focus on what we wanted to create for ourselves.

Speaker 1: 35:51

And we did make insane strides in our lives and we ended up being able to do all the things I said I wanted. We I had Wyatt, my toddler, right before I was able to move back to Utah. We finally got to move in together. We bought this house we love in this beautiful neighborhood we love, and I was able to quit teaching and I stayed home and Pat had this we love and I was able to quit teaching and I stayed home and Pat had this awesome job and I was like so miserable. I was miserable and I was home all the all day now with a baby and I was struggling with body image issues because I had been like 30 ish pounds over where I was comfortable with for all my 20s and then I'd finally, when I met Pat, was able to. I just like slimmed, I dropped it all because he made me feel so good about myself and suddenly I was like in love with my body, which I had never been for a really long time. And then I was really afraid that if I got pregnant again I was gonna gain it all back and it would be another big thing for me. And I did. I gained 80 pounds with Wyatt and I was back up at the highest I'd ever been. And then I had to go through all of that and like figure out how I was gonna work through all those body image issues.

Speaker 1: 37:06

And it hit me really hard because I still realized that so much of my self-worth was tied up in what I looked like and it created a lot of wedge between Pat and I because I, like he, loved me, no matter what he had.

Speaker 1: 37:16

Actually he'd fallen in love with me back in the days when I was very, very big and very pregnant, Like even like that's a long story, but we met when we were both previously married and, like he, he's like I just thought you were pretty even from the get-go. There was nothing inappropriate, but I thought you were beautiful nine months pregnant with your second child, um, but I it was me. I hated myself. I hated my weight, I hated my stretch marks, I hated the extra skin I had everywhere. I hated and this was all right in the time where I was going through my faith crisis and dealing with moving in together and owning up to what I really felt about my life, and I really bucked against Pat like a lot and he really internalized that and felt like gosh, I'm bending over backwards, trying to do everything you said you wanted of me and it's not good enough and it creates a lot of tension in our marriage and some really hard times.

Speaker 1: 38:09

And it wasn't until I finally realized, after I'd been through my faith stuff and kind of worked all that out and came to a peaceful settlement on that, that I was like I think I think this stay at home mom thing that I demanded of you is not serving me. I love my children. I want to be there for them. It is important to me that I have time and freedom and flexibility to be at all the things, to be home when they're sick, to take them wherever they need to be taken. I want to do it all but I have to do something outside of that for me or I'm gonna I'm gonna lose myself again and I cannot do that.

Speaker 2: 38:42

I think we need a purpose. Yes, I always thought I just want to be a stay-at-home mom always. And I had to work the first year of my oldest son's life and I hated every second of it. I was like I'm missing out on his first snowstorm and his first you know, like all these things, and I finally got to quit my job. I was so excited and that was probably like the worst two months of my life.

Speaker 2: 39:01

I had a one-year-old and I had no purpose because, yes, being a mother is purposeful, but there's no reward, no one tells you thank you, no one appreciates you, no one. You know like it is hard, demanding work and, yes, I want to be there for my children, but I needed something that was angie. Yes, and I did find like a little part-time job that I had to get dressed up for once a week and it changed everything and I discovered then I'm not just a stay-at-home mom, I am a mother, but I have to have a purpose outside of here. Yes, I needed a role and it's okay.

Speaker 1: 39:35

That was just me and didn't define me as mother. Yes, which is a great role, but it's a role. Yes, it's not who I am.

Speaker 2: 39:42

Yeah, right, yeah. And to deal with the guilt of wanting that, because society here tells us you shouldn't want more than that it's the greatest thing you'll ever do is be a mother. Yes, and it is important, but I still needed to be Angie.

Speaker 1: 39:58

And especially like I felt like I never even got to be Marin in the first place because my life's plan laid out for me was to just go get some kind of degree that would be practical, so that if something happened to my husband, I could support my family. Yeah, cause that's how we were trained. Yes, my father's a really incredible attorney and I would have been an incredible attorney. I don't want to do that, but I really would have been an amazing attorney and, like my, skillset.

Speaker 1: 40:25

I have a lot of things in common with my dad and I. I could have done a really good job with that. You know what? What he would consider quote a real career or a high paying career. Nothing like that was ever presented to me as possible or encouraged because that you couldn't do that and have a family as a woman, yeah. And so I got married to my first husband when I was 19, and that was a shit show.

Speaker 1: 40:51

I just stepped into this, this role, and I went from your dad controlling you to a husband?

Speaker 1: 40:56

Yes, and thankfully that husband did not control me. Um, he was actually very opposite from my dad in a lot of ways, interestingly enough, um. But you know, I was at a very low place vibrationally when I met him and not feeling good about myself, and I attracted my match right Another person who did not feel very good about himself, and so we had a pretty mellow, drama-free marriage and it was the most disconnected, unromantic, unpassionate, unclose, unintimate, unvulnerable, un-anything. It was just the expected robotic marriage, yes, and then it was like finish school, and then it was have a baby, and I was fine, but I wasn't happy and I put a lot of my emphasis in being the perfect wife and being the perfect patriarchal, church daughter, and then being a good mom.

Speaker 1: 41:57

I never did anything that really felt like it was for me because no one ever asked well, maren, what do you want? It was well, what do you want to do? Depending on what your husband's doing? My opportunities revolved around other things or people. It was my husband's schooling, his job, the church, having children. What would you do if you had no one else to answer to and money wasn't an object and time was like what would you just do if you had total freedom and I couldn't even come up with anything, because no one ever asked me that Like I just no, no, that's not allowed.

Speaker 2: 42:25

I just do what everyone tells me to do.

Speaker 1: 42:27

Yes, and so now, fast forwarding, being a stay at home mom again for the second time and realizing that I had so much to work through and that I needed more. I really was struggling, and in the meantime I'd really stepped into this very spiritual world and realized that I'm actually maybe super insanely spiritual. I just had not had the tools and been taught the right way for me, and so once I detached from my old Christian traditional view of divinity, and found it in myself, I realized, wow, I have all the answers right inside my body.

Speaker 1: 43:05

I just have been taught not to trust myself and I'm having a hard time even finding myself in there. But once I worked on that, I met.

Speaker 1: 43:14

I mean I've done a lot of things. I've met a lot of people. I've read a million books, I've listened to a million podcasts. I do tons of meditating and all sorts of meditations and all sorts of breath work and I love going and learning about the energy healing modalities and talking to people and learning about shamans and learning about the energy healing modalities and talking to people and learning about shamans and learning about hypnosis and learning about Reiki. There's so many like. I've just touched the tip of the iceberg of what this world has to offer you.

Speaker 2: 43:40

You mean you looked outside the culture? I did, I look when.

Speaker 1: 43:43

What's funny is that I actually found these things within the culture. I had people who in my culture and church, who are the ones who introduced me to these concepts, and then they lit a fire underneath me and I was like this is my truth, this is where I feel God, this is, this is it, and it's not in organized religion.

Speaker 1: 44:03

For me, it's in nature and it's in my body and it's in love and energy and yes, learning about that and and finally giving myself the responsibility and the freedom to be my own hero and to make my own life for me. Even my husband can't do it for me, right? No one can not my parents, not my spouse, not my kids. Has to be me, and that's scary and it's also so liberating and so powerful once you realize that and then have the courage to like even try stepping into it. Had suggested a book called Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, and it's about his experience as a hypnotherapist and learning about people who are like claiming or sharing experiences where they've lived past lives and so I read this.

Speaker 1: 45:04

Yeah, it's very interesting. I actually didn't even finish the book. I think I read like half of it and I was kind of like I don't know, like there was a lot of stuff in there that I was like I don't know what I think about that. Not that I think it's true or not, but more just like something about that experience this person had doesn't sit right or doesn't feel good to me. Um, but just the concept at all of past life regression hypnosis and using it as a modality to heal and as therapy was very interesting to me. I was struggling with some health issues and I knew that my body was like speaking out to me and trying to tell me to make changes in my life and I knew I really felt like it was saying okay, you have to make a shift, you have to do something, because you cannot be stagnant mentally anymore and sit here and just be bored and want something more. You have to go find it Like no more sitting around mentally, like I'm a very active person.

Speaker 1: 45:59

But like you can only organize your house so many times and you can only go to TJ Maxx so many times, you can only take a walk so many times or go to the park so many times, I felt very inspired that I wanted to try this hypnosis thing like honestly, for fun and and as a way to maybe find some answers and curiosity yes, it was a lot of curiosity, but the more I read about it I realized like people use this as a therapeutic technique because there's power in learning about what you could have been going through in other lifetimes you've lived.

Speaker 1: 46:30

They. They talk a lot about like even physical healing people who've struggled with shoulder pain for 20 years. No matter what they do, they'll do a hypnosis session and and experience a life they've lived where they were injured in that shoulder and it's like weird energy trauma stored somewhere in our bodies and our souls that manifest in our DNA. That's just one tiny example. You should read this book and or even just like Google past life regression, hypnosis therapy and see what comes up, and a lot of stories are very, very powerful and very interesting and neat. So I found a girl online.

Speaker 1: 47:05

I Googled a bunch of like hypnotherapy and there's actually a ton of places around here that do it, like lots of spas and doctor's offices and therapists who will specialize in hypnotherapy, um, and none of them felt right to me.

Speaker 1: 47:19

And then I came back the second day and googled again and finally this girl popped up. She has an office in oram and she was not salesy at all and she shared her story on her website about how she even got into it and her fear that no one would take her seriously, especially living in utah, that people would think she was sacrilegious or that she would be shamed, basically for it. And I was like, hmm, something about you feels good, I'm gonna try it. So I like put my deposit in and she called me and we talked for 15 minutes and after that phone call she asked me a bunch of questions about my life, why I was interested in doing it, it what I was hoping to get out of it. And I hung up and felt like, oh, this is going to be good, I'm going to try it. So I drove there on a Saturday, spent six hours with her in her office yeah, it's intense.

Speaker 1: 48:01

You're supposed to come with a list of questions prepared that you want to ask your higher self. So hypnotherapy, it's not what people think of, it's not stage hypnosis. You're not unaware of anything, no one's controlling you. Basically, she facilitates and puts you in a very deep, meditative, relaxing state and that allows your conscious mind to like move to the side a little bit and just kind of sit by so that your subconscious and higher self can come forth. We have what our conscious mind is telling us, and then we have what our body is telling us, and then we have the fear and thoughts come in. So we are constantly, always living with our higher self and our conscious mind. Our conscious mind really is kind of the ego, trying to keep us safe and trying to limit us. So I'm not going to be like put under right.

Speaker 1: 48:46

No one's going to be there telling me to move my arm a certain way yeah the first thing she does, though, is she gives me a piece of paper and a pendulum, and the paper has, like a clock, numbers written on it, and she says okay, hold the pendulum very still, don't move your arms at all, and hold it above the clock, and now, with your mind, tell it to move side to side. I'm like, okay, I'm holding very still, and it just kind of gently moves from three to six, and she's like okay, now try. Or three to nine. She's like, okay, now try the other way, 12 to 6. But again, don't move your body, just with your mind, don't force it, just like let it go. So I'm do that, and it barely moves a little bit.

Speaker 1: 49:16

And then she like takes, and she goes, hmm, and I'm like what does that mean? What does that mean? She's like it tells me that your subconscious is willing, but there's resistance there, and I was like, okay, that sounds about right. I've had a hard time getting into meditating and letting, letting go of my external world. So she puts me in a meditative state. We go through, I mean, hours of stuff. She writes, take notes like, writes down who are the people in my life, because they will show up in your experiences and it's her job as a facilitator to like kind of help. Ask clarifying questions and guide you through this.

Speaker 1: 49:51

I experienced like four or five different quote lives. It was really murky for me. So if you read this book, people are like experiencing these things as if they're in the moment and it's happening to them right now and my experience was very much like I'm just getting kind of like blurry, fuzzy, occasional images, but I'm just going with the words that are popping into my head and so I'm telling these stories. I think like at one point my first experience I'm like a Native American girl who had been adopted by a white family and at one point I was like a laundress, a big, heavy laundress, married to a tiny little abusive, redheaded man, and I was amazing. I'd like supported our family and had all these children and I was a boss babe, like way back when like ain't like not current times at all.

Speaker 1: 50:35

I'm one time I was a a male. I was like a piece of shit, like I was not cool. I think I was in prison for doing something. I have to go back and look at all my notes. I was starving and I'd stolen a bunch of things and I'd like I was just like a kind of a pathetic creature and that is fascinating that you experienced that you were both sexist male and female?

Speaker 1: 50:57

yeah, because I feel so feminine like I can't wrap my head around that, but I'm sure yeah, let me touch on that in a minute because I have like reasons why I think I did experience that. But, um, at one point I was like this beautiful French aristocrat and I was like sending my military lover. We were like a banquet and I was sending him off to war and he ended up dying in that war, not coming back. And there was a few more. Now I can't really remember them. But I got through all these experiences and then at the end the facilitator, while you're still in this hypno state, asked you okay, why did you experience this particular one? And it was so crazy how my subconscious immediately had an answer for it, like I didn't even have to think it, just the words just came out of my mouth and I was like, oh, I was a man a few times and every time I was a man I was a shit show, I was not a good man, I was like pathetic or not a nice person or like something was really wrong. I was not proud of those lives. Whether or not any of those things are real, whether or not I actually lived those lives, none of that actually even matters to me, because I don't know and I don't even care, because the lessons I learned from having those experiences are super powerful and I really felt like my subconscious was telling me you are an amazing woman. Own being a woman, love being a woman, stop wishing you were a man, stop hating your woman parts, stop hating this feminine part of you.

Speaker 1: 52:29

I think I felt my whole life like I hate being a girl. I hate having my period. I hate that men at the same time hate and love my body. I hate that my body is supposed to be beautiful and it's stretched out from having children. I hate that because I'm a woman, I don't get to do all these things. I hate being a woman. I'm going to be erased in the eternities. I hate being a woman. My only job is to bear children and have and please sexually all these men.

Speaker 1: 52:52

God, like I, I had all these stories around what being a woman was and I really resented it for so long and I think my subconscious was saying you being a woman is amazing. Look at all these things you've done as a woman. Because my experiences as a female in these past lives I lived. I was so amazing in all of them and I was very happy and very fulfilled in those lives and my experiences as being a male. I was pathetic, like I did not do any of these things that I thought men were supposed to be and do. So that answer came very clearly to me.

Speaker 1: 53:25

Another big part of it was like teaching me to trust men and to to stop being so distrustful. Be, I had a lot of trauma from my first marriage and some things that happened there, and then also just not trusting God, not trusting my dad, not trusting them, and not because they had done anything to me, but more just like not trusting them to see me and value me the way I knew I needed to be seen and valued, if that makes sense, and so like having that experience. As the little native American girl, I had a little brother and I had these parents and I was like living in a white community and the facilitator kept asking, like, did they? Like? I think she kept thinking it was a really terrible thing that I'd been like taken from my tribe and I remember being like no, I love my life.

Speaker 1: 54:07

No, I really am a very attached to this little brother. I love him and I love these parents I have and I'm really happy and it was again. I have no idea if that's real or not, but the subconscious messaging for me was men are good and people are good, and this little brother that you adored, he was your bestie. And then, when I was the French girl the aristocrat that one I saw very clearly, actually, I was like dressed, it was girl, the aristocrat, that one I saw very clearly actually I was like dressed, it was like um marie, what's her name antoinette.

Speaker 1: 54:36

Thank you, marie antoinette. It was like that kind of french aristocratic times and I was like in this the gowns, we were at a military banquet and it was like feasting. I was in some amazing house, castle, chateau, whatever it was, and I was so in love with this french military man and he was like a really good guy. I don't know how I knew that, I just knew he was like genuine and pure and loved me and I was like so heartbroken when he left and like I had all this emotional feeling around all of these experiences and the messaging for me was men are good. It's not just Pat who's good, like he's amazing, but men in general are actually really great people Like it's okay.

Speaker 1: 55:13

And then I had my list of prepared questions and two of the questions on there I can't even remember. The other ones were about what am I going to do for a career that's going to give me financial stability and purpose? And I said them. I like phrased them kind of differently. One maybe was more focused on finances and one was more focused on purpose, but they're the same question and so when we came to that, she asked me the question and I'm sitting there with my eyes closed in this like meditative state, and the first thing that pops into my mind is sing and is very strong and I sat there for a minute and my conscious mind is going sing and my subconscious mind says again sing.

Speaker 1: 55:48

And is like very emphatic and I'm going what the hell like sing and I start down this rabbit hole of like this makes absolutely no sense. I don't want to be a pop star. I'm 37 years old, like I'm a musician and I like to sing. But it did not feel right. Like the image I had in my head was go be a singer and somehow be a musician and that's gonna bring all this stuff for you. I'm like this doesn't make any sense. I don't want to do that anyways. But it's also like it's not even in my reality right now. It just felt so wrong but I said it. I'm like sing. And I said it with like a question mark at the end of the facilitator speech you go sing.

Speaker 1: 56:24

And I was like, yeah, sing, I must mean share my music, because I've written a lot of pieces, but a lot of them are religious pieces from kind of a previous time in my life and I just it felt so strange. I was like is my subconscious trying to tell me to like pull out all my old music and get it ready to publish and trying to have other people perform it, because it's a lot of like choir pieces and things like that. So when the second time came around and she asked me basically the same question what can you do that's going to give you financial independence and a lot of joy and purpose in your life? It was again. It was seeing. It came to me and so I just said, okay, I guess it's my music. And she's like, okay, yeah, your music. And I came home that night and I was like what? I meditated on that concept and that answer for so long and still was feeling so flat and so stuck. I got to the point I was like it must mean that I'm supposed to have this music published. So I, like one night, spent some time and pulled out my computer and looked through all my old stuff and started tweaking and editing and researching and I finally, after a few hours, was like this is sucking the joy out of me, cannot possibly be the answer. It feels so wrong, so redundant, I'm unhappy, I'm unsatisfied, I don't want to do this. So I let it go. I just let it go and I was like the answer I guess will come to me at some point, but it's certainly not this. I don't know what the what God is trying to tell me.

Speaker 1: 57:48

So a few months earlier I'd been in a business meeting with a guy who I was. He was a potential ghostwriting client of mine and he was a business coach and a financial advisor and we were. He was giving me some feedback on the Napa table business that I owned with my sister and he suggested doing a podcast and I was like, oh really. And he was like, yes, podcasting is the thing, especially right now. We're still on the brink of it becoming a big, big thing. And people who podcast like it's so easy to do, it's basically free to do and you will gain customers and exposure. And he went through all these reasons why and I at the time I completely dismissed it because with the Napa Table business we we can barely, like keep our heads above water with all the other stuff we're doing. And I knew that my sister wouldn't really want to do it and I didn't. It wasn't, it didn't feel totally right because I love cheese and I love the company, but it's not my baby, it's her baby and I didn't want to podcast about it. So I let that go, but it it kept coming up to me.

Speaker 1: 58:49

After this hypnosis experience it like would flip into my mind that the remembering that meeting with that guy and then just the mention of a podcast. And a few days after that hypnosis experience, I was sitting on my couch, wyatt was napping and I was reading a book called you Can Heal your Life by Louise Hay. She's a pioneer in the in, like the energy world of, and connecting it to your body, and so I was reading in there about digestion and stomach issues, which is what I'd been struggling with health-wise, and she talked about how whatever is happening physically in your body if it's slow digestion or obstruction in your bowels or constipation or whatever it is the energetic symptom or cause is that there's changes you need to make in your life and you're not doing them, you're not willing to make the shift, and so what's happening is you're basically backing up your system and not moving all the stuff out of your life and stepping into your new reality. And I had this light bulb moment where I literally like put my kindle down and jumped up from my couch and I was like I'm supposed to start a podcast. That's what I'm supposed to do. It doesn't mean sing like being a musician.

Speaker 1: 59:55

What it's actually telling me is Marin, sing out loud, share your voice, stop holding anything you've been thinking and feeling and experience, and stop feeling suffocating, stop choking yourself, stop being the girl in the corner who you bow down to make other people comfortable with. Stop being the girl in the corner who you bow down to make other people comfortable with, just sing out loud. It was like God just came down and like held me by the face and said sing out loud, man. Like it was so clear to me that that was the answer and I was like I'm supposed to start a podcast because that's the platform for me. I'm not forcing anyone to listen. I'm not going up to friends who I know don't agree with me and telling them what I think it's like. I'm just going to share and the right people will come and find it and listen and it'll be so fun and I'll get to talk to all these people and it just it like really latched on and that's how I decided that podcasting was going to be my thing.

Speaker 1: 1:00:43

And so now we're kind of full circle, because I started out this episode by saying people have businesses and then they start, and I'm the total opposite. This, to me, has been the biggest act of faith and surrender that I think I've actually ever done, because the answer for me is that this is going to be my thing. This is going to be my business. This is going to be what gives me purpose and joy and it's already giving me a lot of purpose and joy and I'm just going and trusting the gut feeling that this will turn into something for me, whatever that is. But I've done so much work and I'm in like a podcasting course with a guru I love and follow and I'm part of a community of more spiritually minded entrepreneurs who are all kind of doing the same thing and I'm so high on the energy of being around them and really letting go of the attachment to external sources. So, for me now I'm so high on the energy of being around them and really letting go of the attachment to external sources. So for me, now I'm letting go of the attachment of expectation of income and letting go of the attachment of expectation of followers on Instagram. I am up to 125.

Speaker 1: 1:01:45

Right, the vanity metrics, like it's been drilled into my head through these courses in this club, like you have to stop attaching to those things. You to do what feels easy, what feels fun, what lights you up, what makes you feel uplifted, and everything will fall into place if you're willing to like, listen to your body, trust your gut and then take inspired action. So that's what I'm doing. That is the purpose of this podcast and as I've started it, I think I've now interviewed 10 people and every time I end a call, the first thing I do is call my husband or run and talk to him if he's here, and I unload on him how excited I am and all the things I just learned about these people and their stories and how deep and enriching the conversation was. And I'm like on fire because it is so uplifting and it has brought so much joy into my life.

Speaker 1: 1:02:36

And I love connecting with people, I love hearing their stories, I love feeling like somehow they've made a difference in my life or I've made a difference in their life, and just the conversation and connection. So whether or not this turns into a big profitable business has yet to be seen, but I decided that it just doesn't matter because that's actually not why I even started it. Like the concept of business and money, I'm not really a business woman and so that feels very overwhelming to me, but I'm having so much fun interviewing and having so much fun getting my branding and having so much fun letting the pressure off of myself and just stepping into a passion that I'm sure something will come of it. Whether it's coaching, or programs I run, or events I hold, or working with people one-on-one, I just it all sounds so fun.

Speaker 2: 1:03:25

I know and I'm excited for you and the people listening can't hear this, but Maren's emotion she's very passionate about it. I can see it on her face, I can see it in her body language, so I'm excited for you.

Speaker 1: 1:03:40

Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and the show at all, please, please, please, help a girl out and leave a review. Wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it's free to do. It should only take a few minutes of your time. Wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it's free to do. It should only take a few minutes of your time, but it would mean the world to me. Thank you so much for your support, and always I love to hear from listeners. I love it. Please, if you have questions, if you have feedback, if there's any topics you want me to address, any juicy details you want me to spill about my life that I'm not covering yet, please email me, dm me on Instagram, on Facebook, text me, find me, let me know. I will love to hear feedback and I will actually engage with you, because that is what I'm all about.