September 24, 2025 • 40 mins
Personal transformation does not fit neatly into a 90-day program. In this conversation, Catherine and Brenda explore why meaningful growth often takes years or decades, and why that timeline is both natural and necessary.
They reflect on what sustains the process when change feels slow: forgiving who we were, showing compassion for how long it takes, and facing reality without judgment. Many of the most difficult patterns are not entirely our own, but are carried through family lineage. Even so, they become ours to transform.
While breakthroughs can happen quickly, lasting transformation requires practice and the steady development of new skills. What keeps many people stuck is self-judgment and wishing things were different rather than working with what is.
They also examine the habit of projecting today’s awareness onto past versions of ourselves, shaming who we were for not knowing better. This retroactive perfectionism creates shame instead of honoring the growth already made. The shift comes when we move from a perfection mindset to a practice mindset, treating life as a series of learning opportunities instead of tests.
Transformation is possible, but it happens one step at a time, often with wobbles along the way. Like learning to ride a bike, growth requires falling, adjusting, and building the muscle memory for a new way of being.
Episode Highlights
• The gap between instant gratification and the reality that growth takes years
• How inherited family patterns become ours to transform
• The difference between sudden breakthroughs and gradual skill-building
• How judgment and perfectionism keep us stuck in shame
• Accepting reality as it is before change can occur
• Why loving former versions of ourselves supports growth
• Moving from a perfection mindset to a practice mindset
• Viewing challenges as learning opportunities rather than pass/fail tests
We would love to know what landed for you in this episode. What are you working on that might be taking a day, a week, a decade or maybe even a lifetime. Please tell us, rate, review and share this episode with someone you love.
Like, Rate, Review and Share this episode. Thanks in advance for your support.
Click the links below for 1:1 support.
Email Us:
desireasmedicine@gmail.com
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catherine@catherinenavarro.com
Connect on Instagram:
@desireasmedicinepodcast
@Brenda_Fredericks
@CoachCatherineN
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire.
Hello, welcome back.
(01:34):
Family, friends, listeners.
I am here with the lovelyBrenda, so happy to have her.
It's actually great toco-create this podcast with her
and to have you guys listen,because without you there would
be no podcast.
So thanks so much for beinghere and listening and tuning in
.
Brennan and I have been talkingabout sort of the middle.
We had a podcast about this, Ithink really early on, of what
(01:56):
it feels like when you're in themiddle, and when I mean the
middle, it means you're notcompletely, completely oblivious
to where you are or where youwant to go.
But the bridge hasn't beenfully formed between where you
are and where you want to go,and that bridge is composed of
(02:17):
tons of skills that need to becreated and adapted and habits,
and we're specifically speakingabout the skills that need to be
created when it's just us, whenwe want to become a better
version of ourselves, and thiswork cannot be outsourced.
It is just us Either we do itor we don't do it, but it's just
us.
(02:38):
And then our desire for instantgratification and how personal
growth shows up in the field.
When I say the field, maybe Imean the world.
Personal growth will show uplike learn these three steps to
love yourself.
Follow or do this nine month ornine day or 90 day challenge to
(03:07):
love yourself more.
Nobody's like, hey, let's carveout 20 years so that everything
and its mother that comes inbetween.
That's you, that's how you loveyourself.
That's how you get there.
Do it Click, buy, becausenobody's buying.
Nobody's buying into a 20-yearanything.
(03:29):
But the truth is that a lot ofthe things that I've been able
to accomplish in my own personalgrowth has taken decades, and
so how do we account for thetruth that we want it right now
or yesterday, but it will takewhat it takes.
(03:49):
Maybe for you it's fast, maybeit isn't.
It would also take someunforeseen skills and bridges
that need to be crossed.
With all of that, brenda and Ihave been talking about the
parts that we don't necessarilyalways talk about, and when I
say we, I just mean in thepersonal development field.
(04:10):
We're not always like you needto come with these ingredients
because they are personal thingsthat we need to come with
Things like forgiveness.
Can we forgive ourselves for whowe've been?
Can we forgive ourselves forhow long it's going to take?
Can we have compassion for howlong it's going to take?
(04:33):
Can we be with the grief thatwe aren't that person?
Can we put enough love onourselves to love ourselves
through the transition to bewith ourselves under all these
conditions?
Can we be with the discomfortof the unknown, not knowing how
(04:54):
long something's going to take?
And I'm sure there are manymore On that note, brenda.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I will say that our soul has bought into 20
years plus.
I really want to open with thatbecause that feels really true.
Our soul is a big old.
Let's get into the 20 yearsituation or longer.
There's things that I'mlearning that I know.
(05:25):
I've been learning my entirelife and I know I will continue
to unfold and learn these things.
So let's just say that our soulis on board, our human not so
much all the time, right, butthere does come a turning point.
Right, but there does come aturning point.
(06:04):
Did you ever see that meme whereit's like before spiritual
development, the person's likebeing kicked down the street,
you know, and then afterspiritual growth, like you take
the boot and you like stick iton your own head.
You're like let's go.
I don't know if I said thatright, but you know what I mean.
It's like, oh yeah, we canactually enjoy the process as we
go and we know it's going to beuncomfortable.
Any growth.
There's something that needs tochange, like something is
changing internally and thattakes time.
It could be uncomfortable, itcould be messy, there's
uncertainty involved and can webe with that?
(06:25):
We just wanted to slow it downand really talk about that in
this episode, that this takestime, and that is correct.
A language you know over daysand weeks, and that's great, and
(06:47):
our brain needs that and ourself-esteem needs to learn
things in there.
You could learn to cook in afew hours.
You can learn to make somethingreally delicious and that's
wonderful and we need that inour life.
And sometimes there's certainlessons that are so big that
they just take maybe your wholelifetime to learn, because
you've inherited them.
You've inherited them from yourparents, your grandparents,
(07:09):
your ancestors.
They say seven generations ineach direction.
So these things are not ours inthat we've inherited them in
our cells, in our DNA, andthey're also ours to work on in
this lifetime, because here weare in our bodies, experiencing
(07:30):
these things.
It's worthy of saying that it'sboth and that these things take
time to learn Something thatyour DNA is coded towards or how
you grew up.
First of all, it takes you awhile to even be aware of this,
like, oh, the rest of the worlddoesn't think this way.
(07:51):
Just the awareness alone doesn'teven kick in for everyone.
And then, once you're aware ofit, the time it takes to shift.
And so in our last episode, ifyou were listening, or maybe
you're just new to this episode,but we really wanted to give
them know that, first of all,not everything takes that long.
There is quantum healing, forsure, and we are open to that,
(08:33):
and these things are a journeypath of something that is taking
you decades or feels likeyou've always been this way and
you're exhausted and upset anddiscouraged.
Just know that every day thatyou even put your attention on
(08:58):
this thing and you have thedesire to shift it and you take
any baby step towards it, anynew level of awareness or spark
that drops into your body, thatis something.
Don't discount that, becauseevery spark leads to another
(09:20):
spark and then over time, we canchange, and we really wanted to
let you know that in thisepisode we did.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
But you've also brought something in about seven
generations forward, sevengenerations back.
I want to circle back to that.
And you said you know it's notours and it's ours, it's both.
What does that mean?
It's not ours?
If it's in our DNA, it's in ourlineage, then wouldn't it be
ours?
What part of it is not ours?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, it's not ours in that we didn't create it.
So if there's a pattern in yourfamily that you were born into,
you didn't create that.
You were born into it.
It came from your parents oryour grandparents or your
great-grandparents, or perhapsfurther down the line than that.
(10:11):
So it's not yours in that youinherited this belief system or
this pattern.
It's coded into your body.
So it's not yours.
You didn't start it.
But then it is yours becauseyou're living with it and you're
living with the experience ofthis pattern or belief system.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
So it's yours and if you want to change it, then it's
yours to do changing somethingthat's ours, then when do you
like I think you just gave agreat example of you have
something from your lineage, youidentify it as not yours
because you didn't originallycreate it.
(10:52):
Let's use personal growth, sothere's a pattern, I don't know.
Give me something that you'veworked on Well, I've worked on
money.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
There's a survival pattern.
That's been in my family.
There's food patterns.
Pick one.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Okay, let's say it's money and you have a survival
pattern that came.
That's very common and I thinkvery few people don't have it.
I guess I would say with moneyand you have a survival pattern
with money, it's not yours, itwas created eons ago by
ancestors.
Now it's ours.
So when do we create somethingelse?
(11:29):
I think we're only creatingpatterns when we intentionally
do something with it.
Otherwise, I think mosteverything we have is not ours.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
That's a great point.
I mean, I think it's really amix.
And when does it become ours?
It becomes ours because we'reliving our life and we're
existing on this earth, so we'veinherited the thing.
And it becomes ours because wedo different things with it, and
then we perhaps get with apartner and create children and
(11:58):
have a new iteration of thepattern that's mixed with the
other person's DNA, of thepattern that's mixed with the
other person's DNA.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yes, so we have patterns that we create, with
theirs being the original, Iguess, and then we're affecting
the patterns ahead of us because, well, it hasn't been mutated
or alchemized quite just yet.
So thank you for circling backon that one.
And then you said a differentword, which was super
interesting.
We haven't talked about thisyet Quantum healing.
(12:28):
And you know Dr Joe Dispenzatalks a lot about this, the idea
that you can heal fromsomething in milliseconds, which
is true, it is possible.
And I also want to argue thathealing is one thing, for
example, not having the scarcitymindset around money.
(12:49):
Let's say you can heal thatpart, but with that healing
doesn't come how to manage money, like the quantum leap.
Healing doesn't address all theother skills that are required
to maintain the healed state,which is very interesting, right
(13:10):
, like I'm thinking of peoplethat go to whether it's a Joe
Dispenza event, or they go.
They have a diagnosis and theygo to Peru and they go to the
mountains, and they do this andthey do that and they're healed,
and then they come back intoWestern society, to their normal
jobs, their normal to-dos, andwell, something else pops up
(13:33):
it's like that particular state,that healed state, requires a
particular way of living, and soquantum healing is a
possibility and quantum leapsare possible.
They just don't often take intoaccount the things that are
required to maintain that state,and it has to integrate.
Well, the lessons weren'tlearned.
(13:54):
It wasn't attained through likea change in circumstance, it
was attained through like amiraculous quantum event sort of
thing.
So what would you say issomething that you had to bring
to your personal development sothat you could stay in the game
(14:15):
and not quit.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
That's such a good question.
I thought you were going to askme about quantum healing,
because I am no expert on that.
It's actually one of my desires.
I've been trying to learn aboutquantum physics.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I have some play in that arena, but I think that
when we're thinking about ourpath right now, with personal
development and our current moodlet's call it universal mood
with all the humans, of how wewould like something to come
(14:49):
right out of the microwave orright out of the revolving door,
what's required of us to become, the versions that we want to
become, taking all of the thingsinto account, and what we want
to say yes to, they're not allthe same, and it's not to make
(15:10):
people scared.
It's sort of to talk about itand say it could take a quantum
minute and there could be someresidue of oh, I didn't learn
some skills, but I do have thequantum healing.
Now what?
Or it could take more than thefive-day challenge to get past
(15:36):
the hurdle you have and getcloser to the person you're
looking to become.
And if it takes longer thanthat, let's talk about the real.
Real, what it takes to stay thecourse, because it's really
easy to quit?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
So easy to quit the real, real.
There's so many answers to that.
I don't know that.
There's really just one thing.
One of the earliest ones waswell, I was just going to say
something and then I realizedthere's something even before.
That is the desire.
You know the desire.
There's some desire and letting, and following that, there's
something that you want somechange, something new that you
(16:22):
want that requires a change.
So I think that might be thebeginning.
I see you thinking what are youthinking?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
You tossed me, not tossed me literally, but I, like
went all the way back to thatstatement, reminded me of my own
path, like what was the desire?
And I remember being very angryat 19,.
Being in a street fight wentsideways super fast where I
(16:50):
thought I was going to killsomeone I don't know if I've
talked about this on the podcastand I felt like, oh, I am sort
of in somewhat of a prison.
I can't control my emotions.
I don't have I didn't have thewords back then, but I didn't
(17:11):
have emotional sobriety.
I didn't have the ability to notgo on my emotional ride,
especially if it was like anger,and so, for sure, that was a
desire of mine.
I thought to myself, what wouldit be like to feel and not go
(17:37):
on the ride?
And I hadn't made theconnection before.
But it looks like my first stepwas to just shut down from
feeling, to do my best tosuppress so that I didn't feel
completely in my involuntaryaround it, and that wasn't
helpful.
That was just a pendulum swing.
I had to then learn how to feelthe unknown of being in my
(18:01):
involuntary, and learning how tomanage that terrain.
And so that's what I thoughtabout when you said that, oh,
I'm like, oh yes, I rememberthat desire and I think
compassion is also somethingthat's needed in these.
I wanted to say it's this weirdsentence I want to say in the
(18:29):
long-term journey of personaldevelopment and personal growth,
because it is so long to getfrom point A to point B, but in
between we do have some wins andin between we also have some
losses, and the losses, like thefailure, is part of the lesson,
right?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Amen.
I think that's a reallyimportant piece that can't be
overlooked, and maybe that's whyit takes so long.
If we come back to what we'retalking about in this episode,
is that it does take a long time, and that's okay.
Some things just maybe take alifetime to work on, and you
can't do that without failing orwithout falling.
(19:08):
That is how we learn.
We fall down, we say, oh, I seewhat happened.
And then you try it again in adifferent way and you might move
a millimeter at a time and thenyou might quote accomplish
something or get to the nextlevel in the game, and then
(19:29):
there's another door and there'sanother thing to work on, and
that's why it takes so long,because it's not one thing,
everything is like 10 things ormore.
You know and I love what yousaid said that you had this
desire.
But I think, even before thatis what it sounds like is you
(19:51):
had this awareness, like, oh,I'm not, like I don't have, I'm
not in control here, I'm out ofcontrol with this thing Like you
have this awareness.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, for sure, I had the awareness.
I was like, oh, this is notcool.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And then you wanted something different.
So you had the awareness, andthen you had the desire dropped
in for something different, andthen you shut yourself down.
And that's the way it goessometimes and to our point,
that's why it takes so long,baby, to make these huge changes
(20:31):
, huge.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I think the thing that I'm noticing as we're
talking about this particularpart like and I guess I can see
it a little more because it's mylife experience but it requires
so much acceptance.
It requires, oh, I am beingthis person.
(20:53):
Well, this is embarrassing,this sucks.
Like this sucks and let me saythat again, like this sucks.
Right, having the real come toJesus, the real.
My goodness, I can't believeI'm showing up in this way.
Oh my goodness, I can't believeI'm experiencing this.
Oh my goodness, I can't believeI don't have control of this.
Oh my God, I can't believe I amnot where I thought I would be,
(21:15):
that piece of being with whatis, even when you're in
disapproval of it.
I think that's what prolongsthe transition state, because
we've said this a gazilliontimes you cannot beat yourself
into a different version ofyourself.
You can't hate yourself to adifferent version of yourself.
(21:37):
It requires you to be inacceptance and love for it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Totally and it messes with your sense of identity, of
who you were.
You know, in the last episode Italked about my desire to
really listen to people insteadof always turning it around and
making it about myself, and Ihad to look in the mirror and be
like, oh my God, I'm one ofthose people who just doesn't
(22:05):
listen to someone and justresponds with a story about
myself.
Oh, like, I didn't like that.
But I had to be willing to lookat myself in reality and say,
oh, this is what, this is whatI'm doing, and and learn to
separate.
That isn't me, that's mybehavior, that's my learned
behavior.
And then I have the desire toshift it.
(22:28):
So it messes with your sense ofidentity, which can feel really
bad, let's just say it in areally basic way.
And it's easy to beat yourselfup because you thought you were
somebody, one person, one kindof person, and now it turns out
you're somebody else, maybesomeone that you have some
judgment about, and so havingjudgment about yourself is hard
(22:52):
right, and if you're someone whoruns perfectionist patterns,
like I have, it's really hard tonot see yourself as a perfect
citizen, and so you have to bewilling to say, oh, I'm just a
flawed human being, which isnormal.
We're all that way.
I don't say that in aderogatory way.
(23:13):
It's just.
We're just.
You know we mess up.
This is how we learn, this is.
But I didn't always know that.
I didn't always like that aboutmyself, so I had to be willing
to look at that in order to makeany kind of change.
If you're not willing to lookat yourself in reality, you're
not going to make a change.
If you're lying to yourself,you're just going to stay where
(23:38):
you are because you can't dealwith the truth, the truth that
is needed, that you need toadmit in order to make a change.
It's humbling and it's notalways pretty, but it's real.
So if you're willing to look inthe mirror at your own darkness
(24:00):
, at your own shadow, and youcan really look at it, then you
could shift it.
But until then, you're justgoing to swirl around and not
much is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
For sure.
I mean, you need awareness ofwhat's occurring and what the
reality is first but for sure.
Perfectionism is rampant and Ithink a lot of us have that and
it's completely unrealistic.
It literally doesn't exist.
But yet there we are trying tohit a bullseye on something that
(24:38):
doesn't exist.
Perfection just doesn't exist,and so it doesn't exist.
And then we beat ourselves upbecause we're not the version of
ourselves that we wanted to be,we have judgment about it,
because we're not perfect.
And then it becomes so hard tolove ourselves because we're not
meeting the fantasy ofourselves that we would like to
(24:59):
meet.
And then it's very hard forother people to love us when
we're not in acceptance of wherewe are and who we are.
It's very hard for us to loveourselves if we are not in
approval of where we are and whowe are, and so you can't love
(25:20):
yourself, you can't change it,you can't be loved by others.
All these things come fromwanting to be a mannequin
instead of being human, wantingto have this perfect way or this
quantum leap.
Let's just get there, skip allthe ugly steps, I can just do it
in a millisecond.
(25:40):
Where is that quantum timemachine?
And realizing oh, there's notime machine, but what will have
, what will impact the gearshere, will be forgiveness,
compassion, acceptance, pouringlove on where we are.
(26:05):
So how would you say you'vebeen able to touch that?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Pouring love on myself wherever I am, pouring
love on myself wherever I am.
I mean, the biggest way I'velearned that lesson was it was
hard.
You know, I was in a reallyhard spot.
I would say I was in a spotwhere I was collapsed and in a
shame spiral and I was there fora long time.
(26:33):
It feels like I was there for afew years until I just felt
some spark to shift it or somelevel of awareness kicked in
where I was willing to just lookat it and love myself.
There was taking responsibility.
For me, it was takingresponsibility without
(26:56):
collapsing, like the taking ofresponsibility and saying, oh, I
did this thing.
For me was the shift, becausewhen you take responsibility,
you're accepting what you didand owning it and there's
something really humbling andbeautiful about that that shifts
the field and it shifts itinside of of you, because the
pretending that it's not real isthe really painful piece.
(27:21):
That's the part that kept me inshame and collapse was the not
wanting to look at it, but thelooking at it, the willingness
to look at it, was the healingmoment and to just say and
accept myself like I'm human,like I really did the best that
I could, and we talked aboutthat a lot on this podcast and
(27:44):
you said something really greatonce what if every decision I
made was the best one?
What if it was?
And you know it's easy to lookback in hindsight and say, oh, I
made that wrong decision or oh,I didn't do that or I would
have done it differently.
I have a million of those.
We could do a whole podcast onall of the things that Brenda
thinks she could have donedifferently, but it took me a
(28:07):
while to really get intoagreement and understand this
concept of what if everythingwas the best decision.
What if I did the best that Icould along the way and really
just get into agreement withthat and accept myself.
And here's another piece is Idid this for a while.
(28:27):
It's really painful and I don'trecommend it is I would learn
something and so I would havesome new awareness and then I
would project that onto myformer self.
So let's just go back to beinga listener like oh, oh my God,
look at, look at all the waysthat I wasn't a good listener
(28:48):
back then and how I turned itonto myself and just beat myself
up for that.
Oh my God, that's so painful,it's so painful.
So the going back andprojecting on yourself is just
like going back and shitting onyour past self.
I just had to stop that andthat's just acceptance, like
(29:10):
just accepting myself where I amand accepting my former self
where I was.
So I had to go back and lovethe former versions of myself
that didn't know what I know nowand you could feel the
perfection that runs throughthat, like, oh, I learned
something and I'm going toproject it on my past self so I
could have been a little bitmore perfect.
It's just painful.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It's painful, I would say.
It's sort of like we're notaccepting reality, and by not
accepting reality it means, oh,I'm going to think about that
former version of me that wouldthink about herself and need to
speak.
I'm going to use this as anexample.
I don't know if this is whatyou went through.
I'm just going to, for teachingpurposes, talk about it because
I think it's a great example.
My goodness, I can't believe Iyou know air quotes.
(30:03):
I can't believe I was thatperson that didn't listen, and I
definitely did this too.
I think it was just a formerway of communicating.
That is how I learned how tocommunicate.
I think even to today, if Ilook around, you say your thing,
they say their thing, and thenwe had a conversation, and
that's sort of whatconversations look like.
(30:27):
But if I look back at that timeand I say that version of me
should have known better, well,okay, if I want to put
perfection on it, but I haveproof that that version of me
didn't know better Because thatversion of me didn't do better.
So that version of me didn'tknow because I didn't do it.
(30:50):
That is the actual proof.
And the homework is can I justbe with that truth and not make
it wrong Like there's nothingwrong with that version of me.
Maybe that version of me neededto practice being heard.
Maybe that version of me didn'thave that many outlets to speak
(31:11):
.
Maybe that version of me reallywanted to be seen.
Maybe that version of me reallywanted to be seen.
Maybe that version of me waspracticing her voice in a
different way.
It's sort of she didn't know.
That version of me didn't knowhow to do better, and whatever
she was doing was the best shewas doing with what she had,
(31:35):
because of something that I'mhaving difficulty seeing because
I'm too busy looking at it likeit was wrong.
And so, if I can just see it asreality and say, oh, that
version of me, she was doing thebest she could, that's true,
she was speaking in this way,but it was for a reason.
I don't need to know the reason, because whatever happened
(31:56):
there contributed to where I amnow, like for sure, 1000%.
I'm, without a doubt, clear onthat.
I also want to circle back towhen you said you quoted me
where I say what if the choicesI've made actually have been the
best choices?
And this is a choice or athought that I choose to think.
(32:22):
I don't know how many listenersare doing thought work, but
thought work is when you have athought and that thought is not
serving you.
So the thought of oh, thisversion of me should have known
better.
That thought is not helping,because all it does is have me
not want to be with reality ofwhat was happening and it wants
(32:42):
me to make things different in apast.
I actually cannot do that.
It is not within the realm ofpossibility on this human plane.
But I can decide that I've madethe best choices and my life,
(33:02):
no matter how great or how badthe life I'm living, is actually
the best life that I could have.
And it's not to be complacent,like.
What I'm saying isn't to makeit complacent, it's that the
(33:25):
thought is helpful so that Idon't beat myself up for things
that I actually have no controlover.
And so when we're originallytalking about today, how do you
stay in the room?
It's going to require thesecreative ways of being with
yourself.
Like what do you need so thatyou could see that where you are
right now is perfect In thisimperfect world?
I'm not talking about perfectin the realm of perfection, I'm
(33:51):
talking about perfect from therealm of, there's nothing to
change.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
And if there's nothing to change, can I be
compassionate towards myself?
Can I be loving towards myself?
Can I be in acceptance that Iam with something that's unknown
Like I'm wanting to gosomewhere that I've never been,
to become the person that Ihaven't been?
I helped us stay in the room,which was what you originally
asked me, and we've just hadthis juicy conversation, pass,
fail, win, lose, right, wronginto a growth-oriented mindset,
(34:39):
into a practice mindset.
Everything can be a practiceand an opportunity for growth,
as opposed to perfection andright and wrong.
Just going in with that lenschanged everything, because then
I could go to bed at night andsay it's not like I'm sucked or
(35:00):
one in life, it's like, well,what did I learn and how do I
want to shift this and do it alittle bit better tomorrow.
And that, folks, is the onlyway.
It's just the only way.
It's like one moment at a time.
That's how we learn to ride abike.
You know you fall over, it'swobbly.
(35:21):
You learn how to use yourmuscles, you learn how to hold
the bike so you can actually getsomewhere.
But it takes a while.
There's a learning curve and,depending on what you're
learning, it might take a longtime and we're giving a lot of
love and approval for that.
And this is where teachers andcoaches come in.
(35:43):
That could be really helpful,because we can only see what we
can see, and the beautiful thingabout a coach or a teacher is
that they show you your blindspots in a really loving way.
And that is what Catherine andI do, hopefully, on this podcast
(36:05):
, and we do it in our privatepractice.
We lovingly walk you into theparts of yourself that might be
blocking you and if you'rewilling to look at that, which
takes a lot of love andwillingness and desire, then you
can shift your life.
(36:25):
It is possible.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It is really possible .
I mean, we're living examplesof that.
I would say another thing thathas been very important for me
in my path has been to justlearn to accept reality and not
make it something horrendous orthis mountain to climb, or this
(36:51):
cross to bear, or it's just life, or it's just life.
And I don't know when wedecided as a collective that
life is supposed to be easy,because I haven't met a single
person where life is easy.
Yes, we have different levelsof problems and we could all
(37:13):
judge other people and say, oh,my problems are bigger than
yours.
Everybody has the opportunityto do that, because we all think
our problems are the mostimportant.
If we go back to theconversation of how we tend to
communicate I say my problem,then you say your problem.
We're always talking aboutproblems Because we think ours
(37:34):
is the hardest.
But it isn't.
Our problems are hard for us.
That's why it's there on ourpath, so that we could learn, so
that we could be carved, sothat we can become the people
that we want to become, so thatthat hardship shows us an
(37:55):
awareness of where we are, sothat that hardship shows us an
awareness of where we are.
And I love, brenda, how youspoke about how we walk our
clients.
This is a big part of my work,for sure I'm sure yours as well.
Our reality doesn't have to bea problem.
It just looks like this, and ifwe wanted to look differently,
(38:21):
then we just work towards itbeing different, but the faster
that we see that right now isnot horrendous, it's not a
problem, it's not the worstthing ever.
We can see our blessings andcontinue, and so we've touched
on so much today.
Brenda, I'm going to pass it toyou.
But what I'm hearing us say iswe have to accept reality.
We have to lovingly acknowledgeourselves the best we can.
(38:43):
Stay in the room, whether it'sa coach, therapist or a
different way.
Have compassion for ourselves,forgiveness, because we will
mess up, we will fall.
Think about that 1%.
Better.
Be willing to be with what wedon't know, because we just
don't know what it's going totake to get there, because we
haven't been there.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Right, amen.
Trust yourself, trust yourdesire, lean in, accept yourself
, love yourself.
Have the courage, have thegumption to take that baby step
and go to sleep at night and askyourself what did I do great
(39:23):
today at, and what do I want todo a little bit better at
tomorrow, and watch your worldshift.
We would love to know whatlanded for you in this episode.
We would love to know whatyou're working on that might be
taking a day, a week, a decadeor maybe a lifetime.
(39:43):
Please tell us, share thisepisode with someone who might
like it and leave us a review.
We so, so appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Until next time you Until next time.
Thank you for joining us on theDesire is Medicine podcast.
Desire invites us to be honest,loving and deeply intimate with
ourselves and others.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
We'd love to hear from you.
Welcome to Desire is Medicine.
We are two very different womenliving a life led by desire,
inviting you into our world.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Brenda.
I'm a devoted practitioner tobeing my fully expressed true
self in my daily life.
Motherhood relationships and mybusiness Desire has taken me on
quite a ride and every day Ipractice listening to and
following the voice within.
I'm a middle school teacherturned coach and guide of the
feminine.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the
truest and hopefully thehighest version of me.
I don't have children, I'venever been married.
I've spent equal parts of mylife in corporate as in some
down and low shady spaces.
I was the epitome of tired andwired and my path led me to
explore desire.
I'm a coach, guide, energyworker and a forever student.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Even after decades of inner work, we are humble
beginners on the mat, stillexploring, always curious.
We believe that listening toand following the nudge of
desire is a deep spiritualpractice that helps us grow.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
On the Desires Medicine podcast.
We talk to each other, weinterview people we know and
love about the practice ofdesire, bringing in a very
important piece that is oftenoverlooked being responsible for
our desire.
Hello, welcome back.
(01:34):
Family, friends, listeners.
I am here with the lovelyBrenda, so happy to have her.
It's actually great toco-create this podcast with her
and to have you guys listen,because without you there would
be no podcast.
So thanks so much for beinghere and listening and tuning in
.
Brennan and I have been talkingabout sort of the middle.
We had a podcast about this, Ithink really early on, of what
(01:56):
it feels like when you're in themiddle, and when I mean the
middle, it means you're notcompletely, completely oblivious
to where you are or where youwant to go.
But the bridge hasn't beenfully formed between where you
are and where you want to go,and that bridge is composed of
(02:17):
tons of skills that need to becreated and adapted and habits,
and we're specifically speakingabout the skills that need to be
created when it's just us, whenwe want to become a better
version of ourselves, and thiswork cannot be outsourced.
It is just us Either we do itor we don't do it, but it's just
us.
(02:38):
And then our desire for instantgratification and how personal
growth shows up in the field.
When I say the field, maybe Imean the world.
Personal growth will show uplike learn these three steps to
love yourself.
Follow or do this nine month ornine day or 90 day challenge to
(03:07):
love yourself more.
Nobody's like, hey, let's carveout 20 years so that everything
and its mother that comes inbetween.
That's you, that's how you loveyourself.
That's how you get there.
Do it Click, buy, becausenobody's buying.
Nobody's buying into a 20-yearanything.
(03:29):
But the truth is that a lot ofthe things that I've been able
to accomplish in my own personalgrowth has taken decades, and
so how do we account for thetruth that we want it right now
or yesterday, but it will takewhat it takes.
(03:49):
Maybe for you it's fast, maybeit isn't.
It would also take someunforeseen skills and bridges
that need to be crossed.
With all of that, brenda and Ihave been talking about the
parts that we don't necessarilyalways talk about, and when I
say we, I just mean in thepersonal development field.
(04:10):
We're not always like you needto come with these ingredients
because they are personal thingsthat we need to come with
Things like forgiveness.
Can we forgive ourselves for whowe've been?
Can we forgive ourselves forhow long it's going to take?
Can we have compassion for howlong it's going to take?
(04:33):
Can we be with the grief thatwe aren't that person?
Can we put enough love onourselves to love ourselves
through the transition to bewith ourselves under all these
conditions?
Can we be with the discomfortof the unknown, not knowing how
(04:54):
long something's going to take?
And I'm sure there are manymore On that note, brenda.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I will say that our soul has bought into 20
years plus.
I really want to open with thatbecause that feels really true.
Our soul is a big old.
Let's get into the 20 yearsituation or longer.
There's things that I'mlearning that I know.
(05:25):
I've been learning my entirelife and I know I will continue
to unfold and learn these things.
So let's just say that our soulis on board, our human not so
much all the time, right, butthere does come a turning point.
Right, but there does come aturning point.
(06:04):
Did you ever see that meme whereit's like before spiritual
development, the person's likebeing kicked down the street,
you know, and then afterspiritual growth, like you take
the boot and you like stick iton your own head.
You're like let's go.
I don't know if I said thatright, but you know what I mean.
It's like, oh yeah, we canactually enjoy the process as we
go and we know it's going to beuncomfortable.
Any growth.
There's something that needs tochange, like something is
changing internally and thattakes time.
It could be uncomfortable, itcould be messy, there's
uncertainty involved and can webe with that?
(06:25):
We just wanted to slow it downand really talk about that in
this episode, that this takestime, and that is correct.
A language you know over daysand weeks, and that's great, and
(06:47):
our brain needs that and ourself-esteem needs to learn
things in there.
You could learn to cook in afew hours.
You can learn to make somethingreally delicious and that's
wonderful and we need that inour life.
And sometimes there's certainlessons that are so big that
they just take maybe your wholelifetime to learn, because
you've inherited them.
You've inherited them from yourparents, your grandparents,
(07:09):
your ancestors.
They say seven generations ineach direction.
So these things are not ours inthat we've inherited them in
our cells, in our DNA, andthey're also ours to work on in
this lifetime, because here weare in our bodies, experiencing
(07:30):
these things.
It's worthy of saying that it'sboth and that these things take
time to learn Something thatyour DNA is coded towards or how
you grew up.
First of all, it takes you awhile to even be aware of this,
like, oh, the rest of the worlddoesn't think this way.
(07:51):
Just the awareness alone doesn'teven kick in for everyone.
And then, once you're aware ofit, the time it takes to shift.
And so in our last episode, ifyou were listening, or maybe
you're just new to this episode,but we really wanted to give
them know that, first of all,not everything takes that long.
There is quantum healing, forsure, and we are open to that,
(08:33):
and these things are a journeypath of something that is taking
you decades or feels likeyou've always been this way and
you're exhausted and upset anddiscouraged.
Just know that every day thatyou even put your attention on
(08:58):
this thing and you have thedesire to shift it and you take
any baby step towards it, anynew level of awareness or spark
that drops into your body, thatis something.
Don't discount that, becauseevery spark leads to another
(09:20):
spark and then over time, we canchange, and we really wanted to
let you know that in thisepisode we did.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
But you've also brought something in about seven
generations forward, sevengenerations back.
I want to circle back to that.
And you said you know it's notours and it's ours, it's both.
What does that mean?
It's not ours?
If it's in our DNA, it's in ourlineage, then wouldn't it be
ours?
What part of it is not ours?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, it's not ours in that we didn't create it.
So if there's a pattern in yourfamily that you were born into,
you didn't create that.
You were born into it.
It came from your parents oryour grandparents or your
great-grandparents, or perhapsfurther down the line than that.
(10:11):
So it's not yours in that youinherited this belief system or
this pattern.
It's coded into your body.
So it's not yours.
You didn't start it.
But then it is yours becauseyou're living with it and you're
living with the experience ofthis pattern or belief system.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
So it's yours and if you want to change it, then it's
yours to do changing somethingthat's ours, then when do you
like I think you just gave agreat example of you have
something from your lineage, youidentify it as not yours
because you didn't originallycreate it.
(10:52):
Let's use personal growth, sothere's a pattern, I don't know.
Give me something that you'veworked on Well, I've worked on
money.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
There's a survival pattern.
That's been in my family.
There's food patterns.
Pick one.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Okay, let's say it's money and you have a survival
pattern that came.
That's very common and I thinkvery few people don't have it.
I guess I would say with moneyand you have a survival pattern
with money, it's not yours, itwas created eons ago by
ancestors.
Now it's ours.
So when do we create somethingelse?
(11:29):
I think we're only creatingpatterns when we intentionally
do something with it.
Otherwise, I think mosteverything we have is not ours.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
That's a great point.
I mean, I think it's really amix.
And when does it become ours?
It becomes ours because we'reliving our life and we're
existing on this earth, so we'veinherited the thing.
And it becomes ours because wedo different things with it, and
then we perhaps get with apartner and create children and
(11:58):
have a new iteration of thepattern that's mixed with the
other person's DNA, of thepattern that's mixed with the
other person's DNA.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yes, so we have patterns that we create, with
theirs being the original, Iguess, and then we're affecting
the patterns ahead of us because, well, it hasn't been mutated
or alchemized quite just yet.
So thank you for circling backon that one.
And then you said a differentword, which was super
interesting.
We haven't talked about thisyet Quantum healing.
(12:28):
And you know Dr Joe Dispenzatalks a lot about this, the idea
that you can heal fromsomething in milliseconds, which
is true, it is possible.
And I also want to argue thathealing is one thing, for
example, not having the scarcitymindset around money.
(12:49):
Let's say you can heal thatpart, but with that healing
doesn't come how to manage money, like the quantum leap.
Healing doesn't address all theother skills that are required
to maintain the healed state,which is very interesting, right
(13:10):
, like I'm thinking of peoplethat go to whether it's a Joe
Dispenza event, or they go.
They have a diagnosis and theygo to Peru and they go to the
mountains, and they do this andthey do that and they're healed,
and then they come back intoWestern society, to their normal
jobs, their normal to-dos, andwell, something else pops up
(13:33):
it's like that particular state,that healed state, requires a
particular way of living, and soquantum healing is a
possibility and quantum leapsare possible.
They just don't often take intoaccount the things that are
required to maintain that state,and it has to integrate.
Well, the lessons weren'tlearned.
(13:54):
It wasn't attained through likea change in circumstance, it
was attained through like amiraculous quantum event sort of
thing.
So what would you say issomething that you had to bring
to your personal development sothat you could stay in the game
(14:15):
and not quit.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
That's such a good question.
I thought you were going to askme about quantum healing,
because I am no expert on that.
It's actually one of my desires.
I've been trying to learn aboutquantum physics.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I have some play in that arena, but I think that
when we're thinking about ourpath right now, with personal
development and our current moodlet's call it universal mood
with all the humans, of how wewould like something to come
(14:49):
right out of the microwave orright out of the revolving door,
what's required of us to become, the versions that we want to
become, taking all of the thingsinto account, and what we want
to say yes to, they're not allthe same, and it's not to make
(15:10):
people scared.
It's sort of to talk about itand say it could take a quantum
minute and there could be someresidue of oh, I didn't learn
some skills, but I do have thequantum healing.
Now what?
Or it could take more than thefive-day challenge to get past
(15:36):
the hurdle you have and getcloser to the person you're
looking to become.
And if it takes longer thanthat, let's talk about the real.
Real, what it takes to stay thecourse, because it's really
easy to quit?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
So easy to quit the real, real.
There's so many answers to that.
I don't know that.
There's really just one thing.
One of the earliest ones waswell, I was just going to say
something and then I realizedthere's something even before.
That is the desire.
You know the desire.
There's some desire and letting, and following that, there's
something that you want somechange, something new that you
(16:22):
want that requires a change.
So I think that might be thebeginning.
I see you thinking what are youthinking?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
You tossed me, not tossed me literally, but I, like
went all the way back to thatstatement, reminded me of my own
path, like what was the desire?
And I remember being very angryat 19,.
Being in a street fight wentsideways super fast where I
(16:50):
thought I was going to killsomeone I don't know if I've
talked about this on the podcastand I felt like, oh, I am sort
of in somewhat of a prison.
I can't control my emotions.
I don't have I didn't have thewords back then, but I didn't
(17:11):
have emotional sobriety.
I didn't have the ability to notgo on my emotional ride,
especially if it was like anger,and so, for sure, that was a
desire of mine.
I thought to myself, what wouldit be like to feel and not go
(17:37):
on the ride?
And I hadn't made theconnection before.
But it looks like my first stepwas to just shut down from
feeling, to do my best tosuppress so that I didn't feel
completely in my involuntaryaround it, and that wasn't
helpful.
That was just a pendulum swing.
I had to then learn how to feelthe unknown of being in my
(18:01):
involuntary, and learning how tomanage that terrain.
And so that's what I thoughtabout when you said that, oh,
I'm like, oh yes, I rememberthat desire and I think
compassion is also somethingthat's needed in these.
I wanted to say it's this weirdsentence I want to say in the
(18:29):
long-term journey of personaldevelopment and personal growth,
because it is so long to getfrom point A to point B, but in
between we do have some wins andin between we also have some
losses, and the losses, like thefailure, is part of the lesson,
right?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Amen.
I think that's a reallyimportant piece that can't be
overlooked, and maybe that's whyit takes so long.
If we come back to what we'retalking about in this episode,
is that it does take a long time, and that's okay.
Some things just maybe take alifetime to work on, and you
can't do that without failing orwithout falling.
(19:08):
That is how we learn.
We fall down, we say, oh, I seewhat happened.
And then you try it again in adifferent way and you might move
a millimeter at a time and thenyou might quote accomplish
something or get to the nextlevel in the game, and then
(19:29):
there's another door and there'sanother thing to work on, and
that's why it takes so long,because it's not one thing,
everything is like 10 things ormore.
You know and I love what yousaid said that you had this
desire.
But I think, even before thatis what it sounds like is you
(19:51):
had this awareness, like, oh,I'm not, like I don't have, I'm
not in control here, I'm out ofcontrol with this thing Like you
have this awareness.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, for sure, I had the awareness.
I was like, oh, this is notcool.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And then you wanted something different.
So you had the awareness, andthen you had the desire dropped
in for something different, andthen you shut yourself down.
And that's the way it goessometimes and to our point,
that's why it takes so long,baby, to make these huge changes
(20:31):
, huge.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
I think the thing that I'm noticing as we're
talking about this particularpart like and I guess I can see
it a little more because it's mylife experience but it requires
so much acceptance.
It requires, oh, I am beingthis person.
(20:53):
Well, this is embarrassing,this sucks.
Like this sucks and let me saythat again, like this sucks.
Right, having the real come toJesus, the real.
My goodness, I can't believeI'm showing up in this way.
Oh my goodness, I can't believeI'm experiencing this.
Oh my goodness, I can't believeI don't have control of this.
Oh my God, I can't believe I amnot where I thought I would be,
(21:15):
that piece of being with whatis, even when you're in
disapproval of it.
I think that's what prolongsthe transition state, because
we've said this a gazilliontimes you cannot beat yourself
into a different version ofyourself.
You can't hate yourself to adifferent version of yourself.
(21:37):
It requires you to be inacceptance and love for it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Totally and it messes with your sense of identity, of
who you were.
You know, in the last episode Italked about my desire to
really listen to people insteadof always turning it around and
making it about myself, and Ihad to look in the mirror and be
like, oh my God, I'm one ofthose people who just doesn't
(22:05):
listen to someone and justresponds with a story about
myself.
Oh, like, I didn't like that.
But I had to be willing to lookat myself in reality and say,
oh, this is what, this is whatI'm doing, and and learn to
separate.
That isn't me, that's mybehavior, that's my learned
behavior.
And then I have the desire toshift it.
(22:28):
So it messes with your sense ofidentity, which can feel really
bad, let's just say it in areally basic way.
And it's easy to beat yourselfup because you thought you were
somebody, one person, one kindof person, and now it turns out
you're somebody else, maybesomeone that you have some
judgment about, and so havingjudgment about yourself is hard
(22:52):
right, and if you're someone whoruns perfectionist patterns,
like I have, it's really hard tonot see yourself as a perfect
citizen, and so you have to bewilling to say, oh, I'm just a
flawed human being, which isnormal.
We're all that way.
I don't say that in aderogatory way.
(23:13):
It's just.
We're just.
You know we mess up.
This is how we learn, this is.
But I didn't always know that.
I didn't always like that aboutmyself, so I had to be willing
to look at that in order to makeany kind of change.
If you're not willing to lookat yourself in reality, you're
not going to make a change.
If you're lying to yourself,you're just going to stay where
(23:38):
you are because you can't dealwith the truth, the truth that
is needed, that you need toadmit in order to make a change.
It's humbling and it's notalways pretty, but it's real.
So if you're willing to look inthe mirror at your own darkness
(24:00):
, at your own shadow, and youcan really look at it, then you
could shift it.
But until then, you're justgoing to swirl around and not
much is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
For sure.
I mean, you need awareness ofwhat's occurring and what the
reality is first but for sure.
Perfectionism is rampant and Ithink a lot of us have that and
it's completely unrealistic.
It literally doesn't exist.
But yet there we are trying tohit a bullseye on something that
(24:38):
doesn't exist.
Perfection just doesn't exist,and so it doesn't exist.
And then we beat ourselves upbecause we're not the version of
ourselves that we wanted to be,we have judgment about it,
because we're not perfect.
And then it becomes so hard tolove ourselves because we're not
meeting the fantasy ofourselves that we would like to
(24:59):
meet.
And then it's very hard forother people to love us when
we're not in acceptance of wherewe are and who we are.
It's very hard for us to loveourselves if we are not in
approval of where we are and whowe are, and so you can't love
(25:20):
yourself, you can't change it,you can't be loved by others.
All these things come fromwanting to be a mannequin
instead of being human, wantingto have this perfect way or this
quantum leap.
Let's just get there, skip allthe ugly steps, I can just do it
in a millisecond.
(25:40):
Where is that quantum timemachine?
And realizing oh, there's notime machine, but what will have
, what will impact the gearshere, will be forgiveness,
compassion, acceptance, pouringlove on where we are.
(26:05):
So how would you say you'vebeen able to touch that?
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Pouring love on myself wherever I am, pouring
love on myself wherever I am.
I mean, the biggest way I'velearned that lesson was it was
hard.
You know, I was in a reallyhard spot.
I would say I was in a spotwhere I was collapsed and in a
shame spiral and I was there fora long time.
(26:33):
It feels like I was there for afew years until I just felt
some spark to shift it or somelevel of awareness kicked in
where I was willing to just lookat it and love myself.
There was taking responsibility.
For me, it was takingresponsibility without
(26:56):
collapsing, like the taking ofresponsibility and saying, oh, I
did this thing.
For me was the shift, becausewhen you take responsibility,
you're accepting what you didand owning it and there's
something really humbling andbeautiful about that that shifts
the field and it shifts itinside of of you, because the
pretending that it's not real isthe really painful piece.
(27:21):
That's the part that kept me inshame and collapse was the not
wanting to look at it, but thelooking at it, the willingness
to look at it, was the healingmoment and to just say and
accept myself like I'm human,like I really did the best that
I could, and we talked aboutthat a lot on this podcast and
(27:44):
you said something really greatonce what if every decision I
made was the best one?
What if it was?
And you know it's easy to lookback in hindsight and say, oh, I
made that wrong decision or oh,I didn't do that or I would
have done it differently.
I have a million of those.
We could do a whole podcast onall of the things that Brenda
thinks she could have donedifferently, but it took me a
(28:07):
while to really get intoagreement and understand this
concept of what if everythingwas the best decision.
What if I did the best that Icould along the way and really
just get into agreement withthat and accept myself.
And here's another piece is Idid this for a while.
(28:27):
It's really painful and I don'trecommend it is I would learn
something and so I would havesome new awareness and then I
would project that onto myformer self.
So let's just go back to beinga listener like oh, oh my God,
look at, look at all the waysthat I wasn't a good listener
(28:48):
back then and how I turned itonto myself and just beat myself
up for that.
Oh my God, that's so painful,it's so painful.
So the going back andprojecting on yourself is just
like going back and shitting onyour past self.
I just had to stop that andthat's just acceptance, like
(29:10):
just accepting myself where I amand accepting my former self
where I was.
So I had to go back and lovethe former versions of myself
that didn't know what I know nowand you could feel the
perfection that runs throughthat, like, oh, I learned
something and I'm going toproject it on my past self so I
could have been a little bitmore perfect.
It's just painful.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
It's painful, I would say.
It's sort of like we're notaccepting reality, and by not
accepting reality it means, oh,I'm going to think about that
former version of me that wouldthink about herself and need to
speak.
I'm going to use this as anexample.
I don't know if this is whatyou went through.
I'm just going to, for teachingpurposes, talk about it because
I think it's a great example.
My goodness, I can't believe Iyou know air quotes.
(30:03):
I can't believe I was thatperson that didn't listen, and I
definitely did this too.
I think it was just a formerway of communicating.
That is how I learned how tocommunicate.
I think even to today, if Ilook around, you say your thing,
they say their thing, and thenwe had a conversation, and
that's sort of whatconversations look like.
(30:27):
But if I look back at that timeand I say that version of me
should have known better, well,okay, if I want to put
perfection on it, but I haveproof that that version of me
didn't know better Because thatversion of me didn't do better.
So that version of me didn'tknow because I didn't do it.
(30:50):
That is the actual proof.
And the homework is can I justbe with that truth and not make
it wrong Like there's nothingwrong with that version of me.
Maybe that version of me neededto practice being heard.
Maybe that version of me didn'thave that many outlets to speak
(31:11):
.
Maybe that version of me reallywanted to be seen.
Maybe that version of me reallywanted to be seen.
Maybe that version of me waspracticing her voice in a
different way.
It's sort of she didn't know.
That version of me didn't knowhow to do better, and whatever
she was doing was the best shewas doing with what she had,
(31:35):
because of something that I'mhaving difficulty seeing because
I'm too busy looking at it likeit was wrong.
And so, if I can just see it asreality and say, oh, that
version of me, she was doing thebest she could, that's true,
she was speaking in this way,but it was for a reason.
I don't need to know the reason, because whatever happened
(31:56):
there contributed to where I amnow, like for sure, 1000%.
I'm, without a doubt, clear onthat.
I also want to circle back towhen you said you quoted me
where I say what if the choicesI've made actually have been the
best choices?
And this is a choice or athought that I choose to think.
(32:22):
I don't know how many listenersare doing thought work, but
thought work is when you have athought and that thought is not
serving you.
So the thought of oh, thisversion of me should have known
better.
That thought is not helping,because all it does is have me
not want to be with reality ofwhat was happening and it wants
(32:42):
me to make things different in apast.
I actually cannot do that.
It is not within the realm ofpossibility on this human plane.
But I can decide that I've madethe best choices and my life,
(33:02):
no matter how great or how badthe life I'm living, is actually
the best life that I could have.
And it's not to be complacent,like.
What I'm saying isn't to makeit complacent, it's that the
(33:25):
thought is helpful so that Idon't beat myself up for things
that I actually have no controlover.
And so when we're originallytalking about today, how do you
stay in the room?
It's going to require thesecreative ways of being with
yourself.
Like what do you need so thatyou could see that where you are
right now is perfect In thisimperfect world?
I'm not talking about perfectin the realm of perfection, I'm
(33:51):
talking about perfect from therealm of, there's nothing to
change.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
And if there's nothing to change, can I be
compassionate towards myself?
Can I be loving towards myself?
Can I be in acceptance that Iam with something that's unknown
Like I'm wanting to gosomewhere that I've never been,
to become the person that Ihaven't been?
I helped us stay in the room,which was what you originally
asked me, and we've just hadthis juicy conversation, pass,
fail, win, lose, right, wronginto a growth-oriented mindset,
(34:39):
into a practice mindset.
Everything can be a practiceand an opportunity for growth,
as opposed to perfection andright and wrong.
Just going in with that lenschanged everything, because then
I could go to bed at night andsay it's not like I'm sucked or
(35:00):
one in life, it's like, well,what did I learn and how do I
want to shift this and do it alittle bit better tomorrow.
And that, folks, is the onlyway.
It's just the only way.
It's like one moment at a time.
That's how we learn to ride abike.
You know you fall over, it'swobbly.
(35:21):
You learn how to use yourmuscles, you learn how to hold
the bike so you can actually getsomewhere.
But it takes a while.
There's a learning curve and,depending on what you're
learning, it might take a longtime and we're giving a lot of
love and approval for that.
And this is where teachers andcoaches come in.
(35:43):
That could be really helpful,because we can only see what we
can see, and the beautiful thingabout a coach or a teacher is
that they show you your blindspots in a really loving way.
And that is what Catherine andI do, hopefully, on this podcast
(36:05):
, and we do it in our privatepractice.
We lovingly walk you into theparts of yourself that might be
blocking you and if you'rewilling to look at that, which
takes a lot of love andwillingness and desire, then you
can shift your life.
(36:25):
It is possible.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
It is really possible .
I mean, we're living examplesof that.
I would say another thing thathas been very important for me
in my path has been to justlearn to accept reality and not
make it something horrendous orthis mountain to climb, or this
(36:51):
cross to bear, or it's just life, or it's just life.
And I don't know when wedecided as a collective that
life is supposed to be easy,because I haven't met a single
person where life is easy.
Yes, we have different levelsof problems and we could all
(37:13):
judge other people and say, oh,my problems are bigger than
yours.
Everybody has the opportunityto do that, because we all think
our problems are the mostimportant.
If we go back to theconversation of how we tend to
communicate I say my problem,then you say your problem.
We're always talking aboutproblems Because we think ours
(37:34):
is the hardest.
But it isn't.
Our problems are hard for us.
That's why it's there on ourpath, so that we could learn, so
that we could be carved, sothat we can become the people
that we want to become, so thatthat hardship shows us an
(37:55):
awareness of where we are, sothat that hardship shows us an
awareness of where we are.
And I love, brenda, how youspoke about how we walk our
clients.
This is a big part of my work,for sure I'm sure yours as well.
Our reality doesn't have to bea problem.
It just looks like this, and ifwe wanted to look differently,
(38:21):
then we just work towards itbeing different, but the faster
that we see that right now isnot horrendous, it's not a
problem, it's not the worstthing ever.
We can see our blessings andcontinue, and so we've touched
on so much today.
Brenda, I'm going to pass it toyou.
But what I'm hearing us say iswe have to accept reality.
We have to lovingly acknowledgeourselves the best we can.
(38:43):
Stay in the room, whether it'sa coach, therapist or a
different way.
Have compassion for ourselves,forgiveness, because we will
mess up, we will fall.
Think about that 1%.
Better.
Be willing to be with what wedon't know, because we just
don't know what it's going totake to get there, because we
haven't been there.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Right, amen.
Trust yourself, trust yourdesire, lean in, accept yourself
, love yourself.
Have the courage, have thegumption to take that baby step
and go to sleep at night and askyourself what did I do great
(39:23):
today at, and what do I want todo a little bit better at
tomorrow, and watch your worldshift.
We would love to know whatlanded for you in this episode.
We would love to know whatyou're working on that might be
taking a day, a week, a decadeor maybe a lifetime.
(39:43):
Please tell us, share thisepisode with someone who might
like it and leave us a review.
We so, so appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Until next time you Until next time.
Thank you for joining us on theDesire is Medicine podcast.
Desire invites us to be honest,loving and deeply intimate with
ourselves and others.
You can find our handles in theshow notes.
We'd love to hear from you.
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