The Emerging Women Podcast: Recent Episodes
Chantal Pierrat
In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, the conversation delves into the journey of heartbreak, growth, and healing as shared by Sara Avant Stover, author of “Handbook for the Heartbroken: A Woman’s Path from Devastation to Rebirth.” The discussion touches on various forms of heartbreak, not limited to romantic relationships but also encompassing grief from different life experiences. Sara emphasizes the importance of embracing grief, allowing oneself to fall apart, and connecting with divine order or higher power for healing and resilience. The conversation also explores the interconnectedness between personal trauma, unresolved wounds, entrepreneurial challenges, and how processing grief and trauma can influence one’s journey toward wholeness and self-actualization. The act of forgiveness is acknowledged as a significant part of the healing process, contributing to deep inner transformation and growth. Sara discusses forgiveness as a path to happiness and freedom, highlighting its significance in releasing burdens and finding peace. She emphasizes the gradual nature of the forgiveness process, involving internal spiritual work to attain grace and inner freedom. The conversation also touches on the importance of boundaries, inner alignment, and introspection in healing, using the analogy of a conductor with an orchestra. Sara reflects on the feeling of self-care and friendship post-healing, leading to wholeness and stability. She conveys a message of empowerment, encouraging listeners to embrace their resilience and inner strength to confront challenges. The segment concludes with a reminder that individuals have the resources to navigate their paths with courage and authenticity.
Chantal PierratChantal Pierrat is the Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard, and led from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more.
About our GuestSara Avant Stover is a leading figure in personal transformation and inner healing. Rooted in the transformative power of forgiveness, she guides others towards happiness and freedom through the teachings of A Course in Miracles. Sara’s emphasis on internal work and practice highlights forgiveness as a path to grace and liberation.
Despite the challenges of forgiveness, Sara champions its potential for inner peace and healing, advocating for healthy boundaries and self-integration. Post-healing, she embodies self-acceptance and alignment, inspiring resilience and trust in one’s journey worldwide.
Resources Mentioned:— Handbook for the Heartbroken: A Woman’s Path from Devastation to Rebirth
— Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic
Insight from this episode:— The conversation expands the traditional notion of heartbreak beyond romantic relationships to include various types of loss and trauma, such as abortion, health challenges, refugees in war, and bankruptcies. This broader understanding acknowledges the complexity and depth of women’s experiences.
— Emphasis is placed on allowing oneself to fully experience and process grief, anger, confusion, and other emotions associated with heartbreak. This includes creating space for vulnerability, falling apart, and embracing the depths of one’s feelings rather than suppressing or avoiding them.
— Conversation surrounding navigating resilience with authenticity points out that while resilience is essential, it’s not about simply toughening up and soldiering through. True resilience involves a willingness to allow oneself to break, followed by a process of rebuilding and transformation. This authentic approach to resilience acknowledges the necessity of facing challenges head-on while also recognizing the need for self-compassion and gentleness.
— The interconnectedness between personal and professional growth, especially for women entrepreneurs, is highlighted. Unresolved trauma and grief can impact various aspects of one’s life, including business endeavors, underscoring the importance of addressing these issues holistically.
— The discussion touches upon the concept of the “dark night of the soul,” acknowledging moments of deep darkness and uncertainty. Despite the challenges, there’s an underlying trust in the inevitability of change and the eventual arrival of dawn or transformation.
— Emphasis is placed on forgiveness as a part of the healing process. While forgiveness isn’t explicitly discussed in detail, the mention of forgiveness suggests its importance in the healing journey. Forgiveness, whether directed towards oneself or others, can be a crucial step towards releasing pain, resentment, and moving towards inner peace and healing.
Quotes from the show:— “This book wouldn’t let me not write it. So it covers serial heartbreaks that I experienced between 2016 and 2020 that I honestly, that many times didn’t think that I was going to live through. I at certain points, it was so dark that I, I didn’t know how I was going to survive it much less be able to write a book about it.” – Sara Avant Stover, Emerging Women Podcast
— “When we engage with it consciously, it’s an opportunity to reach whole new levels of maturity, of wholeness of our own self unencumbered, which is I feel what rebirth is. And so this book is, is it’s like a permission slip to women when you’re going through something challenging. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not in the wrong life. This is part of your journeys. This is part of your curriculum.” – Sara Avant Stover, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Heartbreak, not just for me, but for all of us, is an initiatory experience.” – Sara Avant Stover, Emerging Women Podcast
— “I know that prayer, prayer can be a triggering word for people. If there are religious wounds, I say it in a non-religious way. It’s non denominational. So another way to say prayer could be divine communication, conversation with the universe, talking with your higher self, connecting with your heart. So anyone listening you know, you choose the language that makes sense to you. But when there is so much despair and disarray at the personal level, what I find most helpful is to tune into divine order. And I do that through prayer. But even just energetically holding the intention to align with divine order, to align with a higher order because that exists always, it’s, it’s patterned in everything and every one. And so if we can align with that and just invite that into our psyche, invite that into ourselves into our tissues, invite that into our lives. That’s gonna start to bring like a pattern that might just start with a little thread that we follow.” – Sara Avant Stover, Emerging Women Podcast
— “The degree to which we’re going to be happy is equivalent to the degree to which we have forgiven other people and ourselves.” – Sara Avant Stover, Emerging Women Podcast
— “On the other side of healing, there’s a deep friendship and care for oneself, expanding capacity for compassion and being a resource for others.” – Sara Avant Stover, Emerging Women Podcast
Chantal Pierrat
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Emerging Women
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Sara Avant Stover
Website: Sara Avant Stover
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The post From Heartbreak to Healing with Sara Avant Stover appeared first on Emerging Women.
In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, Chantal interviews Kristen Wheeler, creator of the Native Genius method, discussing its application in personal and professional growth. Kristen’s method helps identify innate abilities by recognizing moments of engagement versus disengagement. She emphasizes specificity in understanding one’s strengths to prevent burnout. Chantal shares her discovery of her native genius through teaching dance, highlighting the importance of embracing diverse talents. Kristen underscores the significance of acknowledging all aspects of one’s native genius. They also delve into the Native Genius method, where Kristen shares a touching story about her daughter Maren, who discovered parallels between her love for insects and her interest in skincare, leading to a sense of integration and purpose. They explore the concept of My Eyes Light Up (MELU) moments and My Eyes Glaze Over (MEGO) experiences, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and leveraging one’s innate strengths. Kristen offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs and leaders, encouraging them to embrace their native genius and delegate tasks that don’t align with their strengths. The episode concludes with an invitation to explore the Radiant Leader program, which integrates the Native Genius method to empower women in leadership. Kristen encourages listeners to leverage their unique strengths for impactful careers and lives.
Chantal PierratChantal Pierrat is Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard, and led from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more.
About our GuestKristen teaches Native Genius worldwide at companies like HP, Airbnb, and Ebay. The Native Genius Method helps people bring out the innate brilliance in each other so that organizations up-level results, fulfillment, and belonging. Kristen is an innovator in the strengths movement, and Native Genius is the next evolution of strengths — focusing on vulnerability, mindfulness, appreciation, and connection to create lasting change.
Native Genius works with the obstacles to strengths that are hidden within the human condition. Native Genius is research-based and multidisciplinary, drawing on proven strategies from business, psychology, neuroscience, and mindfulness. Kristen started her career as a CPA and software developer for Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Before developing Native Genius, she consulted with companies on matters of IT, leadership, and strategy for over twenty years. Amidst that work, she earned an MA in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute and an MA in Body Centered Psychology from Naropa University. Kristen has been an audience favorite at TEDxBoulder, was named one of the 100 Most Influential Women for EBW 2020 in 2016, and is a Strategic Advisor for Emerging Women. She lives in Boulder, Colorado
Resources Mentioned:Native Genius
Emerging Women
Radiant Leader Program
Emerging Human
Insight from this episode:— Introduction to the concept of Native Genius as a method for working in alignment with one’s true self, with a focus on resonance and authenticity.
— Emphasis on the significance of incorporating the feminine perspective into the paradigm of power.
— Influence of Kristen’s Work: the Native Genius method has been integral to the Emerging Women curriculum since its inception in 2013, indicating its value in personal and professional development.
— Discussion surrounding the corporate adoption of Native Genius: The method has been adopted by corporations like HP, Airbnb, and eBay, highlighting its relevance and effectiveness in corporate environments.
— Discussion of Kristen’s background as a CPA and software developer led her to develop the Native Genius method, influenced by her academic studies in mythological studies and body-centered psychology.
— Discussion of surrounding the meaning of Native Genius to the individual and in terms of application.
— Emphasis is placed on passion integration as the discussion highlights the importance of leveraging diverse interests.
— Discussion of how “native genius” reveals how understanding one’s natural inclinations can optimize talents, delegate tasks effectively, and foster innovation.
— Overall, this podcast challenges traditional views on success and leadership, advocating for a focus on one’s strengths rather than trying to excel in all areas. Delegating tasks based on strengths empowers teams, promoting inclusive and effective leadership rooted in self-acceptance and recognizing inherent value.
Quotes from the show:— “We’re creating a new paradigm for power that includes the feminine perspective because the world needs it.” — Kristen Wheeler, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Kristen’s work has been core also to my own personal development as a thought leader, but also as a business leader.” — Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Native genius is these things that we do that we can’t not do that make a bigger difference than we realize.” — Kristen Wheeler, Emerging Women Podcast
— “When you can tune into your direct experience of that, when you’re connecting with each other, or when you’re connecting with people and you’re doing these things that you’ve been told are strengths, then you can start to look at when am I actually lighting up and when am I glazing over?” — Kristen Wheeler, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Your nothings are your something. So, that’s the goal that was in a moment that you thought was nothing. There’s something else that’s really important about the notion of innovation and how we, with our native geniuses, are moving the world forward.” — Kristen Wheeler, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Native Genius allows you to cross disciplines… This is where innovation comes from, where we get a drop of this discipline or drop of that one and somebody creates something new and that’s what you’re doing and that’s why we don’t want to dismiss any MELU moment because it all has the gold of what our gifts are in the world.” — Kristen Wheeler, Emerging Women Podcast
— “That’s the power I will say this about of the native genius method is that you can, you’re constantly, once you get it, you’re constantly looking for new applications.” — Kristen Wheeler, Emerging Women Podcast
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Chantal Pierrat
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Emerging Women
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Kristen Wheeler
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In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, CEO of Integrated Work, Jennifer, shares her empowering experiences for women and introduces her groundbreaking book, The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World. The KOAN method emphasizes kind open adaptive networks, highlighting the power of patience, curiosity, and facing challenges. The enduring impact of questions in the KOAN method is discussed in terms of its relevance in organizational and personal contexts, concluding with insights on the “Succeed Mantra” and the importance of building sustainable systems in community. Overall, the episode provides profound insights into leading with empathy, meaningful questioning, and blending ancient wisdom with modern leadership practices.
Chantal PierratChantal Pierrat is Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard and lead from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more.
About our Guest:Jennifer Simpson, CEO of Integrated Work, brings almost a decade of collaboration with Chantal in the Emerging Women community. As an advocate for women’s empowerment and authentic expression, she is the author of The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World, drawing from her 30-year exploration of uniting people across differences. The KOAN method emphasizes open adaptive networks, prioritizing patience and curiosity for breakthroughs. Jennifer champions transformative leadership, blending ancient wisdom with modern practices, evident in her interconnected model of leadership development, featuring peer coaching and stakeholder integration.
Resources Mentioned:— The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World
— Otto Scharmer
Insight from this episode:— Emphasis on the importance of connection, empathy, and authentic expression in personal and professional relationships.
— Jennifer, the CEO of Integrated Work, shares insights into her 30-year journey, focusing on bringing people together across differences for creative breakthroughs.
— Discussion of the KOAN method, which stands for “kind open adaptive networks” and blends ancient wisdom with modern organizational science.
— The transformative potential of connection, empathy, and leading with questions is highlighted in their journey and the book’s principles.
— Jennifer’s book (The KOAN Method: Breakthrough Leadership for a Divided World) aims to bridge traditional organizational development with mindfulness, consciousness, and purpose-driven leadership.
— Discussion surrounding the “Succeed Mantra” from the book, exploring its application for individuals and organizations, emphasizing its potential for positive change.
— Conversation advocates for engaging teams in strategic thinking about their current approaches and their effectiveness in shaping the desired future. Leaders are encouraged to invite people into inquiry, recognizing that gaps in results signal missing elements in the equation.
— Conversation explores the distinction between binding common ground and building a common good.
— Discussion of the challenges faced by global teams, emphasizing that ignoring personal aspects in organizations doesn’t work. It highlights the need for addressing cultural and linguistic diversity, acknowledging the importance of creating containers of care for effective communication and collaboration.
Quotes from the show:— “It’s not about ignoring those histories, but it’s about recognizing that in order to create a different future, we’ve really got to start from what’s important to us.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
— “What can I bring into a conversation that’s going to create those little moments of spark and disruption that are going to lead us to a different outcome rather than just reproducing the same one, right?” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
— “But if we start from the premise that what we’re doing is trying to build a common good, then I actually think that creating opportunities for disruption to occur in containers of care right inside communities where we really want to find a way forward, that’s good for everyone is what allows us to have all the voices around the table heard is what allows us to loosen our grip on our own felt sense of what the right outcome is so that we can hear each other and so that we can find our way to solutions that work for broader communities and have broader impact.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
— “What I love about this is that not only are we asking questions of the group, but we’re inviting people, especially those people who don’t speak up very much to you know, bring their own questions and it’s a little bit easier to invite your team and especially those who don’t speak up to say, what questions do you have than it is to say, especially if someone is not used to voicing their opinion.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
— “And it it really becomes super powerful when we stop feeling like our job is solving the past or fixing what’s broken when we start focusing on who do we want to be tomorrow or 10 years from now, we shift our energy in the direction of our hopes and dreams instead of on our despair, right? Like the things that were so sad and frustrated are not yet better than they are. I think even from an emotional energetic place, getting people into hope and aspiration and commitment for what they care about creates a radically different trajectory than grappling with the messy things that are the bane of our days.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
— “It is more fun to be uncomfortable in community than it is to be uncomfortable in isolation.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
— “There’s a lot of different varieties of leadership in the emerging women community and the more that we reach for connection and continue these questions, even when we don’t have an official organization or a large team, We help to create a new model even for entrepreneurs.” — Jennifer Simpson, Emerging Women Podcast
Stay Connected:Chantal Pierrat
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Emerging Women
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Jennifer Simpson
Website: The KOAN Method
Instagram: Integrated Work
LinkedIn: Jennifer Simpson
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In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, we have one of our favorite guests, Neha Sangwan, a thought leader and international spokeswoman bridging people in positions of power to humanity and helping humanity discover their power. She is a powerhouse. She first brought her work to Emerging Women back in 2015, in San Francisco, with her book TalkRx: Five Steps to Honest Conversations That Create Connection, Health, and Happiness and she basically rocked the stage! She’s an internal medicine physician, a mechanical engineer and an executive coach. She has an amazing propensity for looking at human potential in everything she does. Join us as Neha takes us through her personal journey through burnout and the story behind her newest book Powered By Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life. She deep-dives into her personal definition of failure, how she believes that healing burnout should never be done alone, and some of the needed boundaries to stave off burnout. Finally, Neha sheds some light on how burnout-anger can be turned into something useful for us.
Chantal PierratChantal Pierrat is Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard and lead from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more.
About our Guest:Dr. Neha Sangwan, CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, is an internal medicine physician, international speaker and corporate communication expert. Her private practice and corporate consulting focuses on empowering individuals, organizational leaders, and their teams with the tools for clear, effective communication. She addresses the root cause of stress, miscommunication, and interpersonal conflict, often healing chronic conditions such as headaches, insomnia, anxiety, and depression. She regularly consults with organizations such as the American Heart Association, American Express, Kaiser Permanente, and Google, and has shared her keynote presentation on the stages of TEDx.
Resources Mentioned:— Intuitive Intelligence https://intuitiveintelligenceinc.com/
— Conscious Business Leadership Academy [CBLA] https://www.bdo.com/conscious-business-leadership-academy
— Fortune https://fortune.com/
— Forbes https://www.forbes.com/
— Inc https://www.inc.com/
— The Overall Burnout Assessment https://intuitiveintelligenceinc.com/burnout-rx/
Insight from this episode:— Neha’s personal journey with burnout and the story behind her newest book
— Problems with how the society defines “success” and how it’s even more difficult for women
— Insights into the “Me, We, World” coping mechanism
— Neha’s own perception on failure
— Creating an acceptance for burnout, so we can catch it sooner
— The “Burnout Triage”; exhaustion, cynicism and ineffectiveness
— The boundaries needed to stave off burnout
— Turning the burnout-anger energy into some sort of wisdom
Quotes from the show:— “I used to think saying ‘no’ was rude or not ok, and what I realize now is when I say ‘no’ to something and it doesn’t come from a fearful or frustrated place, but it comes from an inspired place, then it’s really about me saying ‘no, thank you’ to an offer, an opportunity that has arisen and saying ‘yes’ to myself, or saying ‘yes’ to whatever’s higher that I value or prioritize in this moment. So, I’m really saying ‘yes’ to creating the world I want” — Neha Sangwan, Emerging Women Podcast
— “The way I’ve changed being a traditional doctor to writing books, speaking, paving a new path in health care and for women and in the world, is because failure is – to me – a sign that I have stretched outside my comfort zone, I’m in the unknown, I’m paving a new path, and like, ‘woohoo, woohoo, I’m a failure!’. Like, fail and fail fast! Learn from it, grow!” — Neha Sangwan, Emerging Women Podcast
— “I always think to myself ‘good for you, Neha, ’cause you went, you took a risk, you trusted yourself, you took a risk, you went somewhere that you didn’t know or expect. I’m proud of you, that took courage. And what did you learn here?’ So, whatever pain I get, whether it’s financially or emotionally or any kind of pain that I get, I always ask myself ‘Are you ready to graduate from this life lesson or do you need more pain to get the lesson?’” — Neha Sangwan, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Burnout is a wake-up call, burnout is not a personal failure! Burnout is a wake-up call that you’ve outgrown the coping mechanisms in your life that have gotten you here and you’re someone who wants to do it all, you want to achieve and aspire. But healing burnout is a team sport, not an individual game. If you are going to isolate yourself and try to do this all alone, it’s going to be a much harder climb” — Neha Sangwan, Emerging Women Podcast
— “If you want to motivate yourself, guess what, that inter-critic that kicks you up and down the street, doesn’t provide the same results as a hand on the heart saying ‘baby, you’ve got this!’” — Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast
— “Until you understand your relationship to anger, you will not be effective at healing it outside of you” — Neha Sangwan, Emerging Women Podcast
Stay Connected:Chantal Pierrat
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Emerging Women
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Neha Sangwan
Website: Neha Sangwan
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The post Creating Connection with Dr. Neha Sangwan appeared first on Emerging Women.
In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, we navigate a topic that’s close to the heart of many women today: navigating burnout, stuckness, and overwhelm while not losing touch with our creative spark, inspiration, or innate feminine wisdom.
Joined by LiYana Silver, acclaimed author of Feminine Genius, we explore the journey to waking up and harnessing the wisdom of being a woman. LiYana has been a past speaker at Emerging Women Live, where she set the house on fire with her Feminine Genius.
In a world where burnout and overwhelm have become a harsh reality, LiYana offers enlightening perspectives on how to move beyond the status quo. Our discussion not only underlines the necessity for change but provides insights on actualizing that transformation by tapping into our inherent feminine wisdom.
Listen in as we unlock the power of the divine feminine, explore innovative modes of connection, confront fears, and importantly, celebrate ourselves without succumbing to self-doubt and criticism.
About our Guest:LiYana Silver is a coach, teacher, speaker, and the author of Feminine Genius, who helps women move through life and work’s biggest challenges and become who they’re meant to be.
Her offerings include her mentorship program Meant To Be – which begins on June 7 2023! – and her online course Mining For Gold in a Dark Night of the Soul. She lives in Asheville, NC with her son.
Insight from this episode:— How to leverage the power of our feminine genius
— The power of the divine feminine
— The essence of connection
— Innovations by women
— Practices to help women overcome fear
— Why we need to celebrate ourselves as women
Quotes from the show:“Feminine qualities in every human being, regardless of gender, regardless of sex, can connect, can deeply connect with another human being who is invested in that relationship” — LiYana Silver, Emerging Women Podcast
“The hard stuff is reading into nuance and being open enough to allow somebody to come in and contribute their genius so that together you thrive” — Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast
“I just appreciate that the kind of innovations we are seeing and we will see are often born out of us, but often women” — LiYana Silver, Emerging Women Podcast
“The average man needs to feel 51% qualified to apply for a job, and the average woman needs to feel 95% qualified to apply for that same job” — LiYana Silver, Emerging Women Podcast
”Some of the time, we are so capable of creativity (…), and we rarely give ourselves credit” — LiYana Silver, Emerging Women Podcast
”I fail, just as anybody else, I don’t hit the nail just out of the park, but I don’t turn on myself as much” — LiYana Silver, Emerging Women Podcast
Stay Connected:Chantal Pierrat
Twitter: @chantalpierrat
LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
LiYana Silver
Website: https://liyanasilver.com/
Mentorship program: Meant To Be (starts June 7, 2023)
Book: Feminine Genius
Audiobook: Feminine Genius
Emerging Women
Website: https://emergingwomen.com/
Twitter: @emergingW
Facebook: @EmergingWomen
Instagram: @emergingW
LinkedIn: Emerging Women
Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode SummaryIn this episode, Jen Berlingo talks about her story, her thoughts on the midlife crisis, breaking away from social norms, and finding what serves and does not serve you in different stages of life. She also highlights staying true to yourself, dismantling social norms, admitting our own truths, and why we need support in our lives and finishes with insights about her book.
About Our GuestJen Berlingo, MA, LPC, ATR (she/her) is a midlife coach, a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of Colorado, a Nationally Registered Art Therapist, and a master-level Reiki practitioner. After two decades of midwifing hundreds of women through life’s major transitions and experiencing her own passage through a fiery midlife portal, she was inspired to write Midlife Emergence to accompany other women in traversing their midlife journeys. Jen is also a visual artist who creates custom pieces for collectors worldwide and exhibits her fluid, abstract art locally in her beloved town of Boulder, Colorado. There, among the sunny foothills, Jen can be found making bottomless bowls of popcorn and snuggling on the couch with her unconventional family, her coven of close friends, and her Norwegian forest tabby rescues, Jinx and Juju.
Insights from this episode:— Jen’s thoughts on midlife crisis
— The process of breaking down
— Breaking and dismantling social norms
— Finding what works for you
— Staying authentic to yourself
— Admitting our truths
— Jen’s relationship story
— Why we need support
— Details about her book
Quotes from the show:“It’s a decade that I think of as a space, between the first and second half of life. It’s sort of this waiting room where we have an opportunity to architect the second act of life in a way we want it to be.” –Jen Berlingo, Emerging Women Podcast
On reframing midlife crisis: “As an emergence of our more authentic self after we have the courage to maybe challenge or change or shed some of the social and familial and cultural conditioning that we might have played into in the first half of life.” –Jen Berlingo, Emerging Women Podcast
“If you can go through it (the process of breaking down) consciously and really with support, I feel like it’s such an opportunity to step more fully into yourself.” –Jen Berlingo, Emerging Women Podcast
“The fact that the lack of expression of the fullness of my sexuality had gotten so internally loud and pretty painful for me as I entered midlife meant that I needed to explore this more.” –Jen Berlingo, Emerging Women Podcast
“Making decisions from our own intuition can feel like a very lonely experience, and especially ones that are going to rock the boat, or norms or shake up systems that we put in place for ourselves (…) it takes a lot of courage to keep going in that.” –Jen Berlingo, Emerging Women Podcast
“The things that make us feel alone are really what connects us to one another” –Jen Berlingo, Emerging Women Podcast
“It’s not possible for any living being to become whole or fully expressed, from flowers, animals, in isolation.” –Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast
Stay Connected:Chantal Pierrat
Twitter: @chantalpierrat
LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Jen Berlingo
Website: Jen Berlingo
Facebook: Jen Berlingo, LPC, ATR
Twitter: Jen Berlingo (@jenberlingo)
LinkedIn: Jen Berlingo, MA, LPC, ATR
Instagram: Jen Berlingo, LPC, ATR (@jenberlingo)
TikTok: jen berlingo – midlife coach (@jenberlingo)
Emerging Women
Website: https://emergingwomen.com/
Twitter: @emergingW
Facebook: @EmergingWomen
Instagram: @emergingW
LinkedIn: Emerging Women
Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode SummaryIn this episode, Christine Walsh talks about money, helping entrepreneurs have a positive mindset, and changing our beliefs about money. She highlights her life during the 2008 financial crisis and rebuilding after losing her job and home. Delve into this episode to hear about her book ‘Be The Queen of Your Money’, understand the psychology of money, be okay with failure, and have an abundance mentality.
About Our GuestChristine Walsh is on a mission to empower women to make money on their own terms. She is inspired by seeing a future in which money is guided by flow, flexibility, inclusivity, and generative-ness (AKA the triple win): financial prosperity for biz owners and their teams, their customers and clients, and for the global collective).
Insights from this episode:— How Christine joined business school
— Helping people establish a mindset around money that allows them to grow
— Her life during the 2008 financial crisis
— The psychology of money
— How to flourish in finances
— How to change your beliefs about money
— Helping women deal with money vulnerability
— The art of being okay with failure
— Developing an abundance mentality
Quotes from the show:— “The philosophy that I like to bring to the table is not about getting more things, it’s about actually improving the quality of our life as a whole.” –Christine Walsh Emerging Women Podcast
— “We are all grappling with money stories that we’ve grown up with or have experiences that have happened in our lives, and we need a place for that voice to happen.” –Christine Walsh Emerging Women Podcast
— “Flourishing in finances is our ability to listen, to receive, to be in a relationship in this entity called money.” –Christine Walsh Emerging Women Podcast
— “There is a lot more fear and insecurity and unknown in the entrepreneurial world with women and money.” –Chantal Pierrat Emerging Women Podcast
— “I feel like as entrepreneurs we always wanna get clear and yet the real superpower is being able to be comfortable with fear and risk, and the unknown.” –Chantal Pierrat Emerging Women Podcast
— “When women are in charge of money, when they make money they distribute it to their community, those communities thrive.” –Chantal Pierrat Emerging Women Podcast
Stay Connected:Chantal Pierrat
Twitter: @chantalpierrat
LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Christine Walsh
Website: Christine Walsh – Money Mindset Coach (christinemwalsh.com)
Facebook: Christine Walsh
Instagram: Christine Walsh (@christine.marie.walsh)
LinkedIn: Christine Walsh
Emerging Women
Website: https://emergingwomen.com/
Twitter: @emergingW
Facebook: @EmergingWomen
Instagram: @emergingW
LinkedIn: Emerging Women
Youtube: Emerging Women
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Episode SummaryAlthough not everyone is able to digest radical honesty about racism, Saira Rao is here to talk about it in a courageous and raw way. In this episode, Chantal and Saira talk about racism and how white supremacy and saviorism are still a massive problem in a world where everyone is more racist than they would like to admit. They also talk about how Saira makes this situation visible through projects like her movie, Deconstructing Karen, her book, “White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better” and the discussion space Race To Dinner.
About Our GuestSaira Rao is a co-founder and Creative Director of In This Together Media, a book packaging company of children’s fiction with greater diversity in terms of gender, race, sexual orientation, and experience. She is the author of Chambermaid (Grove Press) and The Madlands (forthcoming). Previously, Saira was a television news producer in Washington D.C., and Miami; a policy associate at the Center for Educational Innovation at The Manhattan Institute; a law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; and a lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York City. Saira is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the New York University School of Law.
Saira Rao (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District. She lost in the Democratic primary on June 26, 2018. She launched a movie named Deconstructing Karen at the same time she launched with Regina Jackson “White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better”. Saira co-founds Race To Dinner with Regina Jackson which is a space to discuss with radical honesty different topics that are not talked about enough in this patriarchal and racist society.
Insights from this episode:—Saira’s journey to being a self-constructed best seller author
—Difficulties in achieving profit with Race To Dinner
—Dealing with the reviews of Saira’s book “White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better”
—Applying for a job as a woman of color
—Positive white identity
—How can black women be in a community with non-black women
—White saviorism
—Saira’s son and how he experiences racism in school
—Black women in the technology industry
—White supremacy as the status quo
—Community building between white women
—What is next in Saira’s professional life
Quotes from the show:“[About the book] This is deprogramming and it’s painful, at first it is really painful, it’s confusing” —Saira Rao, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About work situations where women of color are left aside] We’ve intentionally interviewed a bunch of black, indigenous, latina, and asian women in different professions to show it doesn’t matter if you’re a latina woman in Seattle or a black woman in Florida, it’s the same” —Saira Rao, Emerging Women Podcast.
“In order for us to do community, we need to stand strong in our claiming of our identity, whatever that means to us and that also means unraveling what we’ve been socialized to believe who we are” —Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“There is no perfection without white skin so I don’t have a chance, Regina [Jackson] doesn’t have a chance, so white skin is a necessary but insufficient component of perfectionism” —Saira Rao, Emerging Women Podcast.
“If you all are competing with each other to be the thinnest, the prettiest, have the best hair, have the best looking husbands, have the smartest best looking children, have the best homes, how can you be in community with each other? ” —Saira Rao, Emerging Women Podcast.
Stay connected:Saira Rao:
Twitter: Saira Rao
LinkedIn: Saira Rao
Instagram: Saira Rao
Chantal PierratTwitter: @chantalpierrat
LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging WomenWebsite: https://emergingwomen.com/
Twitter: @emergingW
Facebook: @EmergingWomen
Instagram: @emergingW
LinkedIn: Emerging Women
Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode SummaryEvery day is a chance to do it all over again. Every day is a second chance. In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, Chantal and Christy talk about failure, what she has learned from it, divine masculine and feminine, launching her book, ‘Oh God of Second Chances, Here I am Again’, how she started her coaching business and the inspiration behind it, and her journey of self-discovery.
About Our GuestChristy Belz has owned and operated a coaching and consulting practice for the past ten years. Her work aims to empower individuals and organizations to reach their greatest personal and professional aspirations.
She provides tools for insight, coaching for conscious awareness, and consulting to support, grow, and develop leaders, and working with individuals and organizations across business and not-for-profit sectors. This process supports individuals, teams, and organizations to function at their most creative and highly effective abilities.
Her practice has evolved from management and leadership roles in the non-profit, for-profit, and government sectors. She has worked with and for hospitals, universities, manufacturers, and governmental agencies, as well as local businesses, foundations, and non-profit organizations. She has held positions in marketing, sales, management, and entrepreneurship. In the field of direct social work, she did counseling, not-for-profit management, community organizing, and advocacy.
Insights from this episode:
— Launching her book ‘Oh God of Second Chances, Here I am Again.’
—How she started her coaching business
— Her self-discovery journey
— Quitting her job and taking herself through college
— Using courage to tell our stories
— Christy’s relationship with failure
— Lessons from failure
— Re-inventing yourself after failure
— The divine masculine and divine feminine
— Believing in ourselves and amplifying our movements in the future
Quotes from the show:“This (courage) is something that I think we all need. It is super timely, and it never goes out of style, let’s just put it that way, especially for women” —Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“I write about courage because, and this is something I admire about you Chantal, I think it takes great courage for us as women to tell our stories” —Christy Belz, Emerging Women Podcast.
“For me it was really important to share my story and then empower others to share that. I do that in the Ted work that I do, but I love the idea of using courage to share a story from your heart” —Christy Belz, Emerging Women Podcast.
“It seems to me for the long I have known you that you lead with the energy of ‘I am enough, of positive self-reflection’. You are very generous with others, it’s like that’s your superpower. You see potential in others, and I think that’s what makes you a great curator for the TedX women events” —Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Sometimes we really need to fall down, and fall hard, and the way to pick ourselves up is not to get the pump out (…), but sometimes it’s to serve. And serving is like a natural way that allows us to see ourselves as a reflection of others” —Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“I was taught and I believe that if we are really in line with our desires and that if your heart is telling you to do something meaningful and you are not listening that, it’s gonna create more havoc in your life” —Christy Belz, Emerging Women Podcast.
“When you get clear about whatever it is that your heart is calling you and you trust, and you lean in towards that a little bit, the doors are gonna open” —Christy Belz, Emerging Women Podcast.
Stay connected:Christy Belz:
Website: Christy Belz
LinkedIn: Christy Belz
Chantal PierratTwitter: @chantalpierrat
LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging WomenWebsite: https://emergingwomen.com/
Twitter: @emergingW
Facebook: @EmergingWomen
Instagram: @emergingW
LinkedIn: Emerging Women
Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode Summary In this episode, Acharya and Chantal talk about collective feminine sovereignty and what it means for women and the world in general. Acharya talks about her mom and how she shaped her into who she is, into finding her ‘roar’ and how her book is an ode to her. Acharya talks about three goddesses and how they guide one into the true divine. Finally, she talks about getting our roar back and connecting with the divine and encourages women not to be afraid when they have lost their way. About Our Guest Acharya Shunya is a truth-teller who facilitates authenticity, self-remembrance, and divine feminine pathways to awakening. She has a podcast, Shadow to Self, and is also the author of two bestselling books, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, and Sovereign Self. Her newest book is coming out in September 2022 by Sounds True, Roar Like a Goddess: Every Woman's Guide to Becoming Unapologetically Powerful, Prosperous, and Peaceful. In this book, Acharya Shunya honors her progressive Vedic roots while breaking the shackles of tradition to bring modern-day women an inclusive, feminist spirituality. Insight from this episode: — What is being asked of women in divinity — How to be a master of your own senses — What it means to have a feminine collective that is sovereign — How to take advantage of what you have to your benefit — How the goddesses can catalyze the feminine rising — Insights on how Acharya found a way to access all her power — Insights on how to own your voice and get the ‘roar’ back Quotes from the show: “The classic Hindu spirituality, the spirituality that I represent: Teach and embody is about that higher state of consciousness” – Acharya Shunya, Emerging Women Podcast.
“I just feel like there is an invitation for all of us; If there are thousands of goddesses, there is one that’s gonna be right for us in probably every moment or face of our lives” – Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“There is divinity in everything, in the corpse, in the lovemaking, in the meditating yogi, so why should we box it?”– Acharya Shunya, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Consciousness is not stagnant, we are evolving and consciousness is evolving with us” – Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“To survive and to thrive in this universe, we need our power, and we need to figure out whether it is an unconscious power, conscious power, or even superconscious power by connecting with the divine entity” – Acharya Shunya, Emerging Women Podcast.
“It’s only when you are powerful that you can bring pleasure, cultivate joy and happiness and prosperity in your life ” – Acharya Shunya, Emerging Women Podcast.
“The roar is really owning your own voice” – Acharya Shunya, Emerging Women Podcast.
“If your goal is to be generous, then you’ve got to be smart about it or you will have nothing left” – Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“You are a giver of pleasure, and you deserve pleasure, and you cannot give pleasure if you don’t receive pleasure, if you don’t open yourself up for pleasure” – Acharya Shunya, Emerging Women Podcast. Stay Connected: Acharya Shunya
Website: Acharya Shunya Facebook: Acharya Shunya Twitter: Acharya Shunya Instagram:@acharyashunya
Chantal Pierrat Twitter: @chantalpierrat LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW LinkedIn: Emerging Women Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode Summary In this episode, Chantal and Janna talk about the ways in which energy is a tool to grow our souls, but yet a misunderstood one, as few people dedicate enough time to understand it as a whole. Janna talks about her journey as an Energy Medicine Specialist since the mid 90’s when there was a lot of stigma towards applying non-orthodox methods, such as energy, to cure traditional diseases such as cancer. Janna tells us a little bit about the different energy systems of our body, how these can explain different attitudes and how you can connect with your purest version of yourself. About Our Guest Janna Moll is the founder of Energy Medicine Specialists (EMS), an organization offering beginner to advanced coursework in the field of energy medicine. Janna teaches and presents internationally. EMS exists to educate and support the most highly trained and ethical practitioners in the Energy Medicine field. Janna has been involved with energy-based healing modalities since 1994, and has written all levels of the educational curriculum of EMS. She has been a consultant on NCCA accreditation for energy disciplines and has served on Ethics, Curriculum and Certification boards/committees. Insight from this episode: What led Janna to get a master in nursing How Janna started with a masters in nursing to being an energy practitioner How the Energy healing field has changed since the mid 90’s How Janna’s receptivity has evolved over time What modalities does Janna incorporate for energy healing The importance of understanding the energy systems in the body What is a Blueprint The importance of knowing we are our own gods The influence of the patriarchal world Insights on the human energy field shrinking How to be more you Quotes from the show: “[About psychotherapy] I actually left it at the time because I felt like it was designed to keep people sick: tell me again how that person abused you, tell me again how you felt when that happened to you, and it seem to dredge it on and on”– Janna Moll, Emerging Women Podcast.
“You don’t know what it is to heal, you're willing to do the healing but you need someone who has enough background that they can put the key in the lock and say: try this”– Janna Moll, Emerging Women Podcast.
“The deeper you go into personal growth work the more you are faced with the fact that you are the decidor, you are the judge who put that contract in place, you are the keeper of the contracts and if you have a contract that is no longer serving you or that’s getting in your way, you can rewrite it”– Janna Moll, Emerging Women Podcast.
“We live in a social system that rewards the masculine and we know, we have learned as women that the only way we are accepted or effective is if we use the masculine ourselves, but our strength lies in the femenine and we have to be able to bridge those two”– Janna Moll, Emerging Women Podcast.
“An empath is someone who feels their world, they interact with the world through their emotional field…they have learned from a very young age that if they send their energy field out further from the body then they get information about the world that they’re in”– Janna Moll, Emerging Women Podcast.
Janna Moll Blog: https://www.energymedicinespecialists.com/blog Facebook: Janna Moll Instagram: Janna Moll Youtube: Janna Moll
Chantal Pierrat Twitter: @chantalpierrat LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW LinkedIn: Emerging Women Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode Summary In this episode, Chantal speaks with Mirabai Starr to discuss how reclaiming feminine wisdom will help us dismantle patriarchal structures and possibly even save us. They chat about the two sides of the wild and dark feminine: one that is loving-kindness and compassion and the other that’s unbridled chaos.
Mirabai also talks about how her greatest task is to translate mysticism to an inclusive language that men, women and all genders can have access to. She mentions how she first connected with mysticism, how she has nurtured it throughout her life, and how she helps people transcend and find their best way of living in this chaotic world that is urging for a feminine way to approach chaos. About Our Guest Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author of creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. Her latest book, WILD MERCY: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, was named one of the “Best Books of 2019”. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Insight from this episode: — How did her interest in mysticism begin and evolved? — How is her approach to mysticism inclusive? — The cracking of patriarchy — What longing is really about and how to reclaim it — What the feminine spirituality is and its importance in the society — How to connect with the sacred through difficult experiences — How Mirabai has navigated through difficult situations — How transcendence is beyond embodiment — How not to demonize the ego Quotes from the show: “What I feel is my task in this life, at least for now, at least in this moment in time, is reclaiming that femenine way of connecting to spirit, the sacred, to each other ”– Mirabai Starr, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About femenine attributes that should be reclaimed] Love and kindness, mercy, compassion, connection, lifting each other up, honoring and adoring”– Mirabai Starr, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About mysticism] You're making that choice to interpret and bring alive a certain kind of spirituality that I think has been demonized by the great spiritual traditions”– Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About going through difficult situations] No matter what your experience of loss is, whether it's been traumatic or lets say more ordinary, there is no reason to rush into meaning, to try to use it as an opening to God or spirit or anything else”– Mirabai Starr, Emerging Women Podcast.
“When we cultivate certain kinds of spiritual practices, like meditation, we can nurture the soil from which these spontaneous mystical experiences might more easily flower”– Mirabai Starr, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About women] We have been raised to be oriented, to fit in and to be hyper aware of others, and what we’re finding out is that there’s such a mountain to climb for women to have their voices heard in places of power, and we need to hear those voices to change culture, to change the current power paradigm, to dismantle the patriarchy”– Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast. Stay Connected: Mirabai Starr
Website: https://www.mirabaistarr.com/ Facebook: Mirabai Starr Twitter: Mirabai Starr Instagram: Mirabai Starr Youtube: Mirabai Starr
Chantal Pierrat Twitter: @chantalpierrat LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW LinkedIn: Emerging Women Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode Summary In this episode, Chantal and Tosha talk about how to enter in harmony with the divine flow and receive not necessarily what you want at the time you want it, but what the universe has specially reserved for you. In this episode, Tosha talks about the main message behind her book and how it really is a guide not only for money, but for every aspect of life, and how this mental state helped her manifest her actual partner. She emphasizes on how to unplug from the mental state of constant survival and competitiveness and be more open to the Divine Energy to align with the good things that the universe has reserved to you. About Our Guest Tosha Silver graduated from Yale with a degree in English Literature but along the way she fell madly in love with yogic philosophy. For the past 30 years she's taught people around the world ways to align with inner love. She’s the author of Change Me Prayers: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Surrender. She lives near San Francisco, where she runs an online school called “Living Outrageous Openness" with ongoing support to those who truly want to live these beautiful, ancient practices. You can also join her on Facebook by liking her author page where she often writes. She particularly enjoys finding fresh, funny ways to embrace the divine, while avoiding conventional jargon and cliches at all cost. Insight from this episode: What the term “it's not my money” in Tosha’s book means What the divine source is The art of letting go How to make yourself available to the divine source How to give up the burden of your desires How to unplug the mental state of competitiveness How to be more open to what the divine source has for you How did Tosha initiate a forum How to be more receptive to the divine flow Quotes from the show: “[About being open to the divine source] It has nothing to do with just laying in bed hoping that, you know, you're calling in a miracle and somebody is coming to rescue you, what really happens is that the desires are offered rather than fixated upon or obsessed over or striven for”– Tosha Silver, Emerging Women Podcast. “Because you’re suddenly open to how the universe wants to provide, and sometimes isn’t only through money; the purpose of the book isn’t to gain abundance, is to learn how to become abundance which is entirely different, and so once you’re doing that, you’re really saying there’s no external thing which is the source of my security”– Tosha Silver, Emerging Women Podcast. “The divine knows the time of the blooming, that’s all I know, for some people it might be just a few weeks…It’s that you’re opening to the process of the blooming as oppose to insisting when it needs to occur”– Tosha Silver, Emerging Women Podcast. “[About Tosha’s process of opening to the divine source] Okay divine I trust you, guide me, I know you’re bringing me on a path to wholeness so that then I can receive, in your timing, what’s meant to be”– Tosha Silver, Emerging Women Podcast. Stay Connected: Tosha Silver Website: https://toshasilver.com/ Facebook: Tosha Silver Instagram: Tosha Silver Twitter: Tosha Silver
Chantal Pierrat Twitter: @chantalpierrat LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW LinkedIn: Emerging Women Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode Summary In this episode, Chantal and Shanna talk about what it means to be a manifestation coach and an intuitive healer nowadays, as we live in a world where people are looking for a more meaningful life that helps them fulfill their deepest desires. Shanna helps people to align and vibrate with higher frequencies that help them attract their goals not only in their private life, but in the corporate too. In this episode, she describes how she connected with her gift since she was a kid and how everyone, by being more sensitive to their environment, can do the same. She also talks about how she deals with past trauma of her clients, and how she perceives through her son the whole new skill sets that younger generations have to offer to the corporate world. About Our Guest Shanna is the Founder of The Soul Frequency. She is an intuitive healer, celebrity manifestation coach, and expert in leading purpose-driven individuals in the rediscovery and development of their core soul mission. Shanna is leading the conversation about the possibilities and the practices for raising one’s frequency and creating a life founded on truth and alignment. She authored the #1 Best Selling Book: The Soul Frequency: Your Healthy, Awakened and Authentic Life, is the host of The Show Frequency Show Podcast, and is a speaker and consultant to executives of Fortune 500 companies, celebrities, influencers, and fashion industry experts. Shanna believes that if you want more for your life, there is more out there for you. She has made it her life’s work to help thousands of people discover what more looks like for them. Insight from this episode: — What The Soul Frequency is — How Shanna managed her gift when she was a kid — How people find “The Soul Frequency” — How Shanna aligns people with a higher frequency so that they can achieve their deepest purpose and desires — How Shanna deals with past traumas — How to be more sensitive to the quantum world and its frequencies to access our gift — How Shanna’s sensitivity helps her perceive energy — What are the different experiences of Shanna’s clients — What are the skill sets of the future — The abilities that the new generations have to offer to the society — How the future is going to look for the younger generations Quotes from the show: “What people want is to know why and how they belong and what their gift is and how they can live a life of meaning”– Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“I have this very tridimensional business experience under my belt and then I have this incredible ability to see what someone came for in this lifetime and how to amplify that and how to align their whole life to kind of why they’re here ”– Shanna Lee, Emerging Women Podcast.
“We all have our own gifts and they show up in a unique way just like you’re a unique person, if we don’t have access to them it's just because there's lots of layers that keep us from seeing, so as you embark on work like this [aligning with higher frequency] you’re gonna be peeling back those layers”– Shanna Lee, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About her 9 year old son] His generation understands that everybody comes with a specialty, so he does what he does well, he doesn’t feel he needs to learn everything else because he believes like: I’ve come for a purpose and the other people that round out this idea or corporation came for their purpose''– Shanna Lee, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Acknowledging who each person is as a soul and not necessarily who we want them to be, but who they came to be is so valuable”– Shanna Lee, Emerging Women Podcast. Stay Connected: Shanna Lee Website: https://thesoulfrequency.com/ Facebook: The Soul Frequency VIP Instagram: Shanna Lee Youtube: Shanna Lee
Chantal Pierrat Twitter: @chantalpierrat LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW
Episode Summary In this episode, Chantal and Brenda talk about how to convert our experiences into an opportunity to evolve as a human being, and not letting trauma define who we are. Brenda encourages people to have a creative response to trauma by relating skillfully not only with your body, but also with your fear to grow from spaces, people and situations that do not fit you anymore. She talks about body awareness, how to relate skillfully with fear, and how to acknowledge your feelings in order to progressively unburden yourself from past trauma and be able to focus on your present, and reclaim who you have the potential to be. About Our Guest Health psychologist, author, seminar leader, teacher of yoga and meditation. Research in Transformative Experience involving Learning, Healing and Growth. Graduate studies at Columbia University and Yale University; post-graduate studies at Harvard University Medical School. The study of meditation and yoga in South Asia and India, have further informed her work as a health professional for over 30 years. Her research and experience in private practice provided the foundation for her new book, Post-Traumatic Growth: Thriving in the Face of Adversity, a compelling evidence-based study of emotional healing and transformational growth, and a practical blueprint for moving from crisis to flourishing in 7 stages. Insight from this episode: —How Brenda defines trauma —Why Covid-19 represents a source of trauma for many people —How does body awareness help dealing with trauma —How to relate with fear in a more skilfully way —How difficult situations help you evolve —How to acknowledge your feelings and let go of them —Why does psychoanalysis focus more on analysis and not vision —How does unburdening help you shift the focus of your trauma Quotes from the show: “[About using trauma in your favor] Just sheer suffering without a vision and without a blueprint from where you could go with it, it does not serve you, it just wears you down”– Brenda Ungerland, Emerging Women Podcast.
“If we are seekers it involves being open to wisdom that comes from every imaginable direction, there’s a great democracy to wisdom, it can come from the most random places, it can come from anywhere”– Brenda Ungerland, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Healing and recovery is only one phase, it’s not the whole story, it's a necessary step but nothing more than that”– Brenda Ungerland, Emerging Women Podcast.
“You’re happy not because you took a course on let’s get happy, you’re happier because you are unburdened”– Brenda Ungerland, Emerging Women Podcast.
Stay Connected:
Brenda Ungerland Website: https://www.brendaungerland.com/ LinkedIn: Brenda Ungerland Facebook: Brenda Ungerland Instagram: Brenda Ungerland Pinterest: Brenda Ungerland
Chantal Pierrat Twitter: @chantalpierrat LinkedIn: Chantal Pierrat
Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW LinkedIn: Emerging Women Youtube: Emerging Women
Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts.
Episode Summary In this episode, Chantal and Hiro go over how to function skillfully and effectively along the entire continuum of frequency that surrounds us as bioenergetic beings and especially nowadays with the presence of technological frequencies. Hiro encourages people to live in a more conscious and slow way by recognizing that by being embedded in an ecosystem of energy, we are in a deep relationship with everything, whether it is living or not. Finally, she tells us that taking into account this conscious mode of living, we need to enter in resonance with our business values and purpose in order to serve the community the right way. About Our Guest Hiro Boga was born in Bombay but she lives on an island in British Columbia, Canada. Business artist, mentor and soul alchemist; and a collaborative creative partner, who serves your genius and business, so both can flourish. Hiro offers multidimensional skills and wisdom gleaned from decades of experience with thousands of clients — many of whom work with her for years because they find such deep value in her self-study programs and private mentoring partnership. Insight from this episode: —How we are exposed to a whole ecosystem of frequencies as bioenergetic beings —How the technological frequencies affect our energetic system and bodies —Ways to expand your consciousness by being on a receptive mode —How to relate correctly, as an entrepreneur, to your creativity —How to resonate with your business in order to understand its real value and purpose —How as human beings we are in relationship with everything around us Quotes from the show: “It’s funny how the pace of technology has overwritten the pace of our bodies”– Hiro Boga, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About the receptive mode] The act of choosing is the act of exercising your power, it's saying yes this, no that”– Hiro Boga, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Creativity is part of our souls DNA, so creativity is not off there somewhere, is not something you pursue and is constantly running away from you”– Hiro Boga, Emerging Women Podcast.
“[About recognizing that your business is an independent being] You don’t need to identify...how it resonates with your values and desires but with the values and desires of your business itself”– Hiro Boga, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Ultimately, you have to trust that if you do what is in front of you then the next step will reveal itself and the next step after that”– Hiro Boga, Emerging Women Podcast. Stay Connected: Hiro Boga Website: https://hiroboga.com/ Facebook: Hiro Boga Twitter: HiroBoga Instagram: Hiro Boga Book: To Be Soul, Do Soul Exclusive Bonus for the Emerging Women Community!
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Emerging Women Website: https://emergingwomen.com/ Twitter: @emergingW Facebook: @EmergingWomen Instagram: @emergingW LinkedIn: Emerging Women Youtube: Emerging Women
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Elayne highlights how she got into her work by attending a Momentum workshop that completely transformed her life. By posting positive messages on her social media pages, she was able to reach women entrepreneurs. She encourages women to seek support, and not only when in crisis. While on the entrepreneurial journey, people get so fixated on the goal that they forget to enjoy the moment’s joy. She recommends that it is important to talk to people about the journey and take care of oneself. It is important to seek help and not only when we are in crisis. Have a list of people, resources, or organizations that you might reach out to for help or people to put your product in front of the right audience. About Our Guest Elayne Fluker is a media entrepreneur, and host of the Support is Sexy podcast for women entrepreneurs and the CEO of Chic Rebellion Media. Chic Rebellion Media is a firm that is built on the notion of women supporting women, particularly along the entrepreneurial journey. She has interviewed more than 500 women entrepreneurs from different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences on her podcast. She has a book, “Get Over 'I Got It': How to Stop Playing Superwoman, Get Support, and Remember That Having It All Doesn’t Mean Doing It All Alone.” Insights from the Podcast — Unlearn that support does not necessarily mean that someone is in crisis. Also, support should be an ongoing process. We should not wait until we are in crisis to seek support.
— Understand how important it is to give yourself time to fall back and reflect. Assess the season you are in and what is set to bloom without forcing it or making it happen. You will discover that some things that are not as important as you thought they were.
— Discover how H.E.L.P must be used in the art of asking for support H- Having it all does not mean doing it all alone E- Ask Empowering questions L- Let go of the how and leave the question P- Believe in the Possibilities — Insights on how to have an empowered ask through the 5Rs 1- Be Ready when you show up 2- Reason: why is it important to you or the other person? 3- Receipts: what have you done? What are you doing? What is your value? 4- Why are you making the Request: be very direct because the other party does not know what you want, and it will not magically show up 5- Show Reciprocity: be ready to give and receive
Quotes from the show: “We need to stop associating support with a crisis. This is a thought and behavior that we need to unlearn” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Do not miss out on the joy of this moment. Remember why you started and the intention. It is easy for us to get distracted, just fall back and remember why you started your journey and take care of yourself ” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
“If you knew how, you would have done it already. It will happen when we leave the questions that we do not have answers to” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
“All the movements in the world were based on belief possibilities. All the things that are magical in this country all started with a belief” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
“An exceptional life is a life of low probability. If we get caught in what’s probable, we will not believe in the possibilities” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
“To adopt a possibility mindset, one needs to think of what’s possible and not what’s probable. This makes one open to the magic that is out there and one that is available. Believing in possibilities opens one up” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Success does not mean that we have to toil or be drained. Imagine the impact of success that has to be resourced and filed with ease and grace. It does not have to involve being away from family” –Chantal Pierrat Emerging Women Podcast.
“Success is what happens when you close the gap between reality and possibility” –Elayne Fluker, Emerging Women Podcast.
In this episode, Kristin and Chantal go over self-compassion and why it is important. She encourages people, especially women, to claim their power, which is within us. She wants people to unlearn that self-compassion is not a weakness but a motivator to be more resilient. If people want to get more things done, they should be more self-compassionate. Additionally, Kristin mentions the most effective way to deal with our inner critic is to befriend it so that it is not distractive. Finally, she closes off the podcast with a guided meditation on a Fierce Friend Practice. This is a guided visualization that creates an image where one can call upon their fierce friend, who combines fierceness with tenderness and strength with love. About Our Guest Kristin Neff is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin's department of educational psychology. She is the author of “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself” and co-written the “Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive”. She also has a new book called “Fierce Self Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness To Speak Up, Claim Their Power, And Thrive.” She has also written numerous academic articles on self-compassion. Insight from this episode: —Learn to say no to others and yes to ourselves. This allows us to include ourselves in the circle of compassion and prioritize our needs to avoid drowning. —If anger is harnessed, it can alleviate suffering and be used for a good cause. Anger helps one to focus and lets people know that there is a problem. For example, the Me Too Movement and Black Lives Matter all started because people were angry. —Self-compassion gives us the strength to open the pain without being overwhelmed. It is the ability to hold pain with love. It also allows us not to be consumed by things but rather to infuse them and figure them out. It decreases stress, depression, and anxiety. —People have a dimensional view of self-compassion: it is a weak thing because it has traditionally been viewed as a gender role. However, self-compassion is important because it allows us to heal and not to be overwhelmed. —Research shows that self-compassion is a powerful coping mechanism. People should stop viewing it as a sign of weakness. Quotes from the show: “Even though compassion is part of the female gender role, women have less self-compassion towards themselves than men do. This is because women are socialized to be self-sacrificing, and their compassion is allowed to go outward, i.e., they can help their spouses, children, etc.”–Kristin Neff, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Don't do things for people to like you; it’s not sustainable. People will not like you anyway. However, with self-compassion, you do not require other people’s approval; this is because you can approve of yourself”–Kristin Neff, Emerging Women Podcast. “Women are more compassionate to others and not themselves. Tenderness towards self is not intuitive, which is why women are very aggressive towards themselves”–Chantal Pierrat, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Sometimes, to alleviate our suffering, we need to accept ourselves and be open to what is and change something about ourselves. We need to be brave, courageous enough to make a change in our lives”–Kristin Neff, Emerging Women Podcast.
“Some people look at self-compassion as weak because it has mostly been associated with women (who have had less power in society than men)”–Kristin Neff, Emerging Women Podcast.
“We need a balance between tenderness and fierceness. If we have too much tenderness and acceptance without enough fierceness, then we will become complacent, and if we are angry and fierce, we are just adding to the problem”–Kristin Neff, Emerging Women Podcast.
“We feel valuable when we are loved. Let us make our happiness not dependent on our relationship. We don't need someone else to be more worthy and whole”–Kristin Neff,
In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast, Chantal is joined by Shine Leadership founder Carley Hauck to discuss Carley’s new book and how to lead consciously and inclusively at work and in the world. Carley talks about what it means to shine in a world that can seem dark at times. As we shine as leaders, we can show others a way forward to a flourishing workplace and planet. Find out how Carley Hauck does it in this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast. About Chantal Pierrat Chantal Pierrat is Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard and lead from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more. About Carley Hauck Carley Hauck is founder of Shine Leadership and is an author, leadership consultant, learning architect, Stanford Instructor, and sought-after speaker who teaches people, leaders, and teams to lead consciously from the inside and re-envision a workplace and world that prioritizes people and planet first. As a leadership expert, she partners with some of the top organizations in the world helping enhance cultures of high performance, collaboration, trust, and belonging. Her new book Shine: Ignite Your Inner Game to Lead Consciously at Work and in the World is available now! Insight from this episode: Benefits of conscious and inclusive leadership and how to foster it.
Reasons we must be open and learn from each other in our changing, diversifying world.
Tips for leading from a whole and balanced place and having a positive ripple effect on others.
Why you might want to tell your team members and others at work you love them. Quotes from the show: “In order to bring the greatest potential in ourselves, in our workplaces, and our world, sometimes we have to shine the light on the dark, on the things that are not always so pleasant, on the systems, and structures, or behaviors frankly, that need to shift that need to change. That requires that we do it with a certain skill, with a certain cultivation, and ways of being that allows us to do that from a place of love and truth.” –Carley Hauck Emerging Women Podcast
“You don’t have to be given that title [of leader]. We can all be leaders, and I actually feel like that’s call right now. What is that thing that you want to be the change for? What is that thing that you’re feeling a fire in your belly about? Or passion about? Or you recognize, this isn’t right?” –Carley Hauck Emerging Women Podcast
“Conscious and inclusive leaders have this stronger sense of purpose. They understand that leadership is about serving. And they’re also really wanting to support more soulfulness in organizations. They’re not all about more is better, faster because we know that leads to burnout. Is there a more feminine way that’s balanced with the masculine?” –Carley Hauck Emerging Women Podcast
“Some of the complexities of our world-- a lot of them-- we need everybody. We need everyone, especially when we look at some of these large problems that impact everyone. That requires a much more diverse group of people with different thoughts, different experiences, different perspectives, different educations and knowledge.” –Carley Hauck Emerging Women Podcast
“If I’m a burned out leader, and I’m not balanced and whole on the inside, I’m not using certain resources, skills to really lead from a more balanced, healthy place, that’s going to have a ripple effect with my team members, with the culture at work.
In this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast find out how Christine Kane, author of the new book The Soul Sourced Entrepreneur and former singer/songwriter, successfully marries the hard realities of business with the spiritual growth and development that comes from being an entrepreneur. Christine shares what it takes to reinvent yourself and use your energy to create success and work you love. Hear about how to feel more connected to your soul’s purpose in this episode of the Emerging Women Podcast. About Chantal Pierrat Chantal Pierrat is Founder & CEO of Emerging Women, a global network of brilliant women creating new leadership paradigms and supporting the rise of leaders across all sectors of society. Chantal is a celebrated podcast host, speaker, thought leader, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to advancing conscious leadership and helping women be seen, heard and lead from the truth of who they are. Her ideas have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, The Street and more. Emerging Women has graduated thousands of women (and men) from peer mentoring and sponsorship programs sponsored by such Fortune 500/100 organizations as HP, Inc., Halliburton, Oracle Corp. and more. About Christine Kane Christine Kane is Founder and CEO of Uplevel YOU. For 10 years, she’s trained creative, quickstart, idea-driven, purpose-based (and sometimes chaotic) entrepreneurs and freelancers on how to optimize and Uplevel their marketing, sales, systems, teams, and their own personal energy. Before building Uplevel YOU, Christine spent 15 years in a successful career as a popular songwriter and performer. Christine’s new book The Soul Sourced Entrepreneur: An Unconventional Success Plan for the Highly Creative, Secretly Sensitive, and Wildly Ambitious is available now! Insight from this episode: Strategies for walking through uncertainty and moving forward even when the path is not clear.
Details on different types of intentions you can set and tips on how to navigate decisions.
Advice for listeners who have the “fire of emergence” within them but don’t know the first steps.
How to move away from the “golden handcuffs” of an old identity towards something more soul sourced.
Benefits of avoiding the drain of unmade decisions. Quotes from the show: On reinvention: “If you’re using intention and if you’re really following your guidance-- your intuition-- it doesn’t feel like reinvention at the time. Half the time it feels like total chaos. Am I reinventing myself or is everything falling apart here? But you have to keep following that calling and going through open doors.” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“Clarity is overrated.” –Chantal Pierrat Emerging Women Podcast
“Being clear on what you know about yourself and where your delights are is one thing. But I think we have this mistaken view of clarity as I know exactly how this is going to end… for most of us, we’re just winging it.” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“I was so in tuned with what everyone else thought of me that it was hard for me to even acknowledge how unhappy I was in [my corporate job].” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“A lot of us are really scared to look at that divine messaging, the divine connection, because it may take us in a more uncomfortable direction. And looking deep within is uncomfortable.” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“For three years, people thought I was a complete and utter loser, and I had to walk through that fire… nobody could see the growth that was going on.” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“We learn intuition by doing things” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“Our power is everywhere. We think it’s this Wonder Woman sort of a vibe, and it’s not. It is so subtle, and it requires this real relentless honesty with ourselves about why we’re doing what we’re doing.” –Christine Kane Emerging Women Podcast
“We have this addiction in our world that every decision ...
Do you ever worry that your biggest financial downfall is never thinking big enough? Are you worried that fear is actually what’s holding you back from financial freedom? Do you wonder — deep down — that you don’t actually want to get smart about money?
Join Chantal Pierrat in conversation with Barbara Huson (formerly Stanny), a best-selling author, financial consultant, TV presenter, published writer for national publications, former journalist, and revered expert in the field of money and wealth.
We’re all plagued by mental roadblocks that deter us from our financial, energetic, and spiritual goals. And for us to truly emerge as powerful, impactful women, we need to get clear and creative with our money.
In order to bust through those roadblocks, we need to address them on cognitive, spiritual, and neurological levels. It’s not enough to know why we aren’t getting smart about money — we need to know it deep in our bones and rewire our brains to catch up with our deepest desires.
Barbara starts the podcast with her financial backstory (spoiler: while Barbara’s story is unique to her own life, its themes are ones most women are all-too familiar with). She talks about how she knew virtually nothing about money as a young single mother of three, and she opens up about her own fears about money, managing finances, and one of her biggest challenges so far: being instead of doing.
If you’re ready to take control of your finances, make more money, and uncover your deepest fears about what’s holding you back, tune in to this month’s Emerging Women Podcast, featuring financial consultant, Barbara Huson. Podcast Resources Rewire for Wealth: Three Steps Any Woman Can Take to Program Her Brain for Financial Success
Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money
Sacred Success: A Course in Financial Miracles
Emerging Women Powerboost with Barbara Huson: REWIRE for Wealth, Well-Being, and Really, Whatever Else You Want (March 3)
We marvel at the mind-blowing experiences that our guests share with us and our newest guest, author, poet, activist, and former aid worker, Natasha Scripture, is no exception.
In this compelling, heartfelt, and deeply moving discussion, Scripture guides us through highlights of her newest book, Man Fast: A Memoir, where she abandons the societal norm of “coupling up” and takes a hiatus from dating in order to not only find herself, but to truly identify her life purpose. Reeling from grief over the loss of her father, frustrated over failed relationships, and needing to go deeper within herself, Scripture embarks on daring and challenging adventures in her ultimate quest for meaning.
Don’t miss this engaging podcast interview between Chantal and Natasha Scripture! This one will have you thinking, appreciating, and possibly planning; the world is out there and our soul is right here—for us to explore, discover, and love.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world.
I’m your host, Chantal Pierrat.
Today’s guest is my longtime friend Dara McKinley.
Dara is a thought leader in the divine feminine, an entrepreneur, and a modern spiritual guide in the art of forgiveness.
She holds a graduate degree from Naropa University in Boulder and formerly ran a successful private counseling practice.
Twelve years ago, Dara suffered a painful betrayal by a business partner that left her questioning herself. She asked the Divine Mother for answers and received an answer that simply said: Forgive.
At first, she was reluctant. But she began to research the art of forgiveness, ultimately developing a finely-tuned practice of forgiveness that allowed her to reclaim her personal power.
And, she says ... you can learn how to forgive, too.
“I define forgiveness as a spiritual experience that heals betrayal,” Dara says in today's podcast. (7:00) What’s more, she says, mastering the art of forgiveness is key to unlocking your divine feminine power. “Some not-so-obvious indicators that you may be in need of forgiveness are being very judgmental of others, being very judgmental of yourself, insomnia that has you worried in the middle of the night, and chronic anxiety.” (7:21) Dara advises doing the “wince test.” “Think of something in your life that when people bring it up or you think about it – just makes you wince inside,” she says. This is the area where you need to explore forgiveness. Here are some fantastic quotes from my podcast interview with Dara:
“Forgiveness is not a tool; it’s foundational. Because the path to the feminine rise is going to involve loss and failure.” (10:08) “The transformational process of forgiveness leaves you in such a stronger place than you ever could have imagined.” (10:45) “The definition of betrayal is when someone or something you trusted fails you.” (16:08) “Now, I use the word betrayal in my course to talk about anything that would benefit from forgiveness even if what failed you was yourself.” (16:41) “Forgiveness is a function of universal love, and universal love operates even when there is no understanding and no empathy, universal love can still be accessed and applied.” (22:26) “One of my big goals with this work is to evolve and create a working definition for forgiveness from pardoning offenses and ceasing anger to forgiveness is a spiritual experience that heals betrayal, that heals when what you trusted ... fails.” (24:24) “If forgiveness has your back then you’re invincible because no matter where you trip and fall and stumble, you’re going to be able to move forward in a really quick way.” (33:15)
In today’s podcast, Dara and I talk about one of the most challenging opportunities: self-forgiveness.
“Sometimes you need to forgive the aspect of yourself that gives you a hard time.” (8:37)
It never occurred to me when we started talking about this that the thing that I would pick to test this course would be myself. When I realized I was going to forgive myself, I feel like I struck gold.
Self-forgiveness goes way beyond having compassion for oneself.
It is:
A clearing out of what is holding us back. And an act of surrender and a letting go of that which does not serve us.
Self-forgiveness is an all-powerful gateway to personal power.
It takes openness, empathy, vulnerability, and receptivity – all inherently feminine strengths.
The truth is: We all have someone or something to forgive – perhaps even ourselves.
It’s not just about forgiveness. It’s about healing ourselves, others and the planet. And creating a future where empathy, vulnerability, and true feminine strength reign supreme.
It’s all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so let’s jump right into this unique and fascinating conversation. Welcome to “Forgiveness and Feminine Power” with my friend Da...
Do you have a daily experience of inner peace? What about a daily practice of self-care?
My guest today argues a daily spiritual practice is essential for women in these stressful contemporary times.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast. Today my guest is Snatam Kaur.
Snatam is a musician with a voice of an angel. She transforms traditional Sikh chants of India into nectar for the soul in our troubled times.
She is also a yogi, author, and teacher.
Her 2016 book titled >Original Light; the Morning Practice of Kundalini Yoga encourages women to create a personal daily spiritual practice.
Snatam was raised in the Sikh and Kundalini Yoga tradition with revered spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan. She has taught and shared Naad Yoga and Kundalini Yoga and meditation through her concerts, recorded music and workshops for the past 20 years.
Snatam says that through a daily practice or "soul work" women can experience joy, energy, health, and connection with others and the Divine.
Snatam advises all women to weave into their lives a regular experience of inner peace – and gives us a roadmap for how to wake up and how to integrate our energy into society on a daily basis.
In today’s episode, Snatam and I spoke about:
The one question every woman must ask themselves today. The importance of a daily spiritual practice of self-love, self-care, purification, and acceptance. The connection between our body, mind, and soul. The power of sacred recitation, yoga, and chanting to heal worry, stress and anxiety.
We dive into those topics and more! Here is my conversation “Original Light” with Snatam Kaur.
Today we are talking to the first-ever male interviewed on our podcast: Mike Robbins. And to quote Salt-N-Pepa: What a man!
Mike is a well-respected author, thought leader and speaker in our community. His fourth book, Bring Your Whole Self to Work, advocates a corporate cultural paradigm shift toward vulnerability -- to both improve employee engagement and boost the bottom line.
Our mission at Emerging Women is not only to increase women’s leadership, but also to create a new workplace cultural paradigm that ushers in a more humane, feminine ethos of collaboration, empathy, and compassion. And Mike Robbins is a leading voice on that front.
During our podcast interview, Mike and Chantal explore an essential question: What if the workplace was not just a place to develop your career, but a destination for personal transformation?
In his latest book, Mike says that vulnerability -- allowing ourselves to be genuinely seen -- is the secret sauce to creating human trust and connections. Stemming from those connections is a feeling of “psychological safety” that leads to better performance, outcomes and success.
Mike is a sought-after speaker with corporate clients including Google, Microsoft, and Gap, Inc. to name a few.
Mike is a former professional baseball player who studied race and ethnicity at Stanford University. Growing up in Oakland, California, he was the only white player in his high school baseball league. Now Mike says he is no longer shy about speaking up on topics of race and gender.
In this episode, Mike and Chantal explore ... what if the workplace was not just a place to develop your career, but a destination for personal transformation?
We discuss how a more feminine approach to business with collaboration, creativity, and connection – can translate into bottom-line success.
And we delve into the link between a team’s success and their feeling of psychological safety at work.
We also talk about what to say when tears come at work.
Here is our compelling conversation, “Bring Your Whole Self to Work” with an absolute gem of a guy: Mike Robbins.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m your host, Chantal Pierrat.
Today’s guest is Sera Beak, who finished graduate school at Harvard studying comparative world religion and rapidly gained traction as what The New York Times called “a new role-model” for her generation. She was much in-demand as a speaker, author, and teacher for young modern women who she felt had been left out of the world’s wisdom traditions, when, as she puts it, “the universe slapped her to the ground.”
She realized the importance of finding and embodying her Soul, which we talk about in this podcast, and one of the things I most admire about Sera is that she walked away from all the lucrative offers and life in the spotlight in order to pursue her truth, so that she could more deeply contribute to this world.
Now her long-awaited third book, Redvelations, has just come out, and she joined me to discuss the difference between your divine soul and your human soul, and how one can guide you to complete the other. We also talk about the epidemic of soul loss, and how the body is truly the way home. So get ready to get open - we delve into some pretty uncharted territory as far as space and time are concerned.
It’s all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so let’s jump right into this unique and fascinating conversation. Welcome to “Redvelations” with Sera Beak.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and today we have a podcast from a very special guest who raised the roof at our last Emerging Women Live event with her powerful song-writing, story-telling and movement-making.
Today’s guest is MILCK, aka Connie Lim, the artist behind the goosebump-inducing anthem “Quiet,” which captured the nation, and the world, when she premiered it with a live chorus in flashmob form at the 2017 Women’s March. Her song has since gone viral reaching over 15 million listeners all around the world.
In this episode, MILCK shares her lifelong journey from people-pleaser to truth-teller, and how she has personally worked her edge and overcome challenges to finally feel comfortable expressing the truth of who she is to the world.
We hear first-hand how she came to organize an incredibly impactful moment-turned-movement, rather than succumb to industry pressures to monetize the release of the single.
And hear MILCK’s perspective on how speaking out can play a healing role in transforming shame and self-blame, both for self and for others.
It’s all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so let’s dive in and hear it from the singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and choir-builder herself. Welcome to “Can’t Keep Quiet” with MILCK.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and today’s guests are Elle Luna, artist and author of The Crossroads of Should and Must, and psychotherapist Susie Herrick.
Elle recalls hearing David Whyte say, “There comes a time when you no longer want to be a part of the conversation that diminishes you.” To help women who are coming to the same realization, Elle and Susie have just put out the beautiful book Your Story is Your Power - Free Your Feminine Voice.
Today we’ll discuss insights and exercises from the book, including how we can identify the parts of our stories that are keeping us from our own bests interests as women, how personality typing (attention: Enneagram lovers!) can give us signposts as we uncover our true voice, and how the special, impactful magic that radiates around a woman working her edge can lead to a better future for all.
Ready to tap into the feminine to ignite transformation, internally and externally? It's all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so let’s dive in and go deep. Welcome to “Your Story is Your Power” with Elle Luna and Susie Herrick.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and today’s guest has such a cool perspective on leadership and authenticity.
Jackee Holder is an executive and leadership coach, who helps high-level business people access the parts of themselves that live below the surface through journaling so that they have increased access to their own resilience, visioning, restorative care, and other strengths.
As the author of 49 Ways to Write Yourself Well, Jackee has many practices to share. Does journaling ever feel like homework to you? Jackee teaches us some ways to entice your muse to come play instead of giving her more boxes to check. She’ll share snapshots from her own multi-faceted, multi-media journaling practice for inspiration. And we’ll talk about the special power of trees to help us drop into something deeper with ourselves and each other.
This episode is all about expression and connection. It's the mainstay of the Emerging Women ethos, so let’s get to it! Welcome to “Healing Through Writing” with Jackee Holder.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and today’s guest is Amy Baglan, Founder and CEO of MeetMindful, the dating app for conscious and meaningful connections.
There’s a tendency in current culture to let the digital world act as a scoreboard for our worth as human beings. I myself may be guilty of letting the number of likes dictate my mood on occasion. Amy believes it’s important for tech leaders to upend that tendency by facilitating quality connections rather than quantities of connections.
In our conversation, Amy connects the dots that made her an entrepreneur on a mission to evolve the dating industry. We’ll talk about what it means to look for “mindful connection” or a “conscious partner,” and the benefits of practicing intimacy beyond the context of romantic relationship. She even shares how she’s changed the way she dates lately - which she believes will call in a much bigger love than she would have found before she shifted her perspective.
This episode is about to get real about mindful connection. It's all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so let’s dive in and go deep. Welcome to “MeetMindful” with Amy Baglan. {Press PLAY above}
This episode is brought to you by our friends at MeetMindful. MeetMindful is revolutionizing the way we meet and connect with others in daily life by inspiring people to make meaningful connections every day, both on and offline.
Maybe you’re looking for long-term love with a partner who shares your core values. Perhaps you just want to meet a new like-minded friend to grab a coffee with on Saturday afternoon. The bottom line? You’re looking for people to connect with, people who get you. If you’re interested in meeting like-minded people, welcome to your new community. Visit MeetMindful today to start your free trial.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and today’s guest is Cate Montana, who loves to refer to herself in the 3rd person, as you’ll see, because she’s all about exploring the E words: enlightenment, ego, and what it means to be a woman in a “skin-suit” searching for transpersonal consciousness.
You’re going to love this conversation if, like me, you love Eckhart Tolle, want to be one with the universe, but have kids or a business and can’t just sit on a bench for months at a time trying to let your human self dissolve completely. There’s a middle ground, says Cate Montana, author of The E Word. She’s here to share what she’s learned after years of meditation and study, and give us techniques, tips, and insights into moving beyond our stories and opening up to the truth of who we really are.
This episode is about to get real about awakening, self-improvement, and expanded ego. It's all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so get let’s dive in and go deep. Welcome to “The E Word” with Cate Montana.
Today’s guest is Reshma Saujani, a lawyer and activist whose desire to be of public service led her on an unlikely path: from an unsuccessful bid for US Congress to founding Girls Who Code, a thriving non-profit and social movement that equips over 40,000 girls nationwide with the skills to pursue 21st century opportunities they may not have thought were available to them.
We talk about why it’s so important to build resilience in girls, and how they largely put their skills to use for community good. We talk about how to fight sexism in tech companies, and how to promote diversity in the workplace beyond quotas. And Reshma shares her insights for passionate women who seek to gain influence and power for public good.
This episode is about to get real about colossal failure and its potential to take us places we never imagined. It's all a part of the Emerging Women ethos, so get let’s dive in and go deep.
Welcome to “Brave Not Perfect” with Reshma Saujani.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at MeetMindful. MeetMindful is revolutionizing the way we meet and connect with others in daily life by inspiring people to make meaningful connections every day, both on and offline.
Maybe you’re looking for long-term love with a partner who shares your core values. Perhaps you just want to meet a new like-minded friend to grab a coffee with on Saturday afternoon. The bottom line? You’re looking for people to connect with, people who get you. If you’re interested in meeting like-minded people, welcome to your new community. Visit MeetMindful today to start your free trial.
Today my guest is Danielle LaPorte. You may know her from her #truthbombs, which bring millions of visitors to her site each month. Or from her bestselling books The Desire Map and The Firestarter Sessions. Her multi-million dollar company is run by 5 women (and one lucky guy, she says), and this year she’s released a new bestselling book - White Hot Truth: Clarity for Keeping it Real On Your Spiritual Path—From One Seeker to Another - to help the self-helpers amongst us see when we’re bypassing our feelings, or falling for well-branded dogma.
In this podcast we talk about all the readings, healers, workshops, juices, therapists, weekend retreats and more she’s experimented with, and whether it was all worth it. We talk about what it means to have spiritual maturity, and the importance of self-acceptance, morality, and creative agency. We get into forgiveness, ego, her new take on desire, and the science of surrender. And it is juicy, people. Seekers - you’re going to want to hear this one. Let’s dive in.
Welcome to White Hot Truth with the passionate Danielle LaPorte. {Press play above}
This episode is brought to you by our friends at MeetMindful. MeetMindful is revolutionizing the way we meet and connect with others in daily life by inspiring people to make meaningful connections every day, both on and offline.
Maybe you’re looking for long-term love with a partner who shares your core values. Perhaps you just want to meet a new like-minded friend to grab a coffee with on Saturday afternoon. The bottom line? You’re looking for people to connect with, people who get you. If you're interested in meeting like-minded people, welcome to your new community. Visit MeetMindful today to start your free trial.
Today my guest is LiYana Silver, teacher, coach, speaker, and author of Feminine Genius: The Provocative Path to Waking Up and Turning On the Wisdom of Being a Woman.
LiYana Silver mentors women to unlock their Feminine Genius using intuition (before reasoning), feeling (before thinking), receiving (before giving), sensuality (before willpower), pleasure (before restriction), and collaboration (before competition).
In today’s podcast, we unpack the term feminine genius through the combined lenses of spirituality and science, specifically quantum physics. We talk about how to trust in the “death” part of the death and rebirth cycle, and how to express your authentic self without dying from your emotions. We’ll also hear why LiYana says women are like lightbulbs… can you guess why?
I am thrilled that LiYana will be joining us again at Emerging Women Live 2017 in Denver, CO. I hope you will be there, too, either in person or via free livestream - sign up here.
This episode is brought to you by our friends at MeetMindful. MeetMindful is revolutionizing the way we meet and connect with others in daily life by inspiring people to make meaningful connections every day, both on and offline.
Maybe you’re looking for long-term love with a partner who shares your core values. Perhaps you just want to meet a new like-minded friend to grab a coffee with on Saturday afternoon. The bottom line? You’re looking for people to connect with, people who get you. If you're interested in meeting like-minded people, welcome to your new community. Visit MeetMindful today to start your free trial.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and my guest is Lisa Wimberger, founder of the Neurosculpting Institute.
Lisa researched neuroscience and created the practice of neurosculpting to heal herself from a trauma you have to hear to believe (it starts with being struck by lightning and gets weirder from there). Since then she’s brought the practices and process of self-directed neuroplasticity to help everyone from street police to working professionals down-regulate negative patterns of chronic or traumatic stress.
Today we talk about:
why the brain makes patterns and scripts how neurosculpting can help you renegotiate patterns that no longer serve you fear and free will how to make memory an expansive fuel instead of a limiting cage two simple practices to get your brain and body communicating as they work together to repattern your stress response
Lisa will be hosting the workshop “Neurosculpting for Leadership in the Zone” at Emerging Women Live 2017 in Denver, CO. I hope you can join us!
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and my guest is Rachael O’Meara who is starting a movement - the Power of Pause.
Rachael was a constant achiever who took on a stretchy position at Google which led to a lot of negative feedback: physically, emotionally, and from others. Rachael authored the book Pause: Harnessing the Life Changing Power of Giving Yourself a Break after she made the intentional decision to get more in line with her true self instead of beating herself up trying to force a life that was no longer working.
In today’s podcast we discuss burnout as a blessing, failure as feedback, and how to recognize signs that you need a pause. Rachael shares specific ways to pause and how to check in with yourself when presented with conflicting options so you stay true to your deep yearnings. And we learn about TASERing - a practice Rachael developed to help us mentally floss our brains of limiting false beliefs.
I’m glad you’re taking this pause in your day to tune in to our conversation “Pause” with go-getter turned power pauser, Rachael O’Meara.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, and my guest is Esther Perel, here to talk to us about the always-compelling topic of intimate relationships.
Esther’s new podcast Where Should We Begin? in collaboration with Audible.com is striking a chord - it hit #3 on the charts, up there with This American Life - by taking conversations once reserved for the psychotherapist’s office and making them a part of public discourse. In this way, Esther is giving us the language we need to discuss the multitude of possibilities and options that exist for creating a thriving relationship in modern times.
When speaking to a couple, she invites them to consider the vast array of factors - both internal and external - that effect relationship. Desire and sexuality, yes, but also culture, class, longing, betrayal, unemployment, infertility, romanticism, illness, fear, death - all of life’s big issues are discussed openly and honestly to see what they have to teach us about the human heart.
We’re just scratching the surface of this endlessly juicy subject today, so Esther will be speaking at our annual event Emerging Women Live 2017 to delve deeper into the conundrums and complexities of relationship. I hope you’ll join us in October, and let’s start laying the groundwork now with “The Real Real of Relationships” with the dynamic and prolific Esther Perel.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and my guest is advocate and social entrepreneur Jennifer Brown.
Jennifer grew up in a conservative culture, and in college took a women’s studies class that completely flipped the script for her. She became active in social justice, driven by a desire to make positive change. While getting her masters in operatic singing, she literally lost her voice. She realized she was still meant to use her voice - not as a singer, but on behalf of others, working to help them find their own. She got a masters in change management and has recently written the book Inclusion: Diversity, the New Workplace & the Will to Change.
Today we’re talking about the inevitability of change, the prices people pay for being different, and how workplaces of the future can address humanitarian and social equality issues as we move through these turbulent times.
Let’s dig into this fascinating and necessary conversation, “The Power of Inclusion” with diversity and inclusion expert Jennifer Brown.
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast, where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and today we’re talking MONEY, honey! Amanda Steinberg, founder of DailyWorth and WorthFM, has some juicy tidbits to share to help us flip the script around our finances so we can create wealth for ourselves (and the world) with clarity and confidence.
Amanda launched Daily Worth in 2009 to bring a fresh voice and outsider’s perspective to personal finance, and we discuss what led her to launch the women-centric investment platform WorthFM towards the end of this podcast. Oprah selected her for the exclusive SuperSoul 100, and Forbes named her one of 21 New American Money Masters.
Her new book, Worth It, tackles the issues around women and money because guess what, people: in the next 15 years women are going to inherit two-thirds of the 40 trillion dollars moving from Baby Boomers to the two generations below. A “perfect storm of opportunity” is coming, and Amanda wants to make sure we’re ready for it.
Whether you’re budget-averse or a fiscal hoarder, Amanda’s big-picture strategy of focusing on your net worth, knowing your Money Type, and identifying your roots and wings will have you breathing a sigh of relief as you roll up your sleeves and dig in to this money stuff.
Let’s hear it from the amazing money guru herself, Amanda Steinberg, with this week’s conversations: Worth It. Just press the play button above! Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Welcome to the Emerging Women podcast where we hear from brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and I’ve got one word for you today. PUSSY. Say it with me. Pussy. Or just whisper it if you’ve got headphones on in public. Pussy.
Does it make you smile? Do you feel a little badass? Then you’ll love today’s conversation with teacher, author and icon Regena Thomashauer, who’s made it her mission to elevate the pussy to the true seat of feminine power that it is. Her new book is called Pussy: A Reclamation, and it is on fire. It thrills me to say that you can now read the word Pussy at the top of the New York Times bestsellers list!
Regena and I talk about why today’s culture needs women to engage with the “full gale-force winds” of their sensual and sexual energy. We discuss how and why women got so disconnected from their sensual power, and how to reconnect with a few of Regena’s favorite practices. As Regena says, “We don’t have to be victimized by living in a patriarchal culture. We can create the solutions with this divine, magnificent, body that is woman.”
So without further ado, let’s dive into this week’s Emerging Women podcast “Pussy Power” with Mama Gena, Regena Thomashauer. Just press the play button above! Don't miss an episode: Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Welcome to the Emerging Women Grace and Fire podcast where we hear from the brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world. I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and I want to know who out there is working with fear? If your hand didn’t shoot up, call me now, because I feel like fear is a universal reality among women who are playing big, creating change, and dedicated to living a life of personal truth.
If it’s not in the stresses of work, of stepping into our leadership, of owning our true selves, it’s in the fear-fraught news and media coverage of global events. It affects our choices, our decisions, and more than anything I created Emerging Women so that we can all know that we have to face fear to grow, but we don’t have to face it alone.
That’s why I’m so excited to have New York Times bestselling author and next-generation thought leader Gabby Bernstein on our podcast. She has written a book so timely - just its title makes me breathe a huge sigh of relief. The Universe Has Your Back is Gabby’s fifth book, and one she says she wrote just as much for herself as for her readers.
Today we talk about what she calls “her shittiest year,” and how she embodied the practices in her book to heal herself through it. She shares a few of those practices with us, including a powerful “reset button” called Forgiving the Thought and her 2 “go-to” steps for releasing fear-based blocks and becoming a joy magnet. Humility, connection, authenticity - it’s all here.
So get ready to become your own alchemist and transform fear into faith with the fierce and fabulous Gabby Bernstein. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Welcome to Emerging Women’s Grace & Fire podcast where we hear from the brilliant women leaders creating big change in the world.
I’m Chantal Pierrat, your host, and I can’t wait to dive in to this week’s conversation with the fabulous Janet Mock, author of Redefining Realness and host of the weekly culture show SoPOPular! on MSNBC.
Janet and I talk about her story as a “blueprint for life” for a young black trans person of color, how she defines courage, and what’s inherently bizarre about binary gender norms. We consider the power of “discussing things we pretend we’re too smart to like,” like trashy tv shows and celebrity gossip. And Janet just nails it down when I ask her what vision she has for those of us who are no longer willing to compromise what we know to be true on the inside in order to maintain the mask we put on for survival.
Hells yes. Let’s get to it - this week’s Grace & Fire podcast “Redefining Realness” with the brilliant and beautiful Janet Mock. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
I am feeling my full Warrior energy after speaking with Glennon Doyle Melton. She is the bestselling author of Carry On, Warrior and founder of Momastery.com, and her new book Love Warrior launches in just a few weeks and without a doubt will be yet another best-seller.
Her writing is simultaneously hilarious and vulnerable - full of raw, unabashed realness on everything from addiction to motherhood to marital infidelity. And though “she writes simply as a way to survive,” she says, her words are powerful and resonate with readers who have found themselves “on the bathroom floor” in their own ways.
I love that she’s also a fierce movement-maker, full of outward action to help people in need. Glennon is the creator of Together Rising, a non-profit organization that has raised over four million dollars for families around the world through its Love Flash Mobs, which have revolutionized online giving.
Glennon and I talk about:
“Being Underneath” and the dangers of treating pain like a hot potato The benefits of a tender, feminine faith that isn’t rule-bound The feeling of being evicted from your whole life, and what comes next How society colors the way we are able to give and receive love How to view women as warriors rather than helpers
Let’s dive in to this week’s conversation “Love Warrior” with the self-proclaimed Recovering Everything: Glennon Doyle Melton. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
I recently learned a new word that I LOVE: moonshot. It sounds so feminine, but with this deep undercurrent of disruption of the status quo.
Inspired by President Kennedy’s massive efforts to put a man on the moon, a “moonshot” is a barely achievable initiative that demands extraordinary effort and teamwork to achieve. It’s an initiative that’s definitely not possible with “business as usual” - you have to completely transform ways of working and collaboration and performance in order to make it happen. And the most exciting part? The widespread effects of a moonshot are often world-changing in a way no one could have imagined.
Kate Purmal and Lisa Goldman are wildly accomplished leaders who have many decades of moonshot experience between them. They’ve led, guided and inspired companies from Apple to Match.com through successful moonshot launches, and have brought that expertise to bear in their new book The Moonshot Effect: Disrupting Business as Usual, a step-by-step “How To” for moonshot projects, and also just an indispensable guide to leadership in general.
I had the pleasure of talking to Kate and Lisa to help us wrap our heads around the catalyzing topic of . We covered:
The Moonshot Effect and its radical ability to galvanize people into action around a world-changing idea The stages, timeline and ripple effect of a moonshot Two crucial practices of bold, outrageous visionaries Tips for sourcing power from your body and language The difference between being humble and being a courageous Hero-Maker
So let’s dive in to this week’s conversation “Moonshot” with chronic game-changers Kate Purmal and Lisa Goldman. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Marianne Williamson, the internationally acclaimed spiritual author and lecturer. Six of her eleven published books have been New York Times Best Sellers. Four of these have been #1. The mega best-seller A Return to Love contains the famous paragraph, beginning “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” The depth of this sentiment is staggering, especially for women.
Marianne founded Project Angel Food, a meals-on- wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. She also co-founded the Peace Alliance, and serves on the Board of Directors of the RESULTS organization, working to end the worst ravages of hunger and poverty throughout the world.
Her weekly lectures in New York City are available via Livestream on her website Marianne.com, where you will also find loads of other amazing content.
In Marianne’s recent book: Tears to Triumph: The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment she argues that we—as a culture and as individuals—have learned to avoid facing pain. By doing so, we are neglecting the spiritual work of healing.
In this episode, Marianne and I spoke about:
The age we are living in: “Age of the Choir” How Depression is addressed in our culture and the transformative power of the Dark Night of the Soul The barrage of meaninglessness that literally “bruises the Spirit” occurring in our world today, and how it is essential to heal the spirit on our journey toward wholeness How miracles are actually thoughts and how to navigate our emotions Forgiveness, and how it can be a bridge between our inner work and what we create in the world.
After we recorded this podcast, Marianne wanted me to pass along the important message to anybody taking medication for depression, mental illness or other pain: Marianne strongly recommends that should you desire to alter your medication, or get off them altogether, that you do so under the strict supervision and consultation of your doctor.
Here is my conversation “Tears to Triumph” with the fabulous torch-bearer of Spirituality: Marianne Williamson. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Tosha Silver. For the past 30 years she has taught people around the world ways to align with Inner Love.
Tosha Silver runs an online school called, “Living Outrageous Openness: Think Like a Goddess." This school offers an ongoing way to support those who truly want to live these beautiful, ancient practices. She’s the author of Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead and the recently released Change Me Prayers: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Surrender and the Audio Program, Embrace the Divine: Meditations on Spiritual Surrender.
Tosha was a featured presenter at Emerging Women Live 2016.
In today’s episode, Tosha and I spoke about:
Her journey and how she has become immersed in the work of the Divine How the ‘everyday/mundane’ coupled with the Divine are actually the same thing The distinction between mindfulness and being led by the Divine The idea of ‘Surrender’ versus will, and how they can mean the same thing Being receptive and identifying the signs of what the Divine is trying to tell us Finally, we talked about how the Divine can shape your vision for the future
Here is my conversation “Outrageous Openness” with the wonderfully divine: Tosha Silver. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Sara Avant Stover, a teacher of feminine spirituality and empowerment, and bestselling author & founder of The Way of the Happy Woman.
Sara graduated from Columbia University’s all-women’s school, Barnard College. After a cancer scare in her early twenties, Sara moved to Thailand, where she lived for ten years and embarked on a decade-long healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia. She has since gone on to uplift tens of thousands of women worldwide.
A pioneer in contemporary women’s work, she’s the creator of the world’s first Women’s Yoga Teacher Training, Reversing Our “Curse,” and The SHE School. Her new book: The Book of SHE: Your Heroine’s Journey into the Heart of Feminine Power celebrates all that it means to be a woman, from mythological underpinnings to the cycles of our day-to-day lives.
In today’s episode, Sara and I spoke about:
Rhythm – it’s significance and power for women The Heroine’s Journey vs. The Hero’s Journey Her 5 steps of the Heroine’s Journey Archetypes and the importance of the Crone Learning how to navigate through “darkness” and how to “Turn on Your Brights” The Homecoming
Here is my conversation “Living the Heroine’s Journey” with the wise and powerful Sara Avant Stover. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Elle Luna. Elle is a designer, painter and writer. On April 8, 2013, Elle published an essay on Medium.com, “The Crossroads of Should and Must,” which quickly went viral. Within weeks, it was tweeted to over 5 million people and seen by over a quarter of a million readers. Elle extended that post into an illustrated, four color book, The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion, where she explains the importance of mistakes, of “unlearning,” of solitude, of keeping moving and of following a soul path. She was also a featured speaker at Emerging Women Live in October in San Francisco.
In today’s episode, Elle and I spoke about:
Dreams: How to use them as signposts of what to go after in the "real world"
What Elle means by Should and Must, and how to make decisions toward Must
Her belief that there is a rise of spirit and emergence going on right now in the collective
How Must is not quite a decision, but rather... well, a must
Here is my conversation “Should vs. Must: A Daily Practice of Following Your Heart” with the inspirational artist Elle Luna. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Dr. Tererai Trent is one of today’s most internationally recognized voices for quality education and women’s empowerment. Distinguished as Oprah Winfrey’s “All-Time Favorite Guest,” Dr. Trent is a scholar, humanitarian, motivational speaker, educator, author and the founder of Tererai Trent International, whose mission is to provide quality education in rural Africa.
Rooted in humble beginnings, Tererai grew up in a cattle-herding family in rural Zimbabwe. Despite facing many obstacles, she never lost sight of her dreams for an education. She could not have imagined that her steadfast determination, hard work and belief in her dreams would eventually earn her multiple degrees and a prominent global platform with world leaders and international audiences where she leads the global charge in the fight for quality education and women’s rights.
Her new picture book, The Girl Who Buried Her Dreams in a Can, is based on this incredible story of perseverance. When you buy her book, a portion of the proceeds will go toward building a cafeteria in Africa that feeds over 1,200 students who walk 5-6 miles every day to attend school.*
In today’s episode, Tererai and I spoke about:
Her life story and how she kept hope alive during immense difficulty The universal power of belief What she describes as: “The Great Hunger” that fuels her passion to achieve her dreams How she was able to step into her voice and the power of storytelling Her ULTIMATE dream
Here is my conversation “Dream Big” with the incredibly inspiring and powerful: Dr. Tererai Trent.
*You can choose to buy two copies and gift one to girls in Tererai's Community and Afar! If you'd like to gift a book to Tererai's girls, please autograph the copy and send to C/O Dr. Trent PO Box 2206 Salinas, CA 93901. Thank you! Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
A native of Belgian, fluent in nine languages, and a penetrating observer of the social and cultural patterns shaping our relationships, Esther is a practicing psychotherapist and organizational consultant to Fortune 500 companies. Her 2013 TED talk, “The Secret to Desire in a Long-Term Relationship,” attracted more than a million views in the first month after its release. Her second TED Talk, “Rethinking Infidelity: A talk for Anyone Who Has Ever Loved”, was equally well-received. Combined, her TED talks have received approx. 10 million views. In today’s episode, Esther and I spoke about:
Her definition of desire; the importance of owning desire and how to connect to our own desires Women are socialized for connection and the associated vulnerability of the inability to connect to self Experiencing freedom from perfection without the guilt Imagination complementing reality in relationships What women can hold onto for stability in the ever increasingly gender-fluid era.
Here is my ‘juicy’ conversation The Fluidity of Desire with the insightful and practical: Esther Perel. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript Welcome, Esther! I’m so excited to have you here on the show! Esther Perel: Thank you! It’s a pleasure for me to be with you as well. CP: And every time you speak, I feel like a tender heart, because my mother, who has passed away, had a much thicker French accent than you have, and I’ve been listening to your audio book, Mating in Captivity, so I feel like you’ve been with me on my walks in the morning and listening to your content. It’s kind of taking me back a bit. EP: You know, we share, in utero, it’s probably the first sense that we develop. So we are starting out with a very intimate connection. And if you want, I can even make my French accent a little stronger, so that I can channel your mother. CP: [Laughs] She spoke like zis. EP: Oh, wow. CP: Oh, no, it was very thick. But I think that when you have an accent like that, and you’re talking about sensuality and sex and desire—I don’t know what your experience has been, but it seems like you might have carte blanche to say just about anything, right? EP: Well, you know, the French accent works in both directions, especially in the United States. Sometimes it comes with a kind of bias that says, “Oh, you must know something, the je ne sais quoi that French people have in the realm of the erotics.” But then, on the other side, the opposite way is to start with kind of a warning sentence that says, “No, no, I’m not French, I’m not morally depraved, it’s not like anything goes.” I think there’s an enormous amount of projections in this domain onto the French—onto the Latin people in general, it seems, certainly onto the French—some of which is going to be accurate and some of which is the fantasy of the person who expresses it, or the person that is being designated. CP: Of course. Well, I think we’re probably going to get into that a lot more [and] in a lot more depth, instead of just talking about the French accent in terms of projections, as we get into your content. So the first thing that I would love to lead with is, you speak a lot about desire. And it seems to me that—especially since our audience is primarily women, we address women, the modern woman, who’s moving it and shaking it in so many different ways—what I’m finding a lot is that women in relationships—and I don’t want to make a generalization with statistics and all that, but anecdotally, I find often women are in relationships where they’ve either lost the desire or the desire has shifted, or they don’t even have juice for desire after working a full day. I’m curious to see—this is such a cornerstone to relationships, and I would love to hear your take on, first of all, what do you mean by desire? And how is that such a foundation for healthy relationships? EP: So I really like the fact that you start by asking me to define the...
Deemed the modern face of Kundalini Yoga, Guru Jagat brings a fresh perspective to this ancient practice. She is the founder of RA MA Institute for Applied Yogic Science and Technology, a premier yoga school with locations in Venice CA, Boulder CO, and La Jolla CA offering classes, workshops and group cleanses.
She launched RA MA TV, a new virtual media platform that makes Kundalini Yoga and yogic lifestyle accessible to people all over the world, as well as the indie yoga music label RA MA Records with a mission to trailblaze a new genre of music for mass consumption-in and out of the yoga space, on the dance floor, radio and beyond. Guru Jagat was a featured presenter at the 2015 Emerging Women Live.
In today’s episode, Guru Jagat and I spoke about:
The story behind her name and what exactly she means by Kundalini Why her spiritual technology is so great for women and why Kundalini is Why she has brought business into Kundalini Practice How women are hardwired to make a difference in the world Waking up every day with a conscious decision of how you are going to live that day
Here is my conversation “The Technology of Aliveness” with the powerful and energetic: Guru Jagat. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript: OK, hello, and welcome, Guru Jagat! How are you? Guru Jagat: Doing really well, thank you for having me on the show today. CP: I’m so excited to do a deep dive into the mysteries and the practicalities of Kundalini yoga with you, and your whole spiritual—I guess when I say “dharma,” that’s probably the wrong lineage, right? GJ: No, dharma’s not specific to lineage. CP: Right? The Buddhists don’t own dharma, right? GJ: They don’t, they don’t. I use that word all the time. It means what you came here for and what you’re uncovering that you came here for. CP: So I know that you have been on tour quite a bit, and you’re expanding centers and you’re traveling with your work. You were just in Europe? Am I right? GJ: Yes, we were just touring Europe with RA MA TV and with some other Kundalini yoga—there’s a big Kundalini yoga festival that happens in France. We also took a huge group of people to all the mystical sites in a southern cave, which was a very powerful experience, like, life-changing. CP: Wow. That sounds great. Kundalini yoga and the south of France—that’s something I would definitely sign up for. GJ: Yes, not bad! CP: Not bad, right? Why don’t we start with—because some people are listening and they’re like, “What is Kundalini yoga?” And I even want to go back a little bit—and maybe you can figure out the right way to talk about this, but your name is Guru Jagat. That is your name. And I would love to hear the story around that, and I think when we first talked, when I met you, you had such a strong energy. You definitely feel like you carry the weight of that name, to me, just meeting you. I didn’t know what to expect. But maybe you can talk a little bit about the background and how you came to be doing what you’re doing, and where your name comes from. And we can start there. GJ: Sure. Kundalini yoga, at its essence, is a technology of sound. And I believe that we’re really at the very surface, scratching the surface, of what sound in this age of technology is going to open up for us—this age of space travel and the whole universe and our whole daily perspective, and also world perspective, expanding so rapidly. So Kundalini yoga at its basis has this sound technology, which you could call “mantra,” but really it’s just these codes, these sound codes. So Yogi Bhajan gave names that were destiny sound codes, we’ll call it. So when he gave me my name, I was really young, and everybody else was getting—it was one of those moments where everybody else was getting Tej and Jot and Prem, these sweet, simple names, and then it came to me and it was like, [deep voice] “Guru Jagat.” [Laughs] CP: Right? [Laughs] It’s like,
Today my guest is Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Kelly is a health psychologist and award-winning lecturer at Stanford University. A leading expert on the mind-body relationship, her work integrates the latest findings of psychology, neuroscience and medicine with contemplative practices of mindfulness and compassion from the traditions of Buddhism and yoga. She is the author of The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good For You, And How To Get Good At It, where she highlights new research indicating that stress can, in fact, make us stronger, smarter, and happier—if we learn how to embrace it.
In today’s episode, Kelly and I spoke about:
Her definition of stress and how it can actually be a benefit The research surrounding stress and the idea of transforming stress instead of reducing it Examples of how to transform the way we think about stress Embracing the ‘Flow State’ How our culture of fear of discomfort holds us back.
Here is my conversation “The Upside of Stress” with the intelligent and revolutionary: Kelly McGonigal. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript Well, hello and welcome, Kelly McGonigal! How are you? Kelly McGonigal: I’m doing great! Thanks for having me back. CP: Great. It’s always so fabulous to talk to you and to connect with you. I’m super excited to get into this new material. One of the things I thought we would just launch in with was, the last time we talked, you had launched the book The Willpower Instinct, and you were working on the psychology and the science behind internal change. And I’m curious to see, just in your own life, how this work on stress has evolved from your first book and what your journey has been. KM: Yes. So when I think about how all of the work that I’ve been doing—the willpower work, the stress work, and my work at the Stanford Center for Compassion, trying to help people cultivate greater compassion—I realize that everything I’ve been doing for the last 15 years or so has been about trying to help people accept inner experiences or life circumstances that they can’t really control. Whether that’s dealing with cravings in terms of addiction, difficult emotions like anxiety and anger or grief, or even how I got started, which was working with people with chronic pain, and finding a way to accept pain that you can’t fix or change or control. And the funny thing is that, because of my training in psychology and medicine, I’ve kept one thing outside of that circle of acceptance, and that was stress. Somehow stress remains that inner experience, that enemy, that really was toxic, that we really did need to reduce or avoid or manage. And it took me until, really, just a couple of years ago to realize that everything that I’ve been saying about the best way to deal with and transform other difficult inner experiences—like pain and anxiety and grief—the same applied to stress. It’s a big mistake to spend your energy trying to suppress or trying to avoid, just because you find that experience distressing. The same principles that I recommend for these other difficult inner experiences, of accepting and then transforming them, of using them as a catalyst for meaning or for connection with others, that same principle [applies] to stress. And it really took some of the science that was coming out in the last five years or so about stress mindsets to really confront me and realize that I had somehow created this enemy out of stress that was not serving people. We’re all stressed, and I think the idea that we could ever avoid it is probably fundamentally flawed. CP: What is stress? I mean, you reference difficult emotions, and then there’s the whole physiology behind it. I’m curious to see what you’re calling “stress.” Is it a physiology thing? Or is it— KM: Yes, it’s a tough question, because we use the word “stress” to basically describe everything we don’t want to experience. We will use the word “stress” to describe a delay in traffi...
Welcome to Part 2 of our podcast with Dr. Neha Sangwan.
Dr. Neha Sangwan, CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, is an internal medicine physician, international speaker and corporate communication expert. In her new book, TalkRx, Dr. Neha Sangwan reveals practical yet profound communication tools that will strengthen your relationships, reduce your stress, improve your health, and save you time! Dr. Neha Sangwan was a featured presenter at the 2015 Emerging Women Live Conference.
In today’s episode, Neha and I speak about:
Desire: being able to articulate and get to the core of what we desire The importance of clarity and the positive expression of what we want How to change conversations with people who are not clear with their desires and the skills to do it Vocalizing what we value and acting in alignment with these values Neha’s 2-Step Decision Making Tool Rewriting History, the importance of being vulnerable and how “Truth is Always the Answer”
Here is Part 2 of my conversation “Talk Rx: A Prescription for Connection, Health and Happiness” with the honest and wonderful: Dr. Neha Sangwan. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat: OK, welcome back, Neha!
Neha Sangwan: Oh, it’s so good to be here again.
CP: Now, you are visiting your parents right now. What state are you in?
NS: New York.
CP: You’re in New York, OK. Are you on Long Island?
NS: Oh no, I’m in Buffalo. I live right outside New York in Williamsburg, but my parents live in Buffalo. So the whole family’s out.
CP: So this is a perfect opportunity to practice a little TalkRx.
NS: [Laughs] Family is always the perfect opportunity to practice communication skills.
CP: And you have—you said it’s your parents’ wedding anniversary?
NS: Yes, their 50th.
CP: OK, all right. Now’s the time. [Laughs]
NS: That is so true.
CP: Well, in our first part 1, we talked about your five-step process, which I think you call the i-Five?
NS: Yes, the i-Five conversation.
CP: The i-Five conversation. Maybe we should just quickly summarize the five parts, just for the listeners that might be coming in for the first time, even on part 2. And then we can dig into the part 2 of our podcast.
NS: Sure. The whole premise of the i-Five is that it’s five steps to having not just conversations, but honest conversations. And I think that’s where people get a little stuck. So I’ve broken it down into five parts, and the first part is your body. Basically, how our senses help us pick up information from the external world while we are simultaneously getting information from our internal world, like our heart racing, [our] stomach turning, all of that stuff that also is giving us information. And sometimes those two things are not in sync, right? So I’m saying “yes” but my stomach’s dropping. So that’s the body section, which is, how do you take in data from the outside world and inside world and have it sync up, and when it doesn’t, what do you do?
That data takes us to the second part of the i-Five conversation, which is your thoughts. So if I am in room and I’m talking to you, and my eyes tell me that you just get up and leave in the middle of a conversation, that’s data that I would pick up. I’ll make up a thought about it. I’ll decide that it means you’re not feeling well. I’ll decide that it means you don’t like me. I’ll decide all sorts of things. So the second step is around the thoughts we make up once we’ve observed the data from our body.
And then, depending on which thought I believe—if I think that you’re not feeling well, it leads me to step three, which is an emotion. So if I think you’re not feeling well, I might feel an emotion of concern or worry for you, for your health, how you’re feeling. Now, if the thought I made up was that I don’t think you like me or thought that our conversation was very interesting,
Today my guest is Jane Miller, CEO and founder of JaneKnows, a career advice website, has spent three decades in the corporate world. For the past 20 years, she's become the highest ranking woman in every company she's worked in including Pepsi Co, Heinz and others. Now, she's written a how-to for millennials wanting to make it to the top - Sleep Your Way to the Top (and Other Myths About Business Success). Her new book is the go-to guide for grads, pre-grads and new execs, showing where it's easy to get tripped up, who might trick us and how to make it past the pitfalls on our way to the corner office.
In today’s episode, Jane and I speak about:
Women in the corporate arena and what challenges they face Myths about business success, having confidence, and knowing what fills your cup How to deal with difficult people in the business world Jane’s Business Dark Night of the Soul and how she got through it The one thing women can do to increase personal power and influence in the world
We hope you enjoy “Sleep Your Way to the Top (and Other Myths About Business Success)” with the accomplished and inspirational: Jane Miller. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Dr. Neha Sangwan, CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, internal medicine physician and corporate communication expert. She has written the new book TalkRx: Five Steps to Honest Conversations That Create Connection, Health, and Happiness, in which she reveals practical yet profound communication tools that will strengthen your relationships, reduce your stress, improve your health, and save you time!
In today’s episode, Neha and I speak about:
What she means by interpreting your body and then interpreting your thoughts The importance of Self-Awareness and how our thoughts teach us more about ourselves than anything else The 5 components of communication Anger as a limiting factor in difficult conversations and how to overcome it Slowing down to speed up: using awareness and understanding to resolve problems in communication quickly
Don't miss an episode: Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
This is part 2 of the conversation with Liz on Creating Big Magic. Liz is the author of 2006’s runaway bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold more than ten million copies worldwide, as well as her most recent novel, The Signature of All Things. Her forthcoming book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear will hit bookstands in September 2015. In Big Magic Liz asks the reader to embrace curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives.
Topics in this Episode:
Originality vs. Authenticity - how we should stop striving to be original and embrace authenticity Complaining, and Gratitude as an antidote Giving yourself permission to be creative How Liz stays in touch with the divine
Looking for Part 1? Listen here.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Elizabeth Gilbert.
This is part 1 (of 2) of my conversation with Elizabeth. Liz is the author of 2006’s runaway bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. Her forthcoming book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear will hit bookstands in September 2015. In Big Magic, Liz asks the reader to embrace curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives.
In today’s episode, Liz and I spoke about:
How Fear can block creativity The Fear we ‘need’ and the Fear we don’t Being open to the "Yes," but finding wisdom in the “No” How inspiration promises us nothing Hard Labor vs Fairy Dust and the balance that she seeks in her life
I hope you enjoy part 1 of my conversation “Creating Big Magic” with the trailblazer of personal voice and creativity: Elizabeth Gilbert.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
And please be sure to rate Grace & Fire while you're there!
Today my guest is HeatherAsh Amara. HeatherAsh Amara is the founder of Toci — the Toltec Center of Creative Intent, which fosters local and global community that supports authenticity, awareness, and awakening. She is dedicated to inspiring depth, creativity, and joy by sharing the most potent tools from a variety of world traditions. She brings an openhearted, inclusive worldview to her writings and teachings, which are a rich blend of Toltec wisdom, European shamanism, Buddhism, and Native American ceremony. She is the author of Warrior Goddess Training, The Toltec Path of Transformation and co-author of No Mistakes: How You Can Change Adversity into Abundance. HeatherAsh Amara lives in Austin, Texas and travels extensively around the world, speaking and teaching workshops. In today’s episode, HeatherAsh and I spoke about:
Her background and how she was attracted to Earth-based spirituality and her concept of the Warrior Goddess The Toltec Tradition and the 4 Agreements:
Be Impeccable with your Word Don’t Take Anything Personally Don’t Make Assumptions Always Do Your Best
Dealing with the Inner Critic Using the agreements to enrich creative and sexual energy The difference between Intuition and the Mental Habits of the Mind
Here is my conversation "Becoming a Warrior Goddess” with the Warrior Goddess herself: HeatherAsh Amara. As her gift to you, download two free chapters of the Warrior Goddess Training book. And when you buy her book, you'll receive HeatherAsh's 11-day online Warrior Goddess bootcamp for free. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Amanda Palmer. Amanda Palmer is a rock star, former street performer, and a crowdfunding pioneer, who knows all about asking. Performing as a living statue in a wedding dress, she wordlessly asked thousands of passersby for their dollars.
After creating the world's most successful music Kickstarter campaign for her album with the Grand Theft Orchestra, she has written a book titled: The Art of Asking: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help. In her new memoir she tells the story of an artist struggling with the new rules of exchange in the twenty-first century and inspires readers to rethink their own ideas about asking, giving, art and love.
There are so many cool things about this woman – not least of which is her post-modern retro punk cabaret band called the Dresden Dolls. She is also married to Neil Gaiman, my favorite comic book illustrator and writer of all things. But perhaps what I love the most about Amanda Palmer is the fact that her nickname is Amanda Fucking Palmer – somehow it just feels right!
In today’s episode, Amanda and I spoke about:
The Art of Asking and how she learned this art A constant theme in her life: balancing vulnerability with control Dealing with the fear of rejection – and how to ask anyway Relationship based communication and the need to still ask for help The Art of Receiving as an integral part of the ask
Here is my conversation “The Art (and Power) of Asking” with the wildly inspirational: Amanda Fucking Palmer. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript
Hi, welcome Amanda. How are you?
Amanda Palmer: I’m wonderful, how are you?
CP: I’m a little bit outside myself, because I feel like I’ve been stalking you a little bit. [Laughs]
AP: [Laughs]
CP: So I’m so excited. For the listeners who are tuning in here, this is my first time really talking to Amanda. I think we spoke for a half a minute prior to this, and I’ve been “reading” your book—I’m saying that in quotes here because I love to listen to books on audio—
AP: Oh, great!
CP: Yes, and I want to say that I’m promoting the audio version of The Art of Asking, because there’s so much in there that’s not in the book. I feel like I’ve really gotten to know you through it, and your voice. So I feel an intimacy.
AP: Yes, it’s really nice, as a musician, to put out an audio book, because that’s my medium. That’s what I’m used to, and it’s really nice to add the music and the songs to weave within the story. They really belong there.
CP: I love that you sang your intro. It was fabulous.
AP: [Laughs]
CP: [Laughs] It was so great!
AP: Thank you. I’m glad you like it.
CP: I just thought it was so unique, and you—just by way of full disclosure, I’m just going to get this out here now so we can get the stalking vibration out. I am also a huge fan—when I was in college, it was Love and Rockets and The Sandman. I mean, that was my deal. So [I’m a] huge fan of your husband, Neil Gaiman, and his work. And when I saw you coming forward on the fabulous TED talk, and I realized who you were, I was like, “Oh my God.” Can you be in love with a couple?
AP: Totally! If your polyamorous.
CP: Right? So I was in love with Neil, and now I’m in love with you, and the two of you together just makes so much groovy sense, it’s off the charts. I feel especially honored today.
AP: Thank you. It makes me really happy when people love Neil’s work, because I love him. And the really lucky thing was I wasn’t a Neil Gaiman fan, and I think that might have been a deal breaker. So I got to fall in love with the weird guy, not The Sandman author. [Laughs] I had to catch up.
CP: Right. Oh, great. What I thought we would start with today is maybe a little background on how you came into this work. I know a lot of this stems from your experience as a traveling musician and a performing artist, but the work I’m referring to is this art of ask...
Barbara Stanny is a former journalist who became a financial expert and a leading authority on Women & Wealth. With her background in business and a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, along with her extensive research and poignant experience with money, she has a unique perspective on women’s financial issues. The brains behind Overcoming Underearning and Sacred Success, Barbara is about pursuing your soul’s purpose, for your own bliss and the benefit of others, while being richly rewarded. Barbara Stanny’s new book: Sacred Success: A Course in Financial Miracles is a tutorial for taking charge of your life by taking charge of your finances, and not only growing your money but creating a deeper, richer, and more meaningful life.
In today’s episode, Barbara and I spoke about:
What she means by success and why many women fear their power Moving through the 3 levels of Financial Development: Survival, Stability, and Affluence The dangers of giving up our power Common patterns in women’s personal finances and how to create affluence Law of Attraction vs. Law of Congruency Modeling Greatness and pursuing your purpose The most important practice in her new book: Sacred Success.
Here is my conversation “Sacred Success: A Women’s Guide to Authentic Power & Affluence” with the great and powerful: Barbara Stanny.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Vicki Saunders.
Vicki Saunders is a serial entrepreneur, passionate mentor and advisor to the next generation of change makers, and leading advocate for entrepreneurship as a way of creating positive transformation in the world.
Vicki is founder of SheEO. SheEO supports women who leverage their talents, strengths and passion to create businesses that build new models, new mindsets and new solutions for a better world. She is also the author of the new book: Think Like a SheEO: Succeeding in the Age of Creators, Makers and Entrepreneurs where she shows readers how to leverage their talents, strengths, and genuine interests to create businesses that make them happy and successful.
In today’s episode, Vicki and I speak about:
The current landscape for women entrepreneurs Her notion that ‘It doesn’t have to be hard’ and focusing on your strengths Meaning is the New Money: the rise of making a difference as more important than making money Actually having what you want and creating your own reality Crossing what she calls the Fear Threshold Her ‘big vision’ for women entrepreneurs
Here is my conversation “Think Like A SheEO” with the original SheEO: Vicki Saunders. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Susan Piver. Susan is a Buddhist teacher and the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Hard Questions and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. Her latest book is entitled The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. She teaches workshops and speaks all over the world on meditation, spirituality, communication, relationships, and creativity. In 2011, Susan launched the Open Heart Project, an online meditation community with nearly 12,000 members who practice together and explore ways to bring spiritual values such as kindness, genuineness, and fearlessness into everyday life. In today’s episode, Susan and I speak about:
How fear has unfolded in her life and how you can be confident and fearful at the same time How synchronizing the mind and the body is the key to confidence Tapping into the power and the beauty of fear The careful balance of avoiding the “conceptual game plan” while still having action A story of Susan's own emergence and how to see yourself through the relationships you keep
Here’s my conversation, “Leaning Into Fear and Falling Into Beauty,” with the wise and open-hearted Susan Piver.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript Chantal Pierrat: Hello, and welcome, Susan. Susan Piver: Thank you, I’m glad to be here. CP: Yes, I am too. I have lots of juicy questions for you that are relevant to my life, so I’m glad we’ve carved out the time. Let’s start with—well, we had such a great conversation the first time we met last month, and I just wanted to go in a million different directions. But today I want to talk about fear. You have a couple of books on fear, [including] Freedom from Fear, which I think is your most recent book, and then a book with a very interesting title, How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life: Opening Your Heart to Confidence, Intimacy, and Joy. And I know that one is more practical; Freedom from Fear is a seven-day meditation program. But I’m curious to see, just in your own life, how this topic unfolded for you, and how it came into this—and you also have some audio that you’ve done with Jen Louden. So how did this come through you, and what do you have to say about fear? SP: OK, well, I always feel like my biggest qualification is my own fear, because I just experience a lot of fear. I always have throughout my life and I still do. It’s something that each of us has to figure out a way to meet. And I was thinking of writing a book about meditation practice, and I wrote a proposal for that book. And in the proposal, there was a line that said something like, “Meditation is so awesome because it teaches you how to not be afraid of your own life.” And when the publisher saw that line, they said, “That’s the title.” So I said, “OK.” [Laughs] It was very easy to gear the content around the topic of fear because meditation—in particular, I suppose, in the style that I practice, the Shambhala Buddhist tradition—is seen as a gesture of warriorship. And one of the fruits of meditation practice is courage and wakefulness and curiosity and joy. So those were the things that I wanted to focus on, and in doing so, also had to focus on why these wonderful, wonderful qualities are so difficult for us to find and hold. CP: So right now, in The Atlantic—and I just picked this up so I haven’t read it—there’s an article, it’s on the cover, and they’re calling it “Closing the Confidence Gap,” just talking about even highly successful women are lacking in confidence in their jobs and in the work that they do, even though they’re seen and rewarded for their work and they’re outwardly recognized as being successful. I know for myself, building a business and feeling confident that I can create this platform that is Emerging Women, and yet the fear and the lack of confidence—it’s like you can be confident and fearful or confident and not confident at the same time. How is that? SP: Isn’t that interesting?
Today my guest is Christina Rasmussen. Christina Rasmussen is a bestselling author, speaker and philanthropist on a crusade to change the way we live after loss. As the founder of Second Firsts and Life Starters both organizations to help people create a pathway back to life after loss, Christina has helped thousands of people rebuild, reclaim, and re-launch their lives using the power of the human mind. Her book of the same name — Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again— is helpful not just for loss, but for all periods of transition in our lives. In today’s episode, Christina and I spoke about:
The loss that she has experienced in her life and the new duality she learned about the grieving process The dangers of becoming comfortable in “The Waiting Room” after loss/transition and how to come out of it The difference between Transformational Lessons Learned Vs. Unwanted Mapping of brain patterns, and how to avoid the latter Can you experience transformation without grief or loss? Advice she has for those who are emerging out of challenging transitions
Tune in and listen to “Second Firsts: A Path to Deep and Lasting Joy” with the joyful and strong: Christina Rasmussen. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. And please be sure to rate us while you're there!
Today my guest is Shasta Nelson. Shasta Nelson is a life coach and CEO of GirlFriendCircles.com (the only online community that matches new friends offline by connecting women to other local women seeking friendship in 35 cities across the US). Shasta is the author of the book, Friendships Don’t Just Happen! The Guide to Creating a Meaningful Circle of GirlFriends. As a former preacher, she still brings her spirited and soulful voice to every presentation and anyplace else where people are seeking healthier and more meaningful relationships. In today’s episode, Shasta and I spoke about:
How friendship can change the world Friendships as another outlet for intimacy The indicators of a strong friendship The advantages and challenges with distance friendships Friendships in business
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Hello, and welcome, Shasta!
Shasta Nelson: Thank you so much! Happy to be here.
CP: I’m happy to have you. I’m just remembering the last time we were on a call. I think it was a couple of weeks ago. I felt like within five minutes that I was talking to somebody who was very soon going to become my best friend. I don’t know how you do it, but we just kept going. And even now, before the podcast, with our few minutes, I felt like I wanted to continue that conversation.
SN: Oh, I would love it!
CP: Yes, you just have a natural knack for friendship that I appreciate.
SN: Well, thank you. I think highly of you, too, because it takes two to connect and be present and show up.
CP: Right. Well, this is a subject that’s so important to me and near and dear to my heart. And when I was preparing for this, one of the things [I saw] on your website that really struck me was your tagline. It says, “I have a theory that friendship can save the world.” Maybe you can start and just tell us what you mean by that.
SN: Yes. I look around at—well, I come from a very religious background. I used to be a pastor. And in that world, we seek a lot of spiritual practices and going to church and reading the Bible. And then, of course, being here in San Francisco, it’s a lot more ashrams and yoga and so many different spiritual traditions that are just so rich and beautiful.
And one of the things I think about when I am every guiding anyone through anything or watching them do that is, “To what purpose are we doing that for?” In the Christian tradition, we always say that it is because we want to become more loving or more like God. In other traditions, we might use different words, but it’s really to become more enlightened and to become more at peace and to be more in love and to recognize our connections to each other.
And so when you are doing all these practices, it’s really for the purpose of engaging with each other and seeing each other and the value of each other, and recognizing the spark of God and the image of God in each other. So in my opinion, the friendships are where—that’s the gymnasium, that’s where we actually practice, that’s where we actually get to practice doing what we’re trying to become.
So for me, I challenge people. I don’t care if you’re praying all day; if it’s not making you a more loving person, I question what the point of that prayer is. And I question whether it’s working in your life. It’s really our friendships that we actually are—yes, I would call it the gymnasium. It’s the gymnasium for our soul. It’s the place where we get to practice forgiveness. It’s one thing to talk about it, [but] that’s where we get to practice doing it with people we’re in relationship with. That’s where I get to practice cheering for women. Even if I’m jealous of them and they have things I want, that’s where I get to practice compassion with the people who might make choices different than what I think is the right choice for them.
So it’s really in our friendships that we have the opportunity to practice being the peop...
Today my guest is Rha Goddess, founder of Move the Crowd. Rha is a cultural innovator and social entrepreneur who brings over two decades of transformational “crowd rockin’” in the name of social change. As a world renowned performing artist and activist, her work has been internationally featured in several compilations, anthologies, forums and festivals. In her 30+ year tenure as a creative organizer Rha has shaped the face of racial justice and equality, electoral politics, offender aid and restoration, mental health and youth and young women’s empowerment. Rha Goddess was a featured presenter at the fantastic Emerging Women May 2014 Power Party in New York, NY. In today’s episode, Rha and I spoke about:
Her work with Move The Crowd and how she is creating a league of extraordinary creative entrepreneurs What she means by culture, and how our culture is shifting to a more collective, creative and diverse expression Working with the ‘Global Diaspora’ Limiting beliefs common among entrepreneurs and her 6 steps for working with them And finally, her sage advice for the Emerging Women everywhere
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: You’re listening to Grace and Fire, brought to you by Emerging Women. Today my guest is Rha Goddess. Rha is a cultural innovator and social entrepreneur who brings over two decades of transformational “crowd rockin’” in the name of social change. As a world-renowned performing artist and activist, her work has been internationally featured in several compilations, anthologies, forums, and festivals. In her 30+ year tenure as a creative organizer, Rha has shaped the face of racial justice and equality, electoral politics, offender aid and restoration, mental health, and youth and young women’s empowerment. With Emerging Women, Rha Goddess was a featured presenter at the fantastic May 2014 Power Party in New York, NY.
In today’s episode, Rha and I spoke about: her work with Move The Crowd and how she’s creating a league of extraordinary creative entrepreneurs; culture, what she means by culture, and how our culture is shifting to a more collective, creative, and diverse expression; working with the global diaspora; limiting beliefs common among entrepreneurs and her six steps for working with them; and finally, her sage advice for Emerging Women everywhere. Here’s my conversation, “Move the Crowd,” with the strong and powerful Rha Goddess.
Hello, and welcome, Rha Goddess! How are you?
Rha Goddess: I’m well, so well. Thank you so much for having me.
CP: Every time I talk to you, I smile and laugh before we even say anything. Why is that? [Laughs]
RG: I feel the same way! [Laughs] I feel the same way. I just think it’s the kindredness, you know? [Laughs]
CP: Yes! I’m just always so inspired by your spirit, which is interesting because you are an amazing business woman. You have this business called Move The Crowd—which we’re going to talk a little bit more about, and your philosophy—but you’re also a poet, a writer, a performer—a slam poet, nonetheless. In fact I was talking to one of our speakers, Dominique Christina, who’s the Women [of the] World Slam Poetry Champion two years in a row, and she said you started this whole thing! That you actually created this women’s slam poetry genre. And I’ve heard a couple people say that.
RG: I don’t know if I created it, Chantal, but I will say that I’ve had the privilege of being one of the early players in the field, and I’m so blown away to see the way that the movement has blossomed, certainly over the last 15+ years. And Dominique is world-class in every sense of the world. I’m so happy that you all are continuing to engage her through Emerging Women, and again, I adore her. Amazing, amazing.
CP: Yes, you know, it’s curious that you are, as an artist, as an activist, a humanitarian—usually when people are humanitarian, they’re sort of creative types.
Today my guest is Gabrielle Bernstein, the New York Times best-selling author of May Cause Miracles.
Gabrielle Bernstein appears regularly as an expert on NBC’s Today Show, has been featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as a next-generation thought leader, and was named “a new role model” by the New York Times. She is also the author of the books Add More ~ing to Your Life, Spirit Junkie and the new book Miracles Now (published in April 2014). Gabby is also the founder HerFuture.com, a social networking site for women to inspire, empower and connect – AND, she is a featured presenter at the 2014 Emerging Women Live Conference in New York City.
In today’s episode, Gabrielle and I spoke about:
What she means by: “Everything happens for a reason” Shining light on the darkness of fear with our sense of responsibility and purpose Working with affirmations and always showing up with presence Making forgiveness a practice Surrendering and letting the universe take over
Tune in and listen to “Leading with Purpose and Presence” with the powerful and fierce: Gabrielle Bernstein. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript:
Hi, and welcome, Gabby!
Gabrielle Bernstein: Well, I’m happy to be here! It’s so wonderful.
CP: I’m so excited that we’re talking and that you’re part of the Emerging Women lineup this year.
GB: I cannot wait for that.
CP: It’s going to be great. You know, it’s funny, when I was looking at your stuff, I came across a video of yours. And I was like, “Who is this person?” I was just sort of getting to know you, virtually—stalking you—and I pulled up a video, and I don’t know if I shared this with you or not, but you were speaking into the video and you were kind of leaning in and you were talking about, “Everything happens for a reason.” And you were almost like—you were fierce. And I’m like, “Wow, this woman’s fierce,” and you were like, “A book falls off your library shelf, and it means something!” And I was like, “This girl has got to be part of Emerging Women.”
GB: [Laughs]
CP: But can you really explain that? Does that really mean something, if a book falls off your library shelf? What do you mean by that?
GB: We’re always being guided. We’re always receiving a tremendous amount of guidance. And the moment that we can say words like, “There has to be a better way,” or, “I’m not happy, I need help,” we sign an invisible contract with the universe, with God, with Spirit, whatever you believe in, and we say, “Show me what you’ve got. Show me a better way.”
And those moments when we sign that sacred contract and accept that invitation, we open an invisible door to receive all of this guidance. And a tremendous amount of guidance comes through in very unique ways. One of the ways is [that] the book falls off the shelf! Or we see numbers in sequence, or we hear exactly what we needed to hear from a friend who is just divinely placed to tell us that story we needed to receive. And so all of that guidance is coming to us and is always available to us. We just have to open up our awareness to receive it.
CP: And every single thing is meant to be in this way. Everything that happens is communication from the universe?
GB: Yes, we’re always in communication with the universe, at all times. I genuinely believe that if we’re in a low vibration with negative thoughts, negative actions, and poor eating behaviors and addictive patterns, then we’re just having the low-level conversation with the universe, and we’re attracted towards us what’s funky out there.
Whereas, it’s quite the same the opposite [way]: when we’re in a higher-level state, in a higher-level conversation and intention, we are in a conversation that’s very empowering with the universe. And that’s when we start to receive that guidance that we so need, and that’s when we start to receive the resources that we need, and that’s when we start to receive the support that we ...
Today my guest is Kris Carr, the New York Times and #1 Amazon best-selling author, speaker and wellness activist. Kris Carr is the subject and director of the documentary Crazy Sexy Cancer which aired on TLC and The Oprah Winfrey Network. Kris is also the author of the award-winning Crazy Sexy book series. Her latest books, Crazy Sexy Diet and Crazy Sexy Kitchen, will change the way you live, love and eat! Kris was a Keynote Speaker at the 2014 Emerging Women Live Conference in New York City. In today’s episode, Kris and I spoke about:
What exactly is well-being, and how this can be different for different people How the flow of grace and fire has affected her life and using happiness as her guide Her shift from Health Guru to Women’s Emergence and Empowerment The feminine component of resiliency Using sexy as a strength that women can draw from
Tune in and listen to “Crazy, Sexy Woman” with the Crazy Sexy: Kris Carr.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Hello, and welcome, Kris Carr!
Kris Carr: Thanks for having me! Hi!
CP: Hi! And I’m reaching you here now in Woodstock, right?
KC: That’s right. I’m at home in Woodstock, New York.
CP: Gosh. That sounds so amazing to live in. I mean, I live in Boulder, I think it might be a little similar, but I think it’s more rural out there, correct?
KC: Yes. We’re very similar. We just have much smaller mountains. When I came out to visit Boulder, I was like, “This has the same Woodstock vibe. It really does.”
CP: Yes. Except isn’t Woodstock really small?
KC: It’s very tiny, yes. Very tiny.
CP: Yes, I just picture you—on your website you have an image of yourself in an old, old truck holding a green drink.
KC: [Laughs]
CP: I’m just like, that’s the life! You know?
KC: That’s what we try to do out here in the woods.
CP: Right? So your first book—I remember when it came out several years ago—is called Crazy Sexy Cancer. And I know what’s crazy about cancer, and I’m hoping that you can tell us all what’s sexy about cancer.
KC: [Laughs] We’ll get to the short answer first. There’s nothing sexy about cancer. For me, Crazy Sexy Cancer came from two things: 1) there were mass emails that I would send friends and family, they were “Crazy Sexy Cancer” updates. And this [was] my way of showing my very frightened crew—because I was diagnosed with an incurable stage 4 cancer that had started in my liver and had spread to both my lungs. This was my way to update them and let them know that I still had my sense of humor, I still was the same irreverent girl, and that I wasn’t going to let cancer define me.
It was an important step for me to kind of poke fun at cancer, not take it all so seriously. It was also really helpful for the people going through the experience with me. Not everybody has that same experience, but that was my lifeline. And then later, as my journey continued to unfold and the years continued to go by with cancer, and certainly when I kind of came on the scene in a much bigger way, I used “Crazy Sexy Cancer” almost like as a definition.
And it’s a bit insane, so here we go: “crazy,” for me, that’s out of the box, forward thinking. It’s that kind of speak when somebody says, “Oh, that will never happen, that’s crazy,” and then you and I and everybody listening says, “Really? Watch us.” “Sexy” is empowering, and “cancer” is “teacher.” For me, cancer is my teacher. And so that really has been my way of going through this process, but also teaching others that are interested in my philosophy how to create a map for themselves.
CP: Now, there’s a lot of people, I’m sure, listening to this that haven’t read your book and they don’t know your background, but you actually were diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, am I correct?
KC: Correct. That’s right.
CP: And it seems that when we look at you and your career has exploded, of course,
Today's podcast features Tami Simon's interview with Alanis Morissette, recorded live at the 2013 Emerging Women Live conference in Boulder, Colorado. Alanis Morissette is a Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer and actress who has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. Alanis was honored with the EMA Missions in Music Award for her efforts in speaking out against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Alanis Morissette has been acting on her strong beliefs for years—and encourages her fans and listeners to do the same. Tami Simon is the founder of Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company dedicated to disseminating spiritual wisdom. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True has published more than 800 audio, video, music, and book titles along with online courses and events. A two-time winner of the Inc 500 award as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in America, Sounds True is widely recognized as a pioneer in providing life-changing, practical tools that accelerate spiritual awakening and personal transformation. In today’s episode Tami spoke with Alanis about:
The balance between Yin and Yang and how this shows up in relationship What that would look like to put the Sacred Feminine in the center of the music industry Listening as an art, and not letting fear stop us from doing what we want to do How Alanis uses the ‘nuggets of terror’ in her journal as seeds for her creative process Alanis's work with Relationship First and her love of talking with people who are ceiling-less And finally, how she sees the Feminine Movement moving towards Sacred Union
Tune in and listen to "The Rock and Roll of Feminine Power” with the Radical Women: Alanis Morisette and Tami Simon. Subscribe to Grace & Fire on iTunes.
Transcript: Alanis Morissette: Hi! I want to thank Tami for being up here with me and having a conversation with me. It’s my favorite thing to do, as my friends can attest to, is dialogue and go and back and forth and see what’s actually happening in real time with you, with us. Tami Simon: We want to make our love public. AM: Exactly! [Laughs] There’s nothing better than that. TS: Exactly. Making our love public. OK, the primacy of connection. I want to start right there. AM: Let’s go for the jugular. TS: Well, the jugular’s going to come later. AM: There are so many jugulars and so little time. TS: That’s right, exactly. AM: That’s part of why I’m happier here. TS: Your journey to connection, being, at least in my understanding, the most important thing for you in your life. How did you get there? AM: I didn’t get there; I think I started there. I’m a highly sensitive temperament. I’ve become more and more obsessed with self-knowledge because I’ve seen how empowering it and how it enables me to actually have functional intimacy with people. So I’m the girl that uses every tool of divination and wants to know what number I am on the Enneagram and wants to know—I throw my I Ching coins. I basically have wanted to connect with God, intrapersonally with my own self and with people my whole life. [It’s] to the point where, because of my hypersensitivity, when it doesn’t happen, in glimpses at grocery stores or wherever I am, it’s actually quite devastating for me. And I take responsibility for it and I don’t get upset at the woman who looks away when she’s trying to buy her watermelons. [Audience laughs] AM: But I hurt. So I don’t know if that answers your question. TS: Are there things that you do to invite or to magnetize to you the kind of connection that, as a sensitive person, really nourishes you? Is there stuff that you do, and what is it? AM: I think it happens by default. I find that whatever energy I walk into a room with, the kismet like-mindeds find each other eventually. It doesn’t always happen, and sometimes I just people watch as a Canadian. Culturally—I’m going to do the broad stroke,
Today my guests are Christine Arylo and Kris Carlson.
Christine Arylo is a transformational teacher, internationally recognized speaker and best-selling author of the official self-love guidebook, Madly in Love with ME: the Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend. After earning her MBA from Kellogg and climbing the corporate ladder for fifteen years, she chose to devote her life to creating a new reality for women and girls, one based on self-love, freedom and feminine power instead of the relentless pursuit of having to do, be and have it all. Kris Carlson is an international bestselling author and a leading expert on love, success, grief, happiness, and parenting. She’s the NY Times bestselling author and co-author of Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, Heartbroken Open and An Hour to Live, An Hour to Love. Kris has sold over 25 million copies of her books, and has been featured on national radio and television broadcasts, including The Today Show, Empowered Living Radio, The View, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. In today’s episode, Christine, Kris and I spoke about:
Cultivating the feminine superpower of receiving How to come from a place of openness, rather than a place of knowing and drive Flexing your trust muscles and how to build trust over time The importance of strengthening the nervous system and finally, both Christine and Kris offer key practices for becoming more embodied
Tune in and listen to “The Power of Receiving” with the Superwomen of Receiving: Christine Arylo and Kris Carlson. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript:
Hello, welcome Kris and Christine!
Christine Arylo: Hello!
Kris Carlson: How’s it going?
CP: It’s going well! I want to clarify to the audience here, because we do technically have two Christines, so we’re talking here with Kris Carlson and Christine Arylo. So welcome, ladies!
KC: Well, thanks, Chantal!
CA: Yes, glad to be here.
CP: So we are talking today—we’ll probably hit a couple of different subjects here, but primarily, [we’re] talking about what, Christine, you call the “feminine superpower of receiving.” So maybe we could start with you and you could give us a little background on that terminology and why you think it’s actually a superpower.
CA: Yes, indeed. Well, I am imaging that many of [the people] out there listening, like me—and Chantal, I know like you, and also like Kris—we’ve been taught over the last several centuries to really value our ability to do over our capacity for being, to do more, to make stuff happen, really just a kind of like [growls], a kind of power. When we think about power, we think about things that are very forceful or you have to make it happen. It’s this very, “Go out and kill the meat” kind of mentality. “Go out there and get what you want!”
And that is one kind of power. But there’s this other kind of power, which I never really knew about until right about when I met with Kris Carlson, after I finished MBA school, after I finished that whole superpowered woman, Wonder Woman kind of thing. Because Kris, as it turns out, had been living from the feminine superpowers her whole entire life. She literally is the embodiment of feminine superpower.
And I remember when I met Kris, we had gone to this event together that she had invited me to. And we were in a big tent with all these people, and these people would come up to her and make invitations to her, and she was just very open and not having to make anything happen or figure out who she would have to go speak to or looking at the agenda. She was just very present and things would just come to here. And I’d be like, “How do you do that, Kris?” And she’d be like, “How do I do what?” I’m like, “That! That thing that you do when people just come to you and opportunities just come to you. You’re just invited in.” She’s like, “That’s just how I’ve always been.” And at the time I was studying the divine feminine...
Today my guest is Meggan Watterson. Meggan Watterson is a spiritual mentor, speaker, and scholar of the Divine Feminine who inspires women to live from the audacity and authenticity of the voice of their soul.
She is the author of REVEAL: A Sacred Manual For Getting Spiritually Naked. She facilitates the REDLADIES, a spiritual community that encourages women to reclaim their bodies as sacred and to be led by the soul-voice inside them. Meggan was a featured presenter at the May 22, 2014 Power Party in New York City.
In today’s episode, Meggan and I spoke about:
What she means by getting “Spiritually Naked” Acknowledging the shadow-side of our truth just as much as the light Connecting with the Soul Voice and how to make this a regular part of our lives The current Feminine Spiritual Revolution we are in and acknowledging the feminine
Tune in and listen to “Getting Spiritually Naked” with the fiery and authentic: Meggan Watterson. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript:
OK, welcome Meggan!
Meggan Watterson: Thank you. I’m so happy to be talking with you.
CP: Yes. I’ve been looking forward to this.
MW: I have to warn you, I’ve had an excess amount of dark chocolate, and I’m also wearing my sort-of truth necklace. So it’s going to be fiery. [Laughs]
CP: All right! Throwing it down at the get-go! I love it. OK. That’s my favorite. Well, I would love to just dig right in on REVEAL, which is not only the title of your latest book—which I believe came out last year, in 2013, correct?
MW: Yes.
CP: And the subtitle, A Sacred Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked, very intriguing. I was wondering if you could start there and tell us what you mean by “spiritually naked.”
MW: Yes, yes. Absolutely. Well, very simply, it refers to our capacity to just strip down to the truth of who we are. That sounds very simple, but sometimes it can take quite a process, quite a wearing away of the things that are no longer serving us, for us to then get to that place where we can just express an immediate truth in the moment, whatever it is that we really need to simply reveal the truth of who we are.
So it’s letting go of those ideas that are [usually] external ideas of who we are and who we need to be and what we need to think and say and do, which also extends into the spiritual practice of spiritual life. What I found in my immersing and emergence in the spiritual world was that there was a lot of pretense and expectation—that same cultural norm and ideal of being somehow perfect exist in the spiritual realm, too.
For me, what I really longed for was a capacity to just be fully human and also fully divine. I wanted to be able to be both. And that’s what was truth for me. Not one or the other. I wanted to find that juicy cosmic mix of being able to be guided every day, every breath, by the voice of my soul, by connection to the part of me that is more than me. And I wanted to be fed by a source of love that was inside of me and not dependent on anything outside of me. The love that is love that is love that is love—that love that renders us all equal. I wanted my life to be led my that.
And at the same time, I wanted to be OK with the unique paths and processes that I had to go through in order to get there and in order to remain there. So incredible heaped buckets and mountains worth of forgiveness and patience and levity. So often when we get into this idea of what it means to be spiritual, we take ourselves so seriously. And I think that can really be an obstacle and a hindrance to us really moving forward with being everything that we are. Because it’s important to really acknowledge that our voice and our soul has something unique to share in the world, but getting too stuck in the seriousness, the heaviness, the weight of it all can really slow the whole process down.
So all of that is really wrapped up in that statement of getting “spiritually...
This episode's guest is Nancy Levin. For over a decade, Nancy has served as the Event Director at Hay House, producing and hosting conferences focusing on personal growth, health, and spirituality. She is also a certified Integrative Coach through The Ford Institute For Transformational Training, and the author of a new book called: Jump… and Your Life Will Appear. In Jump Nancy gives a step-by-step guide to clearing the path ahead so you can let go and make the change you need the most. Through a series of effective exercises, Nancy walks the reader through their fear, ushers them up to the moment of jumping, and helps navigate what awaits on the other side. In today’s episode, Nancy and I speak about:
The concept of Jump, and how this came to being in her own life Her shift from projecting perfectionism to becoming more vulnerable How to know when we are not aligned in our life Getting to the root, uncovering Shadow Beliefs and transforming them into Empowering Beliefs The idea of the ‘Graceful Exit’ and the additional work that needs to be done after we jump
Tune in and listen to “Jump…and Your Life Will Appear” with the empowering and courageous: Nancy Levin.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Welcome, Nancy!
Nancy Levin: Hi Chantal!
CP: Hi! It’s so exciting to be talking to you today about your new book. For those of you out there who don’t know this, Nancy and I are actually quite good friends. Nancy lives in Boulder, so this is quite exciting for us to be talk and to be supporting her book launch at this point. It’s just so fun.
NL: Thank you!
CP: Yay! So I’m thinking that we should start with the title, and then maybe that will reveal more about your personal story and why you came to this. Jump … and Your Life Will Appear. When I first felt into that, first of all, I got scared, because I’m definitely one that feels like I need to feel safe before I do anything risky. And then the other piece was it was exciting, and [I] felt that it was perhaps the better way to go because no matter what, your life is coming anyway, so might as well jump in with two feet. So tell me a little bit about what you mean by the title, and how you came to this book.
NL: Well, the title really came from the concept that—you mentioned feeling safe, and most of us feel safe in certainty, in what we know, and then what already is. And what I’m asking the readers to do is take a bit of a reframe and realize that there’s actually much more possibility and opportunity available when you actually jump out into uncertainty. Because that’s when your life has the power to change and you can live into a new way of being in the world. Our present is really a culmination of all of our past choices and decisions, and so in the present, we have the power to change our future by making different choices and different decisions.
So in my own personal story, my Jump that weaves throughout the book is leaving an 18-year marriage. And for me, it was devastating. It was terrifying. It was unfathomable for a really long time, until I actually took the steps that are in this book. It wasn’t until after I was on the other side of it that I was able to look back and see, “Oh, here are the things I actually did that got me through this,” and then realize that they were actually applicable to other people in any other major change that they were making, whether it was changing a job or whether it was moving to a new city.
And so it was important to me to document my own journey that way. So my story really began in that I was—even though in the outside world, I was projecting this image of perfection, and my motto had been, “Never let them see you sweat,” and I had been managing the perceptions of others and everyone thought I was happy and perfect and had this perfect marriage, and all of this, the truth was that things were really crumbling inside for me and in my home life.
This episode's guest is Danielle LaPorte. Danielle LaPorte is the outspoken author of The Desire Map, The Fire Starter Sessions, and co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan. An inspirational speaker, former think tank executive and business strategist, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over a million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. Danielle is a featured presenter at the 2014 Emerging Women Live Conference in New York City.
"You have to want what you want with all your heart... but don't be attached to how it shows up." In today’s episode of Grace & Fire, Danielle and I speak about:
Desire: how she defines it and the difference between desire and passion Practices for identifying and cultivating “Soul Desires” How to handle expectations when cultivating your desires Having the courage not to compromise and the two qualities she identifies as most important for developing this courage The power of feelings versus emotions and their connection to desire Her deepest desire for emerging women everywhere
Tune in and listen to Living from Desire with the truly amazing and inspiring: Danielle LaPorte.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Danielle LaPorte!
Danielle LaPorte: Thank you, Chantal. We’re finally here.
CP: I know. Finally here. God, I’m so excited. I can barely contain myself. I don’t know if you know this, but before I started Emerging Women, I read The Fire Starter Sessions, and they had a huge impact on me, and boy, did that light a fire under my “boo-tay.” It was fantastic. I’m even more excited to talk to you now, because here’s my first question: Who are you? And where did you come from? I mean, that’s what I kept asking! I kept asking that as I was reading the book. I was like, “Who is this person?!” Can you give us a little bit of your background before we jump into all the other things we need to talk about?
DL: Yes, OK. I’m not from Earth, so let’s start there.
CP: [Laughs] I didn’t think so!
DL: But I’ve shown up. [Laughs] An important nugget in my bio is that my mom and dad were really young when they had me. My mom got knocked up in high school. And having really young parents was just what I needed and an influence on me. So they were taking me to hippie parties and hockey games. They were growing up while I was growing up, and that made a difference, I think. I got toilet trained in the ladies room of my mother’s community college.
Jump cut to [me] in my 20s, and I haven’t graduated from high school, but I talked my way into every job and I’m running a think tank in Washington, D.C. That was weird. Jump cut to more companies. I can’t believe I’m old enough to say this now, but then the Internet came. [Laughs] The World Wide Web happened and I was playing online and finding my voice and [had] a big failed business and a lot of anguish around that. Then [I] rose from the flames [with] The Fire Starter Sessions.
CP: So not only did you not graduate from college—I didn’t realize this—but you didn’t graduate from high school?
DL: No. My mother got pregnant in high school. But I did finish high school, yes.
CP: Ultimately you did finish high school. OK. Give me something to hold on here, because I’m like, “How amazing are you to have accomplished so much and to be consulting executives and running a think tank without that educational background?” It’s quite remarkable.
DL: Thanks. And I use that to my advantage. When you’re in Washington D.C., every week somebody says, “Harvard? Yale?” I was like, “No.” And then they think, “Wow, you must be really smart.” And I just go, “Mm.”
CP: Right. No, it’s amazing. So I read The Fire Starters, and now the next book here is The Desire Map.
This episode's guest is Eliza Reynolds. Eliza is a senior at Brown University where she is studying developmental and social psychology & Gender Studies. Eliza was a peer-counselor throughout high school and an S.O.S. trained educator for Planned Parenthood. She continued to use these skills working in Providence city schools as a sexual health educator. Eliza has recently co-authored a book titled: Mothering and Daughtering: How to Create a Deep and Enduring Relationship Through the Teen Years with her mother Sil Reynolds. Eliza was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference in Boulder, CO. In this episode of Grace & Fire, Eliza and I speak about:
Perfectionism and her battle with her inner critic How perfectionism isolates us as women and how she recommends to break these walls Advice for Moms to help their daughters cultivate self-acceptance of their bodies A final piece of wisdom for girls who are facing their inner critics
Tune in and listen to Freeing Girls from a Culture of Perfectionism with the young and insightful: Eliza Reynolds.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Eliza!
Eliza Reynolds: Well, thank you, Chantal!
CP: Now, tell us where you are right now.
ER: I am in Providence, Rhode Island. It is drizzling outside [and] that typical New England fog that’s settling in. I’m at school at Brown University, finishing up my senior year, and I’m curled up on my couch with my candle and my mug of tea. I’m so excited to be here talking to you.
CP: Nice! Now, you’re in your senior year, and you also just published a book that you co-wrote with your mother.
ER: Yes, ma’am, I did.
CP: And you also are launching, I believe, a website.
ER: Yes, I am. TheWholeGirl.com is the new beginning that I’m really excited about. I come from a background of teaching—actually, we’re in our eighth year of teaching together, my mother and I, and I’m 22, so that’s pretty exciting to have had this legacy of teaching behind us and really be heading into innovating material together as a mother-daughter team.
But as a senior [who’s] graduating, I’m launching my own work, The Whole Girl, which is looking at wholeness versus perfectionism, specifically in teenage girls today. But, gosh, our inner teenage girls never truly leave us. Even though I may be 22, I still feel pretty tied in, and I know, for example, women like my mother do as well.
So it’s for the whole girl in all of us, really. And [it’s about] looking at wholeness as an alternative model to perfectionism and to a pretty rapid and dangerous culture of perfectionism that often gets masked behind other standards or other goals that can be very dangerous. And [it’s about] looking at ways that we can see ourselves live as whole entities, whether it’s not just as a value of our bodies as the center of our identities—where we ourselves look at ourselves in wholeness and work to live for and towards wholeness as an experience.
CP: And do you have personal experience with perfectionism? Do you feel like you’ve been a perfectionist?
ER: Oh, yes ma’am! [Laughs] Oh gosh, yes. I can definitely say perfectionism has been one of my inner demons, among other things. Different traditions call it different things, whether it’s the super ego, to be Freudian, or the inner critic is definitely one, a phrase that speaks very powerfully to me, or if you look at it in Jungian psychology, often we hear the voice of the inner negative mother or the inner negative father. And for me, it’s been a pretty consistent cohabitant of my brain. And I would say that my inner critic, in many ways, has served me [by] kicking my own ass into gear in one of the most awesome ways.
And yet, there came a time that my inner critic was truly running the show, and that I was living in a place where I was being negatively driven from moment to moment, from achievement to achievement,
This episode's guest is Christine Kane. Christine is known as the Mentor to People Who are Changing the World. She is the president and founder of Uplevel You™, a million-dollar company committed to the growth and empowerment of entrepreneurs and creatives around the globe through teaching not only high-level cutting-edge authentic marketing and business strategies, but also transformational techniques to shift mindsets and wealth. After 15 years in a successful career as a popular songwriter and performer, Christine shifted her focus so that she could provide a deeper level of service to other creative entrepreneurs. Christine was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference in Boulder, CO. In this episode of Grace & Fire, Christine and I speak about:
Her transition from music to being a mentor/business coach Treating Business like Art The Power of Communicating “Your Story” and how to avoid traps when sharing it Clean Selling and aligning with true intention while not letting assumptions rule Imperfect action and the benefit of taking small steps
Tune in and listen to Marketing with Intention and Integrity with the Rock Star Business Woman: Christine Kane.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Hello, Christine!
Christine Kane: Hey, how are you?
CP: Welcome!
CK: Well thanks for having me. [I’m] really excited.
CP: Yes, I can’t believe it’s been over a month since the event. It was so great to get to know you and to see the other side of Christine Kane, behind the curtain, which is actually the same as what I always imagined you to be.
CK: [Laughs] Well, thank you. It was just such a great event, and I’ve just been talking about it to everybody. It’s going to be huger next year than it was this year!
CP: Yes! I’m totally pumped for it. You know, what’s interesting is that when I first discovered you—and the reason I’m saying [this is to] see the truth of who you are—I discovered you through your music. And I was thinking, “Oh, she would be a great singer for Emerging Women.” And it took me a little while to realize, “No, this woman’s also a business mentor.”
So I would love to hear a little bit more about how that was a transition for you, because as far as I can see in your business, you’re very much like who I saw and got to know through the internet on your music. It’s not like you have two different personas, it’s the same. And those two categories—mentoring and business coaching and being basically, can we call you a rock ‘n’ roll star? Because I actually feel like you can fit into that category. The two seem to be mutually exclusive, so maybe you could start there and tell us about your background and how you came to where you are now.
CK: It’s funny you say that. For a while I said that, “Oh my God, it’s very different, I should hide the fact that I played music because that will make people question my ability as a business owner.” But any artist knows that in order to do what you want to do, especially now, you have to know that you have a business and you have to treat your art like a business.
I actually believe that business is an art. And when you look at some of what I learned in the world of songwriting, if I was to sit you down and really talk about it, it’s amazing how much it links in with a lot of the lessons I’ve had to learn with business. Now, with that said, it’s very different now that I’m running a company and we have a team, and I am stretching muscles that I never thought I would have to stretch. But I really do with that I had done more of this and really stretched this out a little bit more because I think I would have been able to do even more with my music at the time.
So how the transition happened, though, wasn’t so much that I was like, “I’m going to go in and be in business.” When I was performing, I was pretty clear early on [about] not just becoming a musician.
This episode’s guest is Jennifer Lee. Jennifer is the founder of Artizen Coaching and the award-winning author of The Right-Brain Business Plan. Her bestselling book has helped thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide grow their businesses authentically and creatively. She has more than 50 licensed facilitators who lead Right-Brain Business Plan® workshops nationally and internationally. She received her coaching certification and leadership training through the prestigious Coaches Training Institute and holds an M.A. in Communication Management from USC. Jennifer was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference in Boulder, CO. In this episode, Jennifer and I speak about:
The Right-Brain Business Plan: What it is and how it can help entrepreneurs create and realize their goals The power of thinking creatively in the planning stages The importance of community for the entrepreneur Limiting Beliefs and how to work around them The importance of self-compassion when going after big dreams
Tune in and listen to Right-Brain Business Planning with the Creative Business Leader: Jennifer Lee.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women on iTunes. Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Jennifer. It’s great to have you today.
Jennifer Lee: Oh, I’m so excited to be here with you, Chantal. Thank you!
CP: Let’s dig in to the Right-Brain Business Plan. I’m actually feeling a little selfish having you all to myself since I’ve read your book and done the practices. So I’m just eager to jump into it. So why don’t you just start by telling us a little bit of the background of the concept of the Right-Brain Business Plan and then just let us know what you mean by that, too. How did you come to this? And what is the actual idea behind it?
JL: Sure. Well, the idea came to me very organically, given that it’s right-brained. [Laughs] So I was participating, back in November 2007, in this annual challenge called Art Everyday Month. It happens every November [and] it was my first time participating. And every day I would try some new art medium, like painting or drawing or collage. And toward the end of the month, we’re coming toward the end of the year and I thought, “Well, I probably should be thinking about my goals for the coming year. I need to do art anyway, so I why don’t I do a vision board, because I love doing that.”
So I love book arts and I have this blank accordion book that kind of folds out like this accordion. And I did a vision board of where I wanted my business to go in terms of products and services, marketing, stuff like that. And I posted it as part of a challenge and people were like, “That’s really cool!” And I just ended up calling it a Right-Brain Business Plan. I didn’t know what else to call it. It was my business plan but in a right-brained way. It became this touchstone for me for my business.
The following day I actually did a little bit more detail on the back of the Right-Brain Business Plan where I wrote out my specific financial goals. I wrote out descriptions of my products and services, marketing goals. I had a little calendar where I put some milestones, things that I wanted to reach throughout the next year. And that was really my roadmap for 2008 and part of 2009, and within a couple of years I had actually met all those goals that were on that plan.
I had no idea. I was just at my kitchen table, playing with my favorite art supplies. [Laughs] I had no idea it would turn into this thing. I feel like it’s something that lives outside of me. It’s kind of its own entity now, and it really is this visual, creative way to approach planning your business and crafting your goals for your business.
CP: What was your business? You said you were thinking about your business plan. Before it was this, what was it?
JL: I was coaching, so I was doing life coaching. I had quit my corporate job, I guess it was the year before, so 2006.
This episode's guest is Sera Beak. Sera is a Harvard-trained scholar of comparative world religions who has spent years traveling the world studying spirituality. From ‘whirling’ with Sufi dervishes to meeting the Dalai Lama on her 21st birthday; from taking the host from a Croatian Catholic mystic who had the stigmata to having life-altering visions with shamans (and everything in between). The New York Times called Sera one of the new “role models” for her generation. Sera is the author of Red Hot and Holy: A Heretic’s Love Story and The Red Book: A Deliciously Unorthodox Approach to Igniting Your Divine Spark. Sera was a featured presenter at the 2013 and 2014 Emerging Women Live Conferences. In this episode, Sera and I speak about:
The Color Red How she connects Sexuality and Sensuality with Spirituality Holding the Divine Feminine as ‘Sacred’ The “False Feminine” and the misuse of Feminine Power And finally, the Female Archetypes that have served her the most
Tune in to listen to my conversation “Red Hot & Holy” with the ‘Red’volutionary: Sera Beak. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat: Hello, Sera, welcome!
Sera Beak: Thank you for having me! It’s great to be here with you.
CP: It’s so good to hear your voice again. The last time we were together was Emerging Women Live 2013, so I feel like we haven’t really caught up. Your talk was so powerful, I’m still thinking about it. So it’s great to connect with you again and dig in a little deeper.
SB: Definitely. I loved what you created there. I still feel honored to be a part of it and to be with all those incredible women, both the presenters and the people who were participating in the crowd. It was so right on, so thank you for creating it.
CP: Awesome. It was great. It felt magical. Well, one of the things I wanted to dig into was you have two books out: The Red Book and Red Hot and Holy. And my first question for you is to tell us about Red. Is it the color red? The energy of red? What are you talking about when you are referring to Red?
SB: [Laughs] That’s the big question. Well, red, I think, is universal. I know that that color and that energy of red tends to resonate with many, many women, even if they have certain ideas around it or even baggage around the color red. Red tends to be associated, usually, with the lower chakra or primal consciousness or promiscuity or a race car or anger or rage. So there are a ton of different qualities on top of Red.
But for me, and this is true, I feel like, for many women, we’ve also discovered that red is a real powerhouse of our own divine feminine nature and holiness and intention and sensuality and life force and creativity and passion. So for me, red began to show up in my life in these ways that I call divine winks or synchronicities, and it reflected all those qualities. It felt like it was a color that was trying to get my attention and remind me of my own soul blood and life force and my own distinct assets.
So it became a real diving force in my life and something I kind of followed. And I also felt like I was being followed by red. Over the years, it really transformed less into something that I was trying to show other women and make other women jump on board to my Red bandwagon, and it became more of a personal reflection of my own distinct soul.
It went through its own metamorphosis with me, but I still really know and find that it’s an incredibly powerful color and energy for many women to come back into contact with. Especially because it’s been shoved to the corners of most spiritualities. So that when we come back to it and we start questioning, “What is Red for me?” a lot of ripe, juicy material ends up arising.
CP: And when did this happen? When did you start connecting to Red? Where were you in your life?
SB: Well, I would say since I was a child, I really felt this divine feminine power and presence a...
This episode’s guest is Kathrin O’Sullivan. Kathrin is the Head of Cross-Functional Leadership Development at Google. She leads a team of people who help Googlers exercise leadership to transform themselves, Google, and the world.
In her career, she has enjoyed working in different leadership positions across HR, Sales, Operations, and Business Development. She strives to facilitate an environment to help people become more self aware and clear about their values and goals, and to design strategies and practices that lead to self-excellence. Kathrin was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference in Boulder, CO.
In this episode, Kathrin and I speak about:
How she is able to help “Googlers” transform themselves into leaders. What kind of practices they use at Google to foster development. The vulnerability present in sharing your true self. How Google is helping the advancement of current employees especially women in a male dominated field. The definition of Unconscious Bias and how it plays a role in keeping women from rising in business The potential reach of Google and social media, and the role they could play in changing the world.
Tune in to listen to my conversation “The Power of Transformational Learning and Development” with Kathrin O’Sullivan. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat Hi, Kathrin! Welcome!
Kathrin O’Sullivan: Hi, Chantal!
CP: Thanks for setting the time aside. I know you’re a busy woman over there at Google.
KO: It’s a real pleasure to talk to you. I’m excited about this.
CP: Yay! So for those of you who are listening and were not at the event, Kathrin was part of our panel at the Emerging Women Live 2013 event in Boulder this past October. She was on a panel that was called “Game Changers” with other women in learning and organizational development at companies like Facebook and LinkedIn and Google and Twitter. So I wanted to highlight some of the things that came out in that conversation and explore some of those topics a little bit deeper. So maybe we could just launch in with a little short description of exactly what you do at Google.
KO: Well, I’m responsible for leadership development at Google. So I am helping Googlers exercise leadership to transform themselves, Google, and the world. That’s kind of our grand mission. And what that means is helping Googlers really own their leadership journey as they develop in their career and take bigger and bigger assignments and are more responsible for bigger scopes of business.
CP: So here’s my question with that. You know, Emerging Women, our tagline is “live the truth of who you are,” and it’s kind of a tall order, in general, just as a human being. I’m curious to see how much, when you say that you are responsible for developing programs that will encourage Googlers to transform themselves and their work, how deep does that go, when you say “transform themselves”?
KO: If we talk about real transformation, it goes pretty deep. We give people the choice. Some people might not want to choose to go any deeper than some transaction they’re learning. Other people are really open to going really deep and really looking hard at who they are as people and how they influence the world around them.
CP: Have you been doing a lot of these programs, and if you have, what kind of results have you noticed over time when you bring on programs that actually allow people to deep-dive inward and to self-reflect?
KO: We’ve really seen amazing results. I design and develop some of these programs and I also deliver some of them, so I’m actually in the classroom and I see it happen. A lot of what we do we do over time, and we follow up with people over time to see how the learning gets implemented in the workplace.
Of course, when it comes to more like “softer” skills, it is a little bit harder to exactly determine how it affects the bottom...
This episode’s guest is Kristen Wheeler. Kristen is a business consultant and executive coach who believes that workplaces should be arenas where people thrive while creating amazing results.
For more than twenty years, she has offered expert guidance on matters of IT, strategy, and leadership for clients like Arthur Andersen, comScore, WhiteWave Foods, and eBay. She has synthesized her unique blend of experience into strategies she calls Native Genius™. Native Genius Strategies help people and their companies understand, identify and apply an innate über-intelligence to solve tough issues and get bottom-line results, while also cultivating meaning and verve.
In this episode, Kristen and I spoke about:
Native Genius and how to cultivate this intelligence in your business life How Native Genius gives ‘rise’ to our strengths How to gain feedback from community and relationships to aid in your Native Genius intelligence Embracing uncertainty and going where you feel loved The difference between what you are passionate about and your Native Genius
Tune in to listen to my conversation "Native Genius" with the insightful: Kristen Wheeler. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Kristen.
Kristen Wheeler: Thank you! I’m excited to be here.
CP: Yay! It’s great to have you. For those of you who don’t know, Kristen is also one of my really, really good friends, on top of being a strategic advisor for Emerging Women. I’ve been incorporating her work, Native Genius, into my process with Emerging Women and it’s been fantastic and I’m noticing so much. I just so appreciate it.
What I was thinking was that before we start throwing Native Genius around—because once you hear the term and you get it, you actually do start throwing it around. So why don’t you just tell us what you mean by Native Genius. Give us a nice, full context and then we can go from there.
KW: Great. So Native Genius is a unique natural intelligence that is so innate that you might not notice it. And it sometimes is a little bit like a fish being in water—it comes so naturally that the fish would be like, “OK, yes, what else do you want me to do? This is not a big deal, this thing that I’m doing.” It feels easy, and it’s also super valuable to the people around us.
I want people to know that, just like their teeth—this is a silly example—they use them to chew, Native Genius you use in your work and you contribute in your world. Everybody has it, and once you tune into it—sometimes it takes a while to get. Everybody is on a different journey with understanding their unique intelligence. But once you get it, it clicks in and people are like, “Oh!” Sometimes I’ll be working with a group or an individual for a month or so, and then it starts to click in and they say, “Wow. I’m really starting to get the power of this.”
Some examples would be [like this]: I was working with somebody the other day [who] works [for] a corporation, and it was that “getting it” kind of thing. He said, “I’m realizing this is so personal.” And it really is. It’s very personal and intimate. And Native Genius are things that you do that you can’t not do.
For example, we could put you anywhere and you’d be doing them. Like for you, Chantal, I notice that no matter where we are, you are reflecting back to people, in a way, like what your tagline says, the truth of who they are. When people start saying what they’re up to in the world with their work, you are so excited about it, especially when it comes from a place of authenticity. And we can put you anywhere. I mean, I’ve seen you in so many different situations, and you’re doing that. That’s one of many things that you would do. So Native Genius is not just one thing. It’s many things.
CP: Let me just stop you there, because it’s interesting, what you started saying about Native Genius. You were saying it’s like being a fish in water.
This episode’s guest is the soulful and wonderful Ani DiFranco. With 20 years in the music biz, self-described “Little Folksinger” Ani DiFranco’s influence on fellow musicians, activists, and indie-minded people the world over has been huge.
Blending folk music with soul, funk, jazz, electronic music and spoken word, Ani DiFranco has released more than 20 albums, including her latest, ¿Which Side are You On? (2012). From the earliest days of her career, Ani DiFranco has lent her voice and her name to a broad range of social movements, performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums, and speaking at rallies. She’s a pioneer, a rock star, and a soul sister. Ani was a featured performer at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference in Boulder, CO.
In this episode, Ani DiFranco and I speak about:
How having kids has grounded her life and effected her music in a positive way Her support of community and connection and the importance of the feminine point of view Her focus on the present moment and relationships in her life The trajectory of feminism throughout the years and the current state of feminism today The hope that we both feel in seeing the wave of Feminine Courage currently emerging in the world And finally, the importance of trusting yourself
Tune in to listen to my conversation "Connection, Community, and the Feminine Voice" with Ani DiFranco. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Ani! It’s a real pleasure to have you here today.
Ani DiFranco: Hi! Thanks for having me!
CP: I was mentioning to you as we were chatting [that] this is such an honor. I feel kind of exposed by saying this, but I definitely had a very big girl crush on you in college.
AD: [Laughs] All right! I’m giving myself a high-five.
CP: [Laughs] Well, I’m not entirely sure that it’s gone away. I was preparing for the conference, for Emerging Women Live, and also our interview here, [and] I was just going, for the last week, back through all the old records. Oh my gosh.
AD: Oh, wow. Craziness. That’s something you’ll never find me doing. [Laughs]
CP: Oh, really? Interesting.
AD: It’s always a bit dicey when I want to learn a new old song, like, “I should play that song, blah-de-blah,” and then I have to pull out the record and tiptoe very delicately through it to try to listen to what I need to listen to. Anything could throw me for a week-long loop, delving back into my own catalog.
CP: Well, luckily it’s all there and we can dip into it anytime. What surprised me, though, was your recent record. It was amazing—this morning, when we had to reschedule, I was like, “I really have not spent time,” because I was getting so caught up in the old stuff. And there’s a song on there called “Life Boat,” and I do want to talk about the new record. I know it was last year, but I could not believe how deep and how touched I was by that song.
AD: Wow, cool.
CP: You know, you mention your child. I guess my lead-in question with that is—in fact, I was actually weeping as I was listening to the song, truth be told. It touched me that deeply. I’m curious to see how—you’re a rocker, sister, you’re a freaking cool rocker, and then you’ve had kids. Not that your music has changed tremendously. It’s still very moving. But I’m curious to see internally if there’s been a shift inside of you and the music to create since you’ve had kids.
AD: Yes, I’m sure, there’s been so many shifts. Life keeps knocking you one direction or another, and then you have a slightly new direction with every knock. Kids are a big one, I imagine. I think in a big sense, I have a kind of balance in my life how that I didn’t before my family. I used to just be all about my work. And bringing people joy through music is very rewarding.
I noticed that, especially now that I have kids and I get deep into mom mode, you know, when I’m home and I can’t even remember what it i...
This episode’s guest is Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Kelly is a health psychologist and award-winning lecturer at Stanford University.
A leading expert on the mind-body relationship, her work integrates the latest findings of psychology, neuroscience, and medicine with contemplative practices of mindfulness and compassion from the traditions of Buddhism and yoga. She is the author of The Willpower Instinct and Yoga for Pain Relief.
In this episode, Kelly McGonigal and I speak about:
Willpower How to create the desire for change Acceptance of the present moment versus a desire for change Curiosity being a key ingredient for science as well as intuition The over-masculinization of science Kelly shared how she overcame a debilitating fear in her life
Tune in to listen to my conversation "True Willpower" with Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat Welcome, Kelly!
Kelly McGonigal: Hi, how are you doing?
CP: Great! It’s so great to have you today. I’m excited about our conversation.
KM: I am too, I’m looking forward to this.
CP: Well, I thought we’d just launch into the concept [that] is the subject of your work, your latest book being The Willpower Instinct. The term “willpower” is just such a trigger. It’s edgy. And I was wondering if you could start by telling us what you mean by “willpower.”
KM: I want to first even just acknowledge how edgy that word is, because it seems to imply a kind of judgment. When most of us talk about our own willpower, it’s almost always in the context of not having any. And it can almost point to a sense of lack or inadequacy, like, “I just don’t have what it takes to meet the challenges in my life or to reach my goals.” I wanted to reverse that sense that we have. I actually like using the word “willpower” now, even though it often triggers this immediate sense of, “Oh God, that’s something I don’t have. Please don’t remind me how little self-control I have.”
When I was working as a health psychologist and a health educator, the Stanford School of Medicine would send me around to help people make behavior [changes] and talk about stress management and healthy choices. And everywhere I went, people told me they already knew what they were supposed to do and they didn’t think they could do it. In fact, they said they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t make the changes. They felt like failures at the whole self-improvement game.
I thought, “This is something we need to radically rethink.” So many people felt like they simply did not have the inner resources to do what matters most to them, to improve their health and to find greater meaning and joy in their careers and in their family. So I’m re-staking a claim for willpower and define it as the ability to do what matters most—even when it’s difficult, even when you have self-doubt, even when you are exhausted—and to actually choose the thing that is most meaningful and important, and [access] all the resources that allow us to make that choice.
CP: Right. Here’s a question I have: What do you think is necessary to actually create change? It’s one thing to say, “Oh, I know these things, these are good for me. I need to make this change,” and yet we don’t do it. What is that ingredient that first kicks off the action and the habits? How do we cultivate that desire for change?
KM: I talk about four sets of strengths that support willpower. The first one is what I call “wantpower.” And it’s different than what you just said. You said, “Oh, I know this would be good for me.” How motivating does that sound? “This would be good for me.” It almost sounds like somebody else is telling you what you should do. Wantpower, instead, is this inner drive, maybe an intuition, a sense of meaning or purpose that really comes from within and allows you to have a vision for what you want in your life, what you want to contribute to the world,
This episode’s guest is Elizabeth Gilbert. Liz is the beloved author of 2006’s runaway bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. Eat, Pray, Love is Gilbert’s memoir of soul-searching and international exploration in the wake of her devastating divorce.
Committed, the follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love, tells the story of Gilbert’s unexpected plunge into second marriage—this time to Felipe, the man with whom she falls in love at the end of Eat, Pray, Love. Her Ted talk on creativity has over 5 million views, and she recently finished a novel, The Signature of All Things, to be published in October, 2013.
In this episode, Elizabeth Gilbert and I speak about:
The Signature of All Things Connection: how she uses it in her writing and how it plays in her life The wisdom of details and how they can help us see a bigger picture How perfectionism holds women back from living their truth. Curiosity and the Creative Process How passion can hold us back
Tune in to listen to my conversation "Creative Curiosity" with Elizabeth Gilbert. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome Liz! I feel kind of funny calling you “Liz,” but I guess everybody around you calls you Liz. Is that OK?
Elizabeth Gilbert: If you call me “Elizabeth,” I’ll think that you’re my mother and you’re mad at me, so it’s probably best if you call me “Liz.” [Laughs] Everybody else does.
CP: OK! Well, I’m honored to be calling you “Liz,” and I’m honored to have you here on the Grace and Fire show, so welcome!
EG: Thank you so much, I’m delighted to be here!
CP: Great. Well, there’s a lot of places that we’ll probably end up going today, but I wanted to start with your book since it’s sitting here right in my hands. You were so kind to send me an unproofed copy. I’ve had a chance to dig in a little bit, and I have to say, it’s kind of a page-turner.
EG: Oh, I’m so glad it’s making you turn the pages. That’s what I want. I want you to sprain your wrist turning pages with this book. [Laughs]
CP: Yes! I didn’t realize it. Since I knew we were having this call, I thought, “I want to get into this a little bit,” and it’s one of those books that’s starting to take over, and I have to be careful because, you know, Emerging Women’s already taking over, so I’m like, “OK, hang on here!”
EG: You’re going to fall down the rabbit hole!
CP: Yes, I’m definitely falling down the rabbit hole. But it’s interesting—I’ve not read your fiction. I’ve read, obviously, Eat, Pray, Love, which completely had such a big effect on me. And so I’m curious to hear a little bit more about how this process was for you, not really writing about yourself. In the last two books, you’ve been writing memoir style. How did this feel?
EG: Well, it felt like a homecoming. That would be the word that I would use, that popped into my mind. It’s true, you’re not the only person who hasn’t read my fiction! [Laughs] I started out as a writer of fiction many years ago, and the only thing I ever wanted to be my whole life, my only dream as a writer, was to write short stories and novels.
So my first book was a collection of short stories and my second book was a novel. I was well on that path, and then my life fell apart, as anybody who’s got $10 to buy a paperback of Eat, Pray, Love knows. And I ended up veering very sharply into this world of confessional memoirs that, of course, I do not regret having done at all. It’s been an extraordinary encounter with myself and with readers. It’s just been an amazing phenomenon.
And then after that came Committed, the follow-up, but 12 years had passed and I hadn’t written a word of fiction. And I just had that feeling that we get sometimes in our lives where I felt like, “If I drift any further away from this essential part of myself, I will never uncover it again. It’s time.”
And also,
This episode’s guest is the inspirational and accomplished: Tami Simon. Tami Simon is the founder of Sounds True, a multimedia publishing company dedicated to disseminating spiritual wisdom.
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Sounds True has published more than 800 audio, video, music, and book titles along with online courses and events. A two-time winner of the Inc 500 award as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in America, Sounds True is widely recognized as a pioneer in providing life-changing, practical tools that accelerate spiritual awakening and personal transformation. This podcast is especially juicy, as Tami and I were emerging into a new phase of our relationship as my 10 year career at Sounds True came to a close. In this episode, Tami Simon and I speak about:
Handling the everyday fear “Everything depends on how much you trust” Authenticity and its acceptance in society Mentorship and the best way to mentor The energy of tenacity and will and when to let go
Tune in to listen to my conversation "Emerging Into Being" with Tami Simon.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Tami. It’s really great to be here with you. I thought that we could start this podcast by doing a check-in. And I might take a few minutes to just explain what that is to our listeners. At Sounds True, you’ve developed a policy to connect people before a team meeting or before a meeting of any significance. We go around the room and we [each] take a minute to say something personal about the state that we’re in at the beginning of the meeting, what might be going on in our lives or in our business and work lives that would be particularly illuminating for the meeting.
It’s just a really nice way to drop in and connect to people before we actually have an exchange. So I wanted to do that check-in process, and I’ve missed the check-in process, because it’s been a few months now since I’ve been out of Sounds True and launching my own business. So it just feels so natural for me to start with that. I could start or you could start. How does that feel?
Tami Simon: Why don’t you start?
CP: OK. So I feel—and it’s good to get this out on the table—a little nervous. I feel that I’m showing my first poem to my favorite poet. I’m interviewing the interviewer, and it just feels like I’m navigating unknown waters here. I also feel so much gratitude to be here with you. I feel like you’ve really had such a big impact on my life, and to see our relationship go from me working with you intimately and working for you at Sounds True, and now here I am, I’m almost rubbing my hands together because I have you all to myself and I can ask you all these questions and we can do a deep dive. So I feel a lot of gratitude for that and my whole experience at Sounds True.
I think I also feel just genuinely happy. I feel like this whole trajectory and my history—everything that’s happened between me and you at Sounds True, working to build Sounds True to where it is, it’s just made such an impact on me, both personally and in a business setting. And I feel like this is a very big crescendo that will maybe also extend and have many, many more crescendos. It just feels very significant for me. And I’m happy to be here. [Pause] Usually we say, “Welcome.”
TS: Welcome, welcome. I noticed, when you said the possibility of doing a check-in, I suddenly felt tension in my stomach, and a sense of, “Oh, I’m going to be asked to come forward with how I’m actually feeling right now.” And I know that check-ins are the most powerful when people tell the most truth and go to the most depth of their being. And it’s one thing to check in with four or five people in a meeting, and it’s another thing to check in with a microphone and know that your check-in is being broadcast to God knows who for how long.
So I feel a little terror, or, “How much do I say?
This episode’s guest is the inspiring Kristin Neff. Kristin is a professor of human development and culture at the University of Texas, Austin, and she has practiced Buddhist Meditation since 1997.
Dr. Neff and her family were the subject of the recent book and documentary The Horse Boy, which documented her family’s adventure with autism. A self proclaimed “Self-Compassion Evangelist”, Kristin Neff is the world’s leading expert on self-compassion. In addition to authoring numerous academic articles on self-compassion, she has written a new book titled “Self-Compassion,” released by William Morrow in 2011.
In this episode, Kristin Neff and I speak about:
The real meaning of Self-Compassion and how it differs from Self-Esteem, The masculine and feminine aspects of mindfulness and self-compassion, The researched results of self-compassion and what the findings mean for leaders, and women leaders in particular, How self-compassion takes us from recognition, to action, and the power creating a practice of self care and love, And finally, Kristin offers sage advice for those women on the precipice of their own emergence.
Kristin Neff was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference.
Tune in to listen to my conversation "The Real Meaning of Self-Compassion" with Kristin Neff. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
This episode’s guest is the powerhouse Claire Zammit. Claire is the co-creator of the Feminine Power training courses for women and co-leads a thriving learning community of hundreds of thousands of women throughout the world.
In this episode, Claire Zammit and I speak about:
“Feminine Power” Living our truth through relationship and our greater connection to the whole The best way to empower other women How spirituality will change with the rise of feminine power The feminine as the “Great Integrator” Her latest honor through Inc. Magazine and her company Evolving Wisdom
Claire Zammit was a featured presenter at the 2013 Emerging Women Live Conference, October 10th-13th in Boulder, CO.
Tune in to listen to my conversation "The Keys to Feminine Power" with Claire Zammit. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes.
Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Welcome, Claire!
Claire Zammit: Hi, Chantal. Great to be with you.
CP: I’m excited to be talking to you because I know that every time we get on the phone together, we end up talking about my favorite topic, which is feminine power.
CZ: Yes, absolutely.
CP: Well, maybe we should just jump in, and I know that’s the title of your upcoming book, and it’s the title of your work. I know you have a telecast and a workshop that does—I don’t know, how many thousands of people have listened to that workshop now?
CZ: We’ve been teaching a seven-week course on feminine power for the last four years, and we’ve had about seven thousand women participate in that, [and] hundreds of thousands more with our free events. It’s something that I’m really seeing as speaking to women’s experience at a very deep level. I think that’s what we connect with when we have our conversations. So I’m excited to be able to dive into it today, together.
CP: Well, why don’t we start by—it’s just interesting, “feminine” and “power.” They’re two very different energies, but together they totally make sense. And I’m just curious to see if you can start with defining what you mean by “feminine power.”
CZ: Well, I might just start, if I can, with a bit of a story that creates a little context for it. I think this exploration and discovery [really] came out of our own experience. My teaching partner Katherine Woodward Thomas and the women that we were serving in the community we had started in Los Angeles—we had a center for transformation, and we were coaching women and working with women.
And both of us were accomplished, successful women, as were the women we were serving. And we really noticed, in spite of having so much “power” in our lives, we both felt this very painful and confusing gap between the deeper potentials that we sensed for who we were as women, for the creative contribution, for the intimacy and connection of our relationships, and just for our overall experience of life. We couldn’t quite put our finger on what it was, and we found that women everywhere were having the same experience as us.
At the same time, we noticed that there was a yearning towards the feminine that was happening. We [said,] “This is really interesting. So why don’t we do a class so we can begin to explore what the feminine is?” And the first night of class, it was [really] interesting: We listed these feminine qualities up on the board, and these masculine qualities up on the board—just common assumptions about [the] feminine: flowing, intuitive, receptive, surrendered, nurturing. And typical masculine qualities like logical, linear, hard, angular, penetrating.
And we looked at these different energies and these different qualities, and what was noticed was that we were hungry, as a group, as women, to experience these more feminine qualities. We were very drawn, but there was a collective fear that if we allowed ourselves to be scented in these qualities, that there would be a loss of power. So there was [this idea that] we were drawn to power,
This episode's guest is the formidable Tara Sophia Mohr, an expert on women’s leadership and well-being. Download now to hear Tara and I discuss:
Weaving spirituality practice in business How we keep ourselves small and the importance of “Playing Big” How to deal with criticism when stepping out and Playing Big The words: Pahad and Yirah and how they can help us understand our fear The value of mentorship
Tune in to listen to my conversation "Playing Big" with Tara Sophia Mohr.
Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript
Chantal Pierrat: Well, Tara, welcome, and thank you for being here today.
Tara Mohr: Thank you, thank you so much for having me.
CP: I’m so excited to have you today—half an hour or 45 minutes all to myself. I think I discovered you about a year ago or a year and a half ago. I’ve been getting your blogs and I read your poetry. And the thing that struck me the most was here was a woman who was diving into business, clearly very, very articulate and wise in the business world, but who was overtly—and I’m putting some emphasis on that because it’s unusual—spiritual. And I’m just so excited because it’s such a rare combination, and I would love to dig in a little bit more about your background and how that came to be and how you came to combine these two worlds that seemingly are very separate. So maybe we could just jump in there.
TM: Yes. I’d love to begin there. That’s certainly been a big part of my journey. I was raised in a fairly unique way, hopefully a way that’s becoming less unique. My mom was very much a spiritual seeker, and had a huge passion for psychology.
So our house was full of books from all different religious traditions, from the mystical side of all different religious traditions, and she was always busy reading them. She was up at 5 a.m. writing about spiritual topics, really just for her own journey. She raised me, every morning, at the breakfast table, asking me what did I dream the night before, and having me diagram my dreams out, the Jungian interpretation, on a yellow pad while I was having my oatmeal or my Cheerios or whatever it was at the time.
And truly, I can remember incidents like being teased on the playground in kindergarten and coming home, getting into the car [when] my mom picked me up and saying, “Mom, so-and-so teased me, and I really hate him.” And she would always say one of two things in that scenario. She would say, “Well, what do you think is going on for that person at home that would make them tease another kid?” Or she would say, “How do you think God looks at that person?”
So this was the milieu I was raised in, and it was particularly remarkable because it wasn’t attached to any organized religion. I grew up with this access to inner life and to spiritual concepts that I think children are ready for and can understand, but we often underestimate how much and how early they can understand [them]. So I would say that was one track that I was on from very early in life.
And yet, at the same time, my parents were [a] middle class, professional, Jewish family who really valued education, and [they] were saying to me, “You’re bright and you have a lot of potential and we expect you to work hard in school and do well in school.” And school was a world that felt like the opposite of all that stuff I was just talking about. Because, of course, at school, nobody was asking what God thought about any of the other kids. [Laughs] Nobody was thinking about what dreams meant.
School felt very hierarchical. I was always aware [of], “Oh, you can get a good grade or a bad grade.” And yet, my mom was saying every child was divine and special. So those things were at odds. In school, we would learn about, “This war happened because this country disagreed with this guy,” and no one was looking at the inner side of anything.
So for much of [my] life, I would say these two different domains felt very distin...
In this episode the amazing powerhouse Alanis Morissette and I talk about:
Vulnerability Strength with Femininity and balancing the Yin/Yang or Masculine and Feminine essence The effect of success on the creative process How anger can actually build intimacy in relationship And finally, Alanis gives her one piece of advice for women who are on the precipice of their own Emergence.
Tune in to listen to my conversation "Creative Intimacy and the Merging of Yin and Yang" with Alanis Morissette. Subscribe to the Emerging Women podcast on iTunes. Transcript:
Chantal Pierrat: You’re listening to Grace and Fire, brought to you by Emerging Women. In today’s episode, Alanis and I spoke about vulnerability, strength, and femininity; and balancing the yin yang or masculine and feminine essence; the effect of success on the creative process; how anger can actually build intimacy in relationship; and finally, Alanis gives her one piece of advice for women who are on the precipice of their own emergence. Here is my conversation, “Creative Intimacy and the Merging of Yin and Yang” with the amazing and talented Alanis Morissette.
OK, welcome, Alanis.
Alanis Morissette: Thank you for having me.
CP: This is such an honor. I just want to lay all my cards out on the table here. [Laughs] I’m feeling a little star struck, and I’m usually a pretty cool cat, I can hold my own, but at this point I’m feeling incredibly vulnerable.
AM: Oh!
CP: You’ve just had such an impact on my life, especially as a young woman, and I just want to get it out there and let you know that. I think I’m speaking for every one of our listeners that were born in this time that were influenced by Jagged Little Pill and your other albums—and I want to get into that a little bit, your new album. So there it is. It’s out on the table. So if I fumble—
AM: [Laughs] And you’re still alive and you’re still safe and everything’s still OK.
CP: I’m still OK! That’s right!
AM: That’s so sweet, thank you.
CP: Well, I thought I’d try and level the playing field a little bit and go in super deep on our first question, and hopefully that will the OK.
AM: Yeah, go for the jugular, I live for that. [Laughs]
CP: [Laughs] Great! So, with regards to vulnerability, when do you feel the most vulnerable? When do you feel the most naked?
AM: I feel the most vulnerable with my husband, probably. I’m a big Harville Hendrix, Helen LaKelly Hunt, Imago therapy model fan, so I just really see that the degree of commitment and intimacy is commensurate to the degree of healing available. So for me, there’s no bigger commitment than marriage. Definitely motherhood, too, is a near second for obvious reasons.
But the commitment of marriage is really vulnerable and really intentional, so there’s the great vulnerability of coming together in that three-phase process, in theory. There’s the infatuation that brings us together, all the chemistry and the animal stuff, and then there’s that disillusionment that turns into that power struggle and conflict. And in the theory, we could segue into this third phase where we actually help heal each other’s wounds and pull each other out of this survival strategy that helped us survive as kids into this wholeness. That’s the theory of it, and now I’m actually experiencing it in practice, which is incredibly vulnerable.
And then there’s also a whole other chapter about deepening my vulnerability with my girlfriends, and just letting intimacy be the terrorizing thing that it can be, but also the beautifully healing thing that it can be. And there’s a great quote—the other day, my friend said, “The soul is shy.” [Laughs] That’s such a sweet way of putting it. So those two worlds are the most vulnerable for me: friendship and marriage.
CP: Right. There’s so much there. So I want to start digging into that relationship piece. As emerging women and as this whole emerging women movement,