Inner Rebel

Jess & Melissa - Navigating the Mess: Lessons in Fear, Vulnerability, and Conscious Growth

Melissa Bauknight & Jessica Rose Season 1 Episode 7

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Jess and Melissa are back! In this intimate episode, they offer a glimpse into their lives and creative journeys, delve into the complexities of fear as both a teacher and a catalyst for freedom, and share insights on "becoming the fire" – transforming obstacles into opportunities for growth and liberation.

Throughout the conversation, they discuss reconnecting with one's purpose, detaching from external markers of success, and the importance of authenticity and vulnerability in relationships and leadership. They also address the challenges of setting boundaries, navigating deep conditioning,  and breaking free from people-pleasing tendencies.  Join our hosts as they navigate the intricate dance of building a conscious partnership and adjusting unconscious patterns to align with core values and their most authentic selves.

Topics Discussed:

• Navigating the complexities of pursuing dreams
• Overcoming fears and personal growth
• Integrating spirituality and embodying the highest expression of self
• Fear as a teacher and catalyst for growth and liberation
• Trusting intuition and listening for the "yes" to move forward
• The power of authentic leadership and vulnerability
• The need for "proof" and external validation
• Establishing boundaries and structures for a collaborative podcast
• Navigating deep conditioning and setting boundaries
• Creating conscious partnership in business and course-correcting unconscious patterns to build a strong foundation

If you loved today’s episode, please share your favorite takeaways by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram! We also have a free monthly community call on the first Wednesday of every month, join here

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Follow Inner Rebel Podcast: @innerrebelpodcast
Follow Melissa: @therippleconnection
Follow Jessica: @bydesignwithjess
Visit the Inner Rebel website
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If you loved today’s episode, please leave a review and share your favorite takeaways by screenshotting this episode and tagging us on Instagram! We also have a free monthly community call on the first Wednesday of every month, join here!

CONNECT WITH INNER REBEL

Follow Inner Rebel Podcast: @innerrebelpodcast
Follow Melissa: @therippleconnection
Follow Jessica: @bydesignwithjess
Visit the Inner Rebel website
Check out The Nova Community and become a founding member https://thenovalution.com/

Hello, Jessica.

Hello, Melissa. Hi.

Welcome, Rebels. We are back. This is Jessica and Melissa. And today we are gonna talk about our shit. We sure are. We have released six episodes. As of today, there's been a lot that's been happening behind the scenes in our own individual lives and businesses as well as in partnership. And so we have been really feeling a calling to bring our voices back on here.

In the spirit of the entire reason we're doing this podcast to show the behind the scenes of the mess.

And who are we to not show you ours?

We're gonna talk about the shit that comes up when you start moving towards your dreams. What that really looks like all the fears, all the triggers. We tend to shame ourselves when the process isn't easy or straightforward. We see obstacles as roadblocks. We don't always just take the time to iron out the kinks before we give up. And hopefully this speaks to you and really resonates with you.

And you can see yourself in our stories because we are human. Even though we're the ones that are running this podcast, We are on the court with you, and we are always bumping up against our own shit. So we really hope you enjoy hearing the things that we're navigating in real time with you. That's all we're doing. That's all we're doing.

Yeah, it can feel really hard when you're deciding to do a different kind of work when you're deciding to bring forward something professionally, that feels like it's birth from your heart or your soul. And what that asks of you is very different than a traditional career path. And I think it's important that we talk about it and there is so much joy and so much aliveness and possibility.

And that's the why you keep going. Because if it was just miserable and hard, you'd be like, I'm out. I'm not doing this.

Yeah, that's a sign to check out.

Yeah, exactly. It's the process of really aligning your heart and your soul to your life or your life to your heart and your soul other way around. Or maybe both.

Where are you today?

In that process?

Waking up today?

What are you feeling?

I mean, I slept so well last night, which is a rare sentence to come out of my mouth, but I took a lot of melatonin and I took two melatonin and two Advil sleeping pills because I was so exhausted from camping. But waking up. I know I was so exhausted from my vacation.

Well, I just you don't sleep while camping. It's not a thing, but I still love it so much.

You know, in the past two months, I have had some of the most soul expanding experiences of my entire life. I've been doing inner work very consistently for about eight years, and I purposefully set out on a path this year to do some big things that scared me.

I would say the rewards are a hundredfold in what is happening in life right now and that every moment of frustration or confusion or feeling impatient or wondering when is it going to happen in quotes?

I feel like a lot of the dots in my life are connecting right now. It's funny, Um MEREDITH, who was just on the show who we just released.

She was commenting to me about how it seems like I have this checklist of fears that I just keep going like check check, check through She's like, I've never seen any human being just be like, Hey, what's the next one?

And I'm not consciously doing that, But I do think that has sort of been my process over the last few years.

So what was that for you?

Was it a conscious thing?

Well, I realised that when you're on a or call it a quest for wholeness, retrieving parts of yourself takes a long time, and there are parts of yourself that feel scarier.

To go look at, feel scarier, to talk about, and looking at things in my marriage and looking at things with spirituality were two things that I knew were going to be at the forefront of this year because they were things that I still could feel myself sort of dancing around the edge of them. Tell us why.

Why were you just doing the edge dance?

Because we don't want to hurt people we love. And also there's a level to which we avoid taking on the things closest to us in order to not have to feel the feelings we don't want to feel.

And so it's been that dance of How do I take on the things that are closest to me while still trying to avoid feeling the way that I don't don't wanna feel, Tell us how that's going.

How did you approach that?

Well, I actually signed up for a really high level mastermind, and there are eight of us in it.

And why I felt drawn to it was because I knew that the access to the next level expression in my entire life was going to be through integrating my spirituality and really exploring that more and like into your work, you mean or within your into my whole life within myself, like it's not just like this thing I took a class on.

It's like to really be embodied in how I ask for answers, how I approach my life through sacredness, how I bring my work alive in the world. I want to show up as the highest expression of myself, and it means that I need to look at every part of my life and go go into the deep end and all of it.

We went to Tulum for a week, and we did so much soul work where we were really looking at the things that scared us the most.

You know, we did that for hours and hours and hours, And there's a thing that becomes possible when you look at the thing that scares you the most is it stops scaring you so much. In my case, I had to live through the thing that scared me the most. Then you're like, Oh, all my worst fears came true and I survived.

Yeah, because we do physiologically feel like we're gonna die. If this thing happens in my life or I have to have this conversation or I lose this job or I change this career like if I lose these four pieces of our identity, then I will die, and I think that we don't.

I mean, I can't speak to that with everybody, but a lot of times, the things that you think will scare you the most end up being the things that liberate you the most. I genuinely believe now that our fears are our greatest teachers and show us the direction that we're meant to move in. So I think when MEREDITH says I have this checklist, it's not conscious.

But I do think there's this awareness that on the other side of whatever this fear is is my liberation. Like you just said that there are actually directives pointing us towards our higher calling and that we all need to be initiated into empowerment into wholeness, into our authenticity, that living through fire builds resiliency and strength and courage.

Funny that I use the fire analogy because I see it like burning away everything that no longer belongs to you or doesn't belong to the version of you that you're becoming mhm.

Well, it's funny because that you mentioned fire because I'm rewriting my entire website. And I found this quote that said, You can be afraid of the fire or you can become the fire. And that is what I feel becoming the fire where you're like. You can't burn me like you used to. I'm not afraid of you. Like I I have fear. But I'm not running away from you anymore.

I'm becoming I don't know. I don't know how else to say it. I'm becoming the fire, but I want to speak to a little behind the scenes, you know, in the process of bringing my work to life. One of the things I do is I run a mastermind that is once a year.

This is my third time doing it, So I want to speak to the truth of running a business that you're creating from the ground up and rolling into.

That was really, really hard and we just kicked it off last week and it's awesome and the group is amazing and I screamed Fuck you to the universe So many times in the process, people in the month of March were dealing with more shit than I have witnessed in a long time.

Collectively like it was like everyone was in the fire and everyone's lives were so chaotic and they didn't know up from down and trying to enrol into a programme in the midst of one of the most chaotic Seasonss was incredibly frustrating. I had to look at, like as the work that I'm doing not relevant is the way which I'm doing it not good.

Am I delusional and that I think that I know how to listen for a yes or that I know how to hold space. I was like questioning all these parts of myself. Should I just not even do it anymore.

And then you're dealing with money fears And, like, what if it doesn't happen?

And then what if I don't have this huge successful launch in the way that I think it's supposed to?

What does that mean about me?

And am I OK?

And so I say I'm in a really great place today, but that was like a month ago, and I think it's important to share that, because what that asked me to do was to surrender and realign on a level that I don't think I had professionally before.

I've let go of my attachment to how it had to look, how much money it had to make, who had to be in the room, what the timeline had to be. It was like deep, deep, deep listening and trust. And I fought like hell to release. And once I did, all these women started coming to me and saying, I want to do this thing you're doing.

But it took me like kicking and screaming.

What was the learning in it, then what did this last month teach you?

There are the ideas of surrender and the ideas of trust and nice quotes that you read on the Internet. And then there's the lived experience of what that actually asked you to do. I had to get really reacquainted with who I am and why I'm here, and that whatever happens in this blip of a moment in life is not that significant.

Honestly, I got so deeply connected to who I'm here to be and how I'm here to serve that I got out of my own way about these external markers that I was placing on myself. That gave me the validation that I was doing a good job. And when I was like, OK, you're actually here to transform the world world through liberating women.

You're playing small by getting mad about this dumb stuff like this is not it. I had to get committed to the programme, and then I had to get really recommitted to my higher purpose. I was like Whatever is happening in these micro moments of disappointment, it's just information. It's not the end of your life or the end of your business or the end of your purpose. I love all this.

Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing it. I would love to hear what that actually looks like.

What does surrender for you look like?

How do you do it?

So that it's not just trying to convince the universe that you're surrendering?

What is it that you shift in your life?

It's an energetic shift to me. The simplest way of putting it is getting really deeply reconnected with why I'm doing what I'm doing. And for me, the practise in which I do that is like a simple morning routine.

Honestly, it looks like getting back to the basics.

It looks like starting with gratitude for what I've already created, recognising the things that I wish that I had had that now I have in my life, like actively going through and being like, What did you used to desire and what do you actually have that you used to desire?

And how does it feel and getting really present to what's already happened in my life and what I'm really grateful for and how I want to feel day to day and what's already making me feel that way, Then, looking at what I really feel committed to.

So, um, what am I committed to is liberation?

I'm committed to walking myself through the fire. It's your human design. I know I love my design, but it is. You can't stop this train that lives inside of me. I am so deeply committed to showing myself and all women that there is a path to them feeling their most alive, that they are here for a very unique purpose.

And the best thing that they can do is start to answer that call by starting to become who they are are. And when I get rehooked back into who I'm here to be in the work that I'm here to do, then I can let go of a very specific path that that has to happen.

There's a lot of ways that I can do that, and it's not necessarily by filling this one programme this one year in a very specific way. It's too small. It's like thinking way too small. I would say there's a lot of ways you are doing it just by being you without it needing to be a job at all.

Yeah, I think if I never grew my business any bigger and I never really had the like external success, I really believe like you said that I'm still in purpose. I'm still me and I'm still doing that. I'm still in my purpose by being who I am in my everyday normal interactions. And so I I had to really notice the cost of my fear and notice the cost of the significance.

I was putting on very specific expectations.

There was the like, What are you going towards And what is it costing you to be so graspy on what you think it has to look like and really sitting in those two things I think that's so important to talk about Actually, those external markers or the validation that we're constantly looking for outside of ourselves?

What are those ones for you?

You wanted to fill your programme by a certain time. I know that there's money markers that anyone in business, you know, has an idea of these targets and these goals that they have to hit.

So what are the programmes you've been running that you're starting to pull apart?

The money is a big piece, and a lot of it revolves around me feeling like I'm going to disappoint my husband if I don't make a certain amount of money and that a certain amount of money means that I am successful.

So if I'm not a million dollar coach at some point, then have I really even done anything?

It's just so fucking stupid. I'm constantly reconnecting with people that I've coached that have been in my programmes that are in my life and just witnessing them in the world now who they are.

I'm like, who fucking cares about what money you're making, like money is energy. Money will follow high integrity, purposeful action that I'm taking money will come. But I have to remember like the impact is the first thing and not to lose sight of that. But I've been running a money racket. The impact.

But also how do you feel in yourself at the end of the day?

Or shouldn't that be the only marker we really care about is what is your relationship with yourself?

I don't know that I'm I'm 100% bought in that it's the most important conversation. But I am not yet bought in that I would be able to feel the way in which I want to feel without being of service. I agree with that, But I don't know if we can actually measure the impact we're having on other people.

Like I know that I have had even recently I've had messages from people from years and years ago or people I never even knew personally who have reached out and actually told me how I have or something I've done has impacted them or changed their lives that I had no awareness of. And so we might be impacting people every single day.

And Christina talked about this in her episode about what if just bringing my leftovers to my neighbour is going to change his life like we don't we don't know.

So if we're always looking for the proof that we've had impact right, the proof that we're doing enough is that healthy either?

No, no, no.

I think there is like, What purpose is it serving?

I think there's things that help us stay the course when you're feeling down or things aren't going in the way in which you expect it. Sometimes I like to root back into proof because our brains need the proof.

You know, I wish they didn't, but it's like finding evidence that everything is OK when we get in our squirrely brains and we start to, like, run ourselves up a flag pole.

What are the ways in which you bring yourself back into centre?

Because having those things is really important, right?

It can be inner work, whether it's meditation, journaling, getting into nature. So I do those things for myself.

But then, for me, plugging into people who deeply know my soul is something that really helps me when I'm feeling like what I'm trying to do here is too big, like I'm too big for my britches or I'm somehow off track. I love to plug into people to remind me it's a reminder.

So I think there's a healthy expression of that, and I think there's a really unhealthy expression of the proof piece of it. Our relationship to self does involve understanding the things that fuel us and give us joy and connect us deeply to ourselves.

And that is service that is connection right?

That is, I think, part of building that relationship with yourself. It's just very hard.

I think it's really hard to measure how you're doing genuinely by what's going on around you versus Did I do the best I could today?

Did I feel full in my soul?

Did I take all the actions that aligned with my integrity?

Did I give 100%?

And did I find moments of joy?

And did I take care of my needs when it got hard?

Whatever it is, I wish that is how we saw success.

Do my relationships feel healthy around me?

You know, Am I present like I know we have needs. We have to take care of our bank accounts, and I know that we need to pay our bills. I understand all of that. I believe those things do tend to come as an extension, but I do recognise that that's a struggle.

It's a struggle that I live in my life every day still, and I think this is what we're talking about when we talk about in a rebel. When we talk about the conditioning is it's whenever we put our attention on the world around us to tell us how we're doing or to tell us who we are, that's where we start to fragment.

You know, we all got these, but where did it start for you. This idea that money is the marker, or I need other people to tell me how I'm doing.

Where did that start for you?

It's the way in which our entire society is structured. It's the patriarch or capitalistic society that we exist in. It's the way in which we grade our students about ABC d whatever. It's the standardised testing.

It's the only getting praised for achievement like, Oh, you accomplished this thing instead of Did you try like, What was your effort?

You know, not just what was your results. It's a lifetime of conditioning that we all experience and so untangling that is really I'm very conscious of it and work very hard at practising removing my self worth from my external results. And it's something that I keep peeling back the layers around.

This is something I've been working on very actively for years, but it is so deeply ingrained in my nervous system of a equals. B achievement equals worth like getting the goal that you had equals this. Our biggest struggles are often the things we teach right and the things that I'm working through in my own life are the things that I actually teach for a living because I know the journey.

I know how it feels. And I know the things that I've had to do to even move to where I am on the spectrum. And even as we're interviewing, I'm like, Gosh, there's this part of me that doesn't want to let people into the process of everything not being amazing all the time.

Percent, 100% Yeah, Like I'm like, Oh, people know I struggled filling my programme while they even want to work with me like that's what my brain is saying right now. I'm like 100 percent. I think I'm moving through the same thing. I've shared this with you. I don't think it's made it onto the podcast, so I'll I'll share it again.

There was a time in my life where my whole identity was around, what I could do for others, and my therapist at a certain time, said Who would you be if you weren't therapy girl?

Meaning, Who would you be if you weren't playing that role for everybody in your life as the counsellor, the therapist, the go to girl and I genuinely did not know how I would be lovable or what I would have to offer if I was not seen as the one that had all the answers that had her shit together.

I was so conscious of that that it was really scary and really hard for me to ever admit my mess to ever open up vulnerably authentically about what I was actually struggling with. And I created a really tricky situation for myself because when shit really hit the fan, I didn't know how to talk about it, and I didn't know who to go to.

And I know I have friends listening to this who were there for me. So it's not like I didn't have friends there for me who wanted me to be honest and vulnerable and give them the opportunity to hold me through that.

I just didn't know for a long time how, and it scared the shit out of me because it felt like this image that I had unconsciously created around me and my life and my relationship and everything.

Without that image, what did I have to give?

And it was a fascinating journey when I came to a new country and was meeting people for the first time at my worst at my messiest. And I think I shared this in the previous episode that I had no sense of identity when I was meeting these people.

But I also made it a very conscious decision to lead with my vulnerability and especially after my therapist made that comment, Who would you be if you weren't therapy girl going?

OK, let's just be the realest messiest version of myself I could possibly be. And what I found was I started to find some of the most authentic relationships of my life, and it wasn't people who needed to save me, and it wasn't people I needed to save.

It was people who were doing their own work and made space for me to be in my work and could hold and recognise my wisdom along with this other side of me that was hurting and felt broken and allowed both of those pieces of me to coexist at the same time.

And there was my journey back into wholeness, but it still creeps up, especially in the kind of work that you and I do, where we are trying to help women come into their power to get onto a podcast and publicly talk about the things we're struggling with. It's like I mean, it's definitely tapping into all of my into my fears too.

But I do think that the new wave of authentic leadership and I'm not trying to claim myself to be a leader, but I do see the people that I'm drawn to. The people who have inspired me are the ones who come forward with their vulnerability and are in the process with us and show us that it is an ongoing process that we are in for the rest of our lives.

And no one is perfect and no one has it all together. I know you're right. You're so right because it's one thing to be. Not that we can segment it like this, but it's one thing to be real and authentic with yourself. It's another to go into small communities and be real and authentic in small communities, which is where I've been existing a lot in the last 34 years.

It's like these places are safe to be completely raw and real and honest, like they're safe, then it's very different to go on a podcast where the whole world has access to your voice or on a public social media channel where anyone can hear what you're saying. This safety is not there yet, and there is a fear of who's gonna hear it.

Whose feelings are we gonna hurt?

Who's gonna judge us?

I don't know that I'm so much afraid of the judgement.

Please, maybe I am. But there's a lot of exposure in being vulnerable in this way. And so I like to look at vulnerability as like, layered and tired and that you work your way up. So for people who are scared to even admit things to themselves in the mirror, that's where you're at.

That's that's your first journey, getting real with yourself in the mirror and then getting real with yourself in very small, safe containers and then being more public about it. But it's a process, and it does to your point. There's a lot of fears that we are popping up against by being so very public with our struggles. It's a lot of risk. It feels risky.

Have you ever listened to someone that you deeply admire who has helped you in your life over and over again. Admit or be open about something that's challenging for them and thought, Wow. Then I don't respect them anymore.

No, not once. They don't have it all together.

No, I love it so much.

I'm like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for not like pretending you're on a fucking pedestal. Thank you. The irony of this I know. I know.

In our trailer, we're talking about how we want to see behind the scenes that we look at people and we compare their ending to our beginning that we think that they have all figure it out and we want to get into the process and the journey of what does it really take to get there?

What struggles do they have to move through in order to realise the fullest potential of themselves?

And here we are like, But what if we tell people that we don't know everything?

What are they going to say?

I know it's so ironic. And this is it, Uh, this is it. This is the humanness of it. Because it's also way easier to ask somebody else.

I mean, this is an obvious sentence. It's way easier to interview somebody as a guest than it is for you and I to do it. It's It's still like, Oh, it's their turn. Let's just own it. It's really, really It's really uncomfortable.

And over time, you know, I've already had the experience after releasing our first episode, which was incredibly vulnerable for me, that so many people came forward to say how much it meant to them and how much they resonated with it.

People I hadn't heard from in a long time and family members that I thought my hello, if you're listening Family members that I thought I don't know, I don't know if I thought I'd experience any judgement, not consciously, but I think I had some nerves around this level of vulnerability around people that I I'm not sure I knew if I could be this vulnerable with call me and be so overwhelmingly supportive, so that taught me something that taught me something, too.

So I think you talk a lot about doing things. We do it in little steps in increments.

So what do you say?

Oh, it's an iterative process.

Yeah, I like to talk about like micro actions leading to like macro change. And I think that's what we're experiencing, too. Is that with each release and with each episode, it's telling our nervous system piece by piece that you can trust this, that it's safe, that it's OK that people get it.

And by the time we have enough of an audience that people don't get it and don't like it, I think are are we're gonna be, like, Who?

Fucking?

No, we won't. You may.

Well, we probably will.

Actually, I think so. But I love you know, there's something I haven't admitted to you.

Is that so?

I have felt jealous that not in like a Well, no, I've just I felt envious that you have had so much of your family tune in.

Oh, because I don't think anyone Hm. And my family has listened. Hm. And and including my spouse.

And, um and so I thought Hm. So there's the part of me that my deepest fear is that if I show the people closest to me who I really am, they will take their love away. And that has been my my story forever. And that has been the biggest thing I work through all the time is like it's actually safe to be you and that you will continue to have love.

But it's been interesting noticing because you're like your brother is so involved and your family has been so amazing. I don't stay jealous in that like, it's just like I I think it's so special that you are having that experience and that, um, I hope to have that. I hope you have that too.

And also, I think what you have in a really big way and this is not I mean, this isn't gonna resonate with everybody, and I think that's OK.

You know, I think part of what we're learning as we that it's like when we're listening to our inner rebel. Part of the reason we need to listen to it at all is because of the stories and the conditioning that we grew up around, and it means that sometimes the people we grew up around aren't going to resonate with our truth, and that it's part of the journey.

I think to come to that acceptance and grieve it and not make it wrong that they can't fill every role that we wish they played in our lives. But what I see you have is so much bound family so much, so much. You have such a huge community of people who adore you and have been so transformed by you, who I see just celebrating the shit out of you.

But it is human nature to always look at Well, who isn't. I know it's so silly.

Well, it's not silly. It's where we are.

You know, we we talk in an episode that's coming out around the difference that I see between ambition and aspiration and how I see ambition to often be rooted in some form of trauma or self betrayal of this need to prove of this need to get mom and Dad to see me, right?

And I think that drives a lot of us is that we push ourselves through our lives unconsciously because we really want the approval from Mom and Dad. I know.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I think we can heal that, but I think that's so human. Mm. It's so human. And actually, to your point earlier of just like us sharing the truth is, you know, one of the things I find that actually brings me comfort. And I say that like my parents really do love me like they're wonderful. I haven't actually had to.

I mean, I fought with them a lot when I was younger, but it's not like an active rejection as a adults. So this is a child like a childhood story, really running the show. And I know a lot of people actively get rejected by their family of origin. When they claim this stuff. It's very scary. You you can lose, you know, you lose friendships. I've been actively rejected by friends.

I've lost some really important friendships in my life through this process, and that is something that I think we don't talk about. Enough is when you actually start to claim yourself and you start to break out of the boxes that you've let yourself be put in, and you start to fundamentally shift your core beliefs and really question them. It shifts a lot of relationships in your life.

And although the found family is so juicy and worth it, the the loss yeah, that you have to navigate is it's profound and it can feel really scary and I know you know that at, like a cellular level.

I know when we talked with Protti, she was like, There are gonna be people who fall away in your life, and you just have to kind of accept that, and she's very practical about it and very pragmatic about it. And it's true. And there is a grieving process, and it makes sense that it comes with a lot of fear.

And a lot of people can be triggered by your growth because it illuminates in them the ways that they aren't listening to themselves. It challenges their belief systems. It challenges the choices that they've made in their lives that they're not actually happy with, and to watch someone choose differently, can be very activating.

And a natural response in an unconscious person, I think, is to try to then hold you back or to make the problem about you rather than look at themselves. And I think that's really normal. As you start to grow and evolve. It's only natural that certain people don't stick around and that's their path, and that's their journey.

But it is painful, and I do think we have to give permission to ourselves to grieve that mhm and also continue to choose ourselves. I know it's a really a daily choice to choose yourself and your lack of boundaries or your your complacency does work really well for people. Like exactly it's true.

Yes, it's easier for them.

Yeah, they love it.

You know, if you're not putting your needs at the forefront of your life, it works really well for a lot of people. So they're not necessarily going to be like Oh, yeah. Please throw down a big boundary for me. That doesn't work as well for them. And that is what it looks like often when you really start to do the work, it starts looking like setting boundaries.

And people are so triggered, so triggered the person you've been Yeah, Yeah, like, Oh, you're not just gonna allow me to treat you that way or walk all over you that way?

Like to just give and give and give and give and give of yourself all the time until there's nothing left of you. You're not gonna do that anymore.

And one of the things I like to talk about is what are you available for now?

Are you available for feeling rested?

Are you available for feeling like you've got your own back?

Are you available for some uncomfortable conversations that lead to you actually having a life that works for you?

Or are you available for continuing to let yourself be treated like shit?

Are you available for staying in these jobs that really overwhelm you and cost you your health?

Like, what are you now declaring that you're available for and what are you no longer available for?

Yeah, it's so hard, and that is a big conversation. It's so hard.

What am I no longer available for, Like that conversation in itself?

If you get really real, it's like fuck the hardest part with that for me. I started to do that when I began my human design journey. And part of my human design as a generator is to listen to my joy and where my energy actually wants to be used and what lights me up where my gut is taking me.

And it means that I would have to say no to things even if I didn't have any justification for it. Even if I don't have a good solid logical reason. It's just because I don't feel like it.

But isn't that ironic that that's not a justifiable reason?

Exactly, like exactly. But that's what we do to ourselves. And so I was so deeply conditioned as a people pleaser that I felt a fear response all over my body. When someone asked me to do something that I knew, I just didn't want to do just because I would rather do something else.

And I mean, the old me would have just said yes, out of obligation and guilt and fear and just trying to get rid of that discomfort. And in my new practise, it was learning how to just honour that, and it was really, really hard. It's such deep programming. We have programmes in place that we genuinely believe the love that we receive from others is built upon.

And I don't think we believe that consciously.

But we have all of these, um, behaviours in place and responses in place because that is how we believe we get love and when you start to go, what is it that I actually want to do?

There's so much fear of abandonment and backlash and to move through that process really slowly is is really fair.

So how are you?

I know we've talked about this in our relationship and in the podcast.

And how are you still navigating that deep conditioning today?

It's really interesting because it's come up a lot in this particular situation, and I hadn't really encountered it in a long time, and I was reflecting on this the other day that, you know, I've been single for a while.

I've been single for for several years, and I've been a little bit of a one woman show for a bit, and I haven't really had to encounter it in a context where I felt like a lot was at stake.

Like I think I've gotten really good at just handling it in the day to day like I just don't feel like it and just put up a boundary and that I have people around me now who just really honour and respect that I'm also surrounded by a lot of projectors who are like I'm just going to nap instead of going for coffee.

So I'm just, like, used to it all, just being safe and OK to just say what you need. It's not that you created a situation that it wasn't safe, but something I think did get triggered. I really think a lot of our stuff doesn't show up unless we're in relationship and it doesn't have to be in partnership, although that's a big place.

It shows up, but in all kinds of relationships, it shows us our stuff. I do believe our relationships are our greatest teachers, and so, in a context where I feel like this really matters to me and you really matter to me and I don't want to let you down and I want you to see that I'm a great partner to work with.

And I also want the product to be something really special. All my oldest, deepest, darkest shit has started to reactivate.

You know, I I believe that healing is like we heal like an onion.

So I think that we heal the outer layers and we think we're done, and then we're like, Oh, shit, there's another layer and oh, shit, there's another layer, and then it actually takes you deeper and deeper and deeper, so sometimes it actually feels like later in your healing journey you're meeting the hardest, deepest, darkest parts of yourself, and you're like, What is going on?

I thought I resolved all of this. I may have actually said this in another episode at some point that you guys will hear.

Sorry, if I repeat myself, it's But you know what it's worth repeating this. It's worth repeating this a lot.

Yeah, but yeah. Then you actually have cleared the path, cleared all the surface stuff out of the way to meet your core wounding. And I think this is one of my core wounds is self abandoning in order to please others and to make other people happy and to prove myself on some level.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks, Melissa, for being such a great teacher. I know you good. This is all happening alone in my head. I know well, and it's like, I am I and I just It really breaks my heart because truly the way to it's not about me. It's about something so much bigger. But like the best way to please me is to be like, No, I'm honouring myself and I'm like, Hell, yeah, all right.

I'm game for you know, it's like to please me is to honour yourself.

You know, the irony of that is your is your me. I believe you. And I am. I am trying to get better at it. I did. I actually sent you a message that you haven't listened to yet. You don't need to. But the message was I'm not gonna edit this thing anymore. And I need to choose myself. So I am getting better at it and you have expressed that.

And I do hear you and I also think that when I'm sharing was also mixed in with a whole lot of other things that were all happening in my life at the same time. So I think my capacity to take care of myself and actually anchor deeply in myself each morning and set my intentions and do my morning pages and all the things that keep me clear and healthy.

I abandoned all of those things in the middle of this really rough moment that I just felt very at capacity. And it's also a reminder to me how important those rituals are for me. That self care is for me so that I can hear myself and I can see what is happening and the ways in which I'm self sacrificing and again, you weren't asking me to do this.

But there is some part of me because I care so much about this, and that's interesting to me because I never set out to do a podcast. It wasn't like this has been my lifelong dream, but I really do care about this, and I really believe in what we're doing.

And I really am a person that believes in doing things well, and we've also talked about that absolutely not at the cost of our well being. But it was starting to cost me my well being and learning how to navigate through that.

Like, how do I continue to do this thing That's really important to me and to you, to honour this partnership and make sure that I'm delivering but also really taking care of me and my needs and setting boundaries?

And how do we work through that effectively when we don't know each other that well?

And we've never met each other in person, which has to change really soon, and the question that I've been sitting in that we've had a conversation around. It's asking me to look at some of my own shadow stuff, and if I bring human design into this, I know not everybody listening is going to resonate with it. Some people are really into it.

But if I bring it into this, I also work with the gene keys, and it talks about us living on the spectrum of consciousness.

So the same energy that can't be our gift or is our gift can also express itself as a shadow if we are living in fear, if we're repressing it, if we're denying these parts of ourselves, you know, if we have conditioning in the way all of us are on this journey, a lot of the shadow aspects are actually very normal human behaviours that we wouldn't even recognise as a shadow.

And one of my main energies is around integrity, and the shadow of it is judgement. And the gift of it is perfection. And perfection is around. Seeing the inherent perfection in everything right and the gift of integrity is bringing the it's about bringing the whole world back into integrity and wholeness. And then there's this aspect of judgement that can turn inward on myself.

This self judgement can turn into an a very unhealthy expression of perfectionism, can see the problems and everything and not know how to let them go.

And I've really been trying to sit in the different parts of this and understand sift through that like, how do I honour the part of me that really wants to put out something of quality that wants to do this with integrity, that believes that this can be excellent and also really be aware of the parts of me that are coming out that are in judgement and self abuse and and and and really unhealthy perfectionism and what is the difference?

And that's been tough. So I do feel like it's bringing me into questions in myself around some of my deepest, most important life lessons. So I don't think it's an accident, and I don't think it's wrong. And sometimes when it looks really hard or it's manifesting in a way, that's kind of frightening. I know it was for you.

We think that there's something wrong, and I think the only thing for me that was wrong was that I was not slowing down long enough to really be present and aware of what was showing up when and having enough of my own space and having enough of my own self care practise that I was able to witness and adjust.

So I just kind of, I think just completely unravelled into Yeah, what you're speaking into is so very common is the first thing that goes is our care for ourselves. The first thing that we don't have time for are those practises that seem like this isn't productive. I'm not going to take time for this. I got to do all this other stuff.

So if I'm over here in my doing and staying as busy as humanly possible reaction right when we react to stress when we react to our triggers, I think that is where the shadow shows up. Most of all, right, because we're in our unconscious patterning.

Yeah, and I was in reaction, and it seems like the hardest possible thing to do is to slow down, to even pull back even it just like a tiny bit. And I think it's one of the reasons we can harm ourselves. So much is we don't slow down.

We don't take the time, and we just get in these unconscious patterns and we run ourselves into such an epic burnout or like rock bottom.

So what are you doing to reenter yourself around it?

But we've started to have more conversations and be more honest with one another, and I've really appreciated that. I think we also had a really important conversation where you were also expressing some of your history around control and needing to release control. And I think our triggers are triggering each other, which I think is yeah, that makes that's what we do. That's what partnerships are for.

So I think being able to actually speak that out loud to each other was really healing and figure out a way forward. And you were really clear that none of this should come at the cost of our well being and the quality of our lives. And I'm in wholehearted agreement in alignment with that.

So what are the steps that need to happen to make that possible?

And I think we've started to look at that, so that's really helpful and me learning how to stand my ground. And you're not. I don't think you're asking too much. I just think I don't know how to say no. And so us learning that about each other. And it's not that we have to tip toe around each other. Just I have to get better at saying No, this is my boundary.

I cannot do this. If we want to do this, we get help somewhere else. And you also potentially having the awareness that I tend to overextend myself.

And how do we bridge that meet in the middle when I think to even just pull this back in, like, kind of like a process of If you're in your life and you're noticing something is not working?

How am I feeling in my life?

What's not going well?

How do I want to feel right?

So you're in the middle of a burnout cycle. I don't want to operate like this.

So what are the steps, right?

You communicated it. You brought it to the surface to have a conversation we cultivated collectively a bigger vision and we reestablished.

What are your values?

What are my values?

Where what are our values for this podcast?

What is our vision for this podcast?

What are the roles in which we want to play in this podcast. So we got really clear on that piece of it.

And then what do we need to call in for support?

Like what structures do we need to put in place so that this can all work?

So for people who need like a process, you're in a cycle. You have to stop yourself from being in the cycle, communicate it, and and that's what we've been doing, which I think is really important because it's not the last time this is going to happen. Hopefully with each other it is.

But these are our patterns, right?

So how do we interrupt the cycle?

How do we interrupt the pattern and realign to what we want to do?

And that's that's how we do it. And I think part of that that I think we're also doing is slowing down a little bit to look at each step, like I really believe that the roots have to be really healthy, the foundation of whatever you're building.

It needs to be strong and there was a big learning curve because neither of us have done this before and so it's really easy to get excited and get ahead of yourself and just be like, just do it and that's beautiful. And I think that energy was so necessary for me because it was no, I mean it. I know you're I know, but that's but it's it's the spark.

It's the spark, like you're the fire starter and I probably would not be sitting in this chair right now if you hadn't done that, so that energy is necessary. And then my energy, I actually have the gift of restraint.

Guys, it's my main number is stillness.

So my energy is also about, well, where do we need to pull back?

Where do we need to slow down?

How do we restrain that energy at times in order to make sure that what we're building is really healthy and moving at a pace, that it can be born on its own terms?

Because I think sometimes the project you're making is telling you how it's supposed to go, and I think that was maybe part of your lesson last month. With your programme, you're like it's not happening by my deadline, and then it kind of all came together a month later. So sometimes I think we should have launched the podcast a month later.

Also, probably, you know, so, giving it enough space to speak to us without making it wrong, that there's nothing wrong if we need to slow down and take pauses or take time out and make sure that what we're building is truly aligned with every every part of our being and everything that we actually genuinely stand for. But that's the conditioning of like there's an expectation. There's a goal.

It's really generally pretty rigid in our world. It's like somebody else has this metric especially.

I mean, I know you haven't been in corporate, but fuck if you're in corporate, it's like we will never be incorporate. But like when I was in sales, I was like, These are your numbers. You have to hit your numbers if you don't hit your numbers. These are our corporate metrics. We're reporting back.

We're a for profit company, so a lot of us are really conditioned and these expectations are like you got to hit them, like at whatever cost you've got to hit them and realising that when it's on your own terms, when you're building from a different place.

Losing the rigidity or around it is really important and recognising that you can create space and that the world won't crumble if you move a deadline or if you pivot or if you shift your own expectations. But that is big work.

And I do think that that's part of what's been happening, too, is like I'm like, Let's fucking throw some gasoline and get this fire burning and you're like, Can we put some logs down?

You want some have?

I mean, I keep bringing it back to human design, but we have very different charts and you have a lot of willpower. And I don't have that willpower and people who have that willpower like you are designed to hit those targets and goals and people like me, we're not meant to promise anything because we don't have that consistent energy. But when I'm around you, I can amplify it.

I can like, feel into and be like, yeah, we're gonna on and then I go off into my my life, and it kills me to have to sustain it for myself. So we're different beings, and that is what all collaborations are about, and I think the beautiful thing is being able to come together and go well. You have extraordinary gifts that you're bringing to the table.

I have extraordinary gifts I'm bringing to the table.

How do we communicate and be open and honest about those gifts and strengths and our limitations so that we we form a partnership that is genuinely collaborative and really strong and healthy?

And then all the other pieces, I think start to become really easy for sure, this is the actual process of building a business that honours yourself when you are not just working with yourself, right. This is actually what it's like. This is the insider view of it. This is something we work on a lot in my mastermind and I work a lot with Solo preneurs.

But there's the part where you're hiring people or you're collaborating with other people. Other people's expectations are being put on you, especially so if you're delivering a product or a service which a lot of us are, then it's very easy to fall out of alignment with yourself. It's very easy to self abandon.

It's very easy to fall into old patterns of people pleasing or meeting other people's expectations and and building a business that honours you.

I mean, building a life that honours you. But if you've talked to business, it's really, really hard. And it takes a lot of conscious effort, and it takes a lot of repairing and recognising and being like, Oh, I've slipped back into both patterns again. I don't like the way this is feeling, and this is misaligned for me.

So what conversations do I need to have and how do we restructure things so that it actually works for me, too?

Because not everyone in business is the same. But we're all conditioned that we're supposed to be the same way. And it's not exactly it doesn't fucking work.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the gift I think here is that both of us are doing this work and we both really have the same vision. So we have that safety to bring these things forward without everything falling apart. It took me a little bit of time.

Yeah, um my shit was triggered. It took a little time. But when I did come forward, you always met me with love and understanding.

You know, and then sometimes we brought our past stuff and we projected stuff onto each other, too. And then eventually we were able to sift through that and then come to understanding. And that's just the journey. So I think that's really beautiful, and I feel lucky.

Mhm, Yeah, me, too. That's being in conscious partnership when you're living your life with consciousness and you're choosing partnerships and being really intentional about the people that you're inviting in. This is a very intimate relationship that we've entered into in this podcast, and it's a process of, of, really discerning, like who you're going to invite into these sacred spaces of yourself.

Who are you going to choose to do business with?

What customers are you going to say yes to?

How are you gonna show up in your partnership with your spouse or somebody that you're wanting to pull into your life, a love that you want to have?

And these patterns, whatever is happening anywhere happens everywhere. We're not segmented, and so when you're consciously living your life, you aren't exempt from old patterns showing up. You aren't exempt from the shit storm from hurt and pain or any of that. But when you can course correct more efficiently, it's all to me. It's all about course, correcting more efficiently.

It's like, Oh, fuck, I'm noticing I'm doing that thing that sucked for, like, a month.

But like, I used to do that for years, so I caught myself early.

Good job, mate.

You know, I didn't even realise I was doing it for years, you know?

Yeah. To have the awareness, I think we have to celebrate awareness itself. That's a huge step.

Yeah, I think it's step one of anything. It's like just the getting yourself out of these unconscious loops and bringing an awareness to whatever is happening in your life is step one, because otherwise you're just a robot. And you're like, I'm just doing life. How I've always done life.

What's wrong here?

Yeah, the journey, the journey. So there you go. This is the episode about our shit and what it really looks like.

Yeah, And then there's probably gonna be so many more of these. So many more of these. I feel like I'm so wordy with so my my experience is you're very articulate and you cut to the point and you say exactly the thing that needs to be said, and I'm like la, la la la And then, like eventually I land on it.

Oh, it's so funny because I have a very different experience inside my own head. So there you go.

What's your experience?

Uh, that nothing I'm saying makes any sense because I'm not really aware of what I'm saying as it's coming out of my mouth. So it's a miracle if it turns into a sentence of English like My gosh, it's so, so funny. We have to keep this part in.

Yeah, Every time you talk, I'm like, Gosh, she just like, nails it. And you're like, I don't even know what I'm saying.

I don't know what I'm saying and we in the episode that I listeners, if you're still listening, the episode that I no longer wish to edit because there's construction going on in the background is where I said to you in the early days of our recording, I noticed I was really aware of us recording and I was really in my head.

You know, when you say something and everything comes out of your mouth like like you're just so aware of every word. And I was also aware that my genius, my brilliance, I think we all have a genius. I'm not calling myself a genius. I just think I felt like it couldn't show up because I was in my head.

So if I'm thinking about what I'm going to say, whatever comes out is absolutely not what I intended. And when I'm genuinely in response and really listening to our guests and to you, then the right thing comes. But I didn't trust that in the beginning.

And it's one thing to show up in the context of my work where I felt some confidence, and I'm working one on one with a client or in a zoom room. But in this context, I'm also like I don't want to jump on you. I don't wanna jump on our guests when thoughts come out. I don't always know how to retain the thoughts that I'm thinking, and so I forget. I just.

For the first few, I felt like I was a mess, and it it took time to just trust Just trust.

I mean, what?

What helps you trust?

I think in part, listening to it back because I was editing them. I could hear the difference from when I was trying to sound smart and sound profound and that I actually sounded way smarter when I wasn't trying. And so I think, partly that. And then also, it wasn't enjoyable. Like I wasn't in the experience present with you and our guest.

I was anticipating the next question, and it just took, I think, a little bit of time to massage that out of me and just get comfortable in the space and pressing record and allowing whatever is meant to come to come.

Do you feel like other people's reflection?

Has supported it too. A little bit. A little bit.

Yeah, I think that's helped a little bit.

Um, so thank you, listeners for reflecting so many positive things, helping both of us, So Yeah.

Yeah, because I think it's always interesting to unpack the journey of trust. Mhm.

Oh, dang. External validation. Help me. Trust. Look at that. I knew it. There it is. There it is.

Gosh, that can be a real slippery slope.

Don't you think so, Jessica?

Ok, I think it's really screwed.

Did you Did you need proof in order to realise that you could trust yourself?

No, but I think it was helpful.

Oh, I love that this is happening right now.

OK, so before this becomes too long for me to edit, let's let's say our goodbyes. You don't like. You don't like that this is happening. I do.

No, it's true.

There's just a Could I have been OK without the feedback?

Yes.

Is the feedback nice?

Yes, yes.

Well, I think it's been so good to come back together and to have another conversation and to share more of the behind the scenes of the shit we've been navigating in our own lives, The things we've been navigating in partnership and to me, just even recommitting to how we want to continue to create our soul work just a testament to the recommitment that it requires to just be like OK, we tried this.

This didn't work. Let's pivot. We tried this. This part worked. Let's pivot.

You know, it's just this constant iterative process, like we said, and so we get to share that with our listeners. This is us in real time, receiving information about what's working and what's not working even around how we're producing this exactly So that you can see.

Yeah, it's beautiful. So I'm so glad that we took the time and I'm so grateful to be doing this with you. I'm so grateful to do this with you.

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