September 19, 2023 • 16 mins
I get personal in this episode, sharing some of my own moments of self-discovery that have led me through the transformative power of letting our ego thoughts burn down.
We tend to identify and value ourselves based on our relationships, our jobs, or our assets. But the truth is all these things can be lost or taken away from us.
And when any of these things happen it can be quite the gut punch and leave us wondering who we really are without these pieces of ourselves. This is our ego at work.
When these painful and humbling moments occur in our lives it is a wake up call to help us break away from the Ego so we transform our lives.
Two of our investment properties in Maui were consumed by the recent unforgiving fires. But this tragedy also became a profound turning point, reminding me that our true value is not tied to our assets.
Through heartfelt reflection, I share how the flames that devoured those properties also ignited a powerful realization – that material possessions can vanish in an instant, but our inner worth endures. Strength and wisdom are some of the positive effects that are beginning to emerge from the ashes.
The experience of losing everything can lead to a newfound appreciation for what truly matters and how you, too, can embark on a path of self-renewal.
Listen to this week's Heart AF episode, "From Ashes to Enlightenment: Lessons from the Maui Fires," and learn how to let go of the ego, redefine your sense of value, and rebuild your life with a renewed sense of purpose and compassion.
#EgoBurnDown #FromAshesToEnlightenment #ValueBeyondAssets #Resilience #PersonalGrowth #PodcastEpisode #LifeLessons #Renewal #MauiFires #InnerStrength #FocusOnWhatMatters #SelfDiscovery #Empathy #Unity #PodcastJourney
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hey everyone, what's up?
It's Chelsea Van Buskirkwith the Heart AF podcast.
Hope you guys are all doing well.
It has been quite the ride.
I would say this year hasgone nothing like I planned.
There's been detours, and a lot of themhave been unexpected throughout this year.
I know I talked earlier about,you know, One of the good things
(00:29):
about things breaking down or let'ssay burning to the ground gives you
that chance to analyze everything.
And it gives you that new kind ofcleared out foundation to rebuild.
And, among some of the personal thingsI struggled with this year, we've also
had quite a few things go wrong witha lot of our investment of properties.
(00:52):
And, , I have taken quite a few, weeksin between episodes here on the podcast,
but as I'm settling into, this newseason, I've got all the kids back in
school I have more time to Get on hereand do what I love and get back to the
podcast and getting more episodes out
you know, more consistently andcloser together instead of being
(01:14):
spaced apart like they havebeen since this late spring.
Anyway, I'm sure you've seen or atleast have heard at this point about
the fires on the island of Maui.
And if you don't know,Maui is very near and dear.
to my heart and it's also the place wherewe started our vacation rental business.
(01:37):
And so we do have fiveproperties on the island of Maui.
And two of them did burn completely downto the ground in the Lahaina wildfires.
And the whole fire initself is traumatic, right?
This whole town has just beenliterally burned to the ground.
And there's a lot ofunknowns still at this point.
(01:58):
I'm filming this, Almost a month.
Actually today.
Oh my gosh.
Today is literally onemonth after the fire.
I just realized that today is September8th and the fires happened on August 8th,
which is also 808, which is just crazybecause the area code of Hawaii is 808.
Anyway, it's taken a whileto assess everything.
So many people, have lostloved ones, have lost...
(02:19):
their homes their businesses, it's areally great big loss in a lot of ways.
And, it's one of these things I'vestruggled with because there's a lot of
grief I carry with losing these things andthere's also a lot of guilt because on one
hand, I have my primary residence, right?
Me and my kids, my husband,we're all safe, we have a home.
(02:43):
My husband still has his business thatcan carry us through this time, this
loss of, business and things like that.
So I have a lot to be grateful for.
And there's so many peoplethat , lost their homes.
I know.
Personally, people that have lost theirhomes, some of them have been lucky
enough where their home is still one ofthe ones standing in the neighborhoods
that are just completely burned tothe ground, but they're not livable.
(03:06):
There's no water.
There's no electricity.
It's going to take years to be ableto clean up the mess to get, anything
even remotely able to rebuild.
And there's just a lot of questions.
A lot of things are up in the air.
There's a lot of peoplewho are underinsured.
There's a lot of big corporation bigtime, wealthy investors and developers
who are just salivating, waiting fortheir chance to, take advantage of
(03:29):
people who may really be out of optionsif they're underinsured and aren't
able, to make it through this or tohold on through this rebuild process.
Obviously, if you've seen the news,I mean, there's a lot of government
assistance, you know, helping out and,I firmly believe everything will work
out and , it's just one of these piecesof life and, I really don't want to go
down this rabbit hole of , this disaster.
(03:50):
I know there's a lot ofcontroversy around it too.
I've seen a lot of people aresending me videos of, was the
fire intentionally started?
All these things and , I really feellike that's just like getting into
the weeds, just causing unnecessarydrama really is what it is.
Drama and things that don't reallyneed to be giving attention to.
One of the big things with thissituation though, like I said, we've
had quite a few different instancesthis year with our properties.
(04:12):
We've been doing investmentproperties for nine years now
We've honestly been, very fortunatenot having so many things go wrong.
You know, we've learnedalong the way, right?
We just started doing this withoutreally having any experience with it
before and we just did things, tookaction, and just learned through it.
You know, we made a lot of mistakes alongthe way, but we've been pretty fortunate.
(04:33):
And this year, for whateverreason, it's like we had...
One house that had two floods thatwe're still almost done remodeling.
After all the work thathad to be done with that.
I had another one of ourvacation rentals out in Florida.
We had an AC line leak, it flooded theentire condo that had to be out of use
for two months as we got the floors andall the water damage mitigated and then
(04:56):
the things that were damaged replaced.
I got scammed out of 4, 000on a contractor there too.
So that was anotherlesson I learned there.
We've had so many of theselittle bumps this year.
But again, it's all a learning process.
We had a landscaper, like our HOAcommunity landscaper, a rock, came
out from the, the mower or whateverand broke two of our windows on
one of our townhomes this year.
(05:17):
I mean, it's just crazy all thestuff that we've had this year alone.
Normally things come up every now andthen, maybe the AC goes out, you have
to replace things, that's normal wearand tear when you do have properties
that you're managing and, and takingcare of, you know, stuff happens and
you have to take care of it and thingsbreak and you have to replace it.
We've had so many insurance claimsthis year and now that this kind
of coup de gras of the buildingsbeing burned down to the ground.
(05:39):
Like this is a whole new ball game,things I was not even expecting.
I would teach this in my investmentclasses how, real estate is one of
those things where , it's almost likea guaranteed investment because even if
it burns to the ground, you still havethe land, you still get to rebuild, you
know, and in our case, that's not true.
We do own a very tiny minuscule pieceof land, but it was a condominium
(06:01):
complex, so it's not a standaloneproperty where if that property burns
to the ground, you still own the land.
The second thing is ourcomplex was underinsured.
So, HOA condominium complex,they have an insurance that's
supposed to cover, things.
They did not have the insurance todo a whole rebuild on this building.
So you have almost 300 people wholost either their residences some
people lived on the condominium complex.
(06:21):
Most of them were rental properties.
So people have lost, theirbusiness, their rental income.
And a lot of these people still havemortgages that they have to pay.
So this is another little tidbit.
If your house burns down, youstill have to pay that mortgage.
That does not go away.
So there's just a lot of unknowns.
Honestly, telling you guys all thisstuff, I just really want to show you
how humbling this was for me because Ithink I always had this idea built up
(06:45):
in my head about, you know, it's prettycool that we do this investment thing.
Like not a lot of people do it and Idon't know, like it felt validating
in a way, I guess for myself assomebody who has always felt like
an outsider has always felt likethey had to prove their worthiness.
I felt like the real estate investmentthing was almost like a cool point, right?
Like it was something that I couldsay, this is something that I do.
(07:06):
It's something that I manage.
This is like my job.
And it felt like something that was worthyor, it was very validating, for my self
esteem or my image, I guess you could say.
And so to have it crumbleapart a little bit, right?
This is 25 percent of ourportfolio or our business, right?
Like I've lost, a big chunkof our income in this business
(07:27):
and, I have faith thatit's all going to be okay.
It's going to work out there's again a lotof unknowns, but it really humbled me is
where I want to get at is that it humbledme to see that it's just property, right?
People lose their businesses all the time.
Things happen.
People go bankrupt.
Businesses don't work outhow you thought they would.
People, put a huge chunk of theirsavings or money in the stock
(07:49):
market and it crashes, right?
It happens.
It's unpredictable.
Things happen and you can lose millions ofdollars in one day in certain situations.
It's, it's part of life.
And it has become a lesson to methat these are just things and it's
stuff that I've preached before.
It's stuff that I've talked aboutthat, your assets, what you have.
don't value you, right?
(08:10):
That's not what's your value.
Your value is not in the things you do.
Your value is not in what you own.
Your value is not placedon these external things.
Your value is not placed onexternal circumstances or on
materialistic things, right?
Those things don't matter.
They really don't.
These are things you can'ttake with you when you die.
(08:31):
These are things I guess in some respectsyou can leave behind when you die.
But, at the end of the day..
Your relationships matter and the peopleyou love and how you showed love and
how you showed forgiveness and how youshowed love and forgiveness to yourself.
Like those are things that matter,like really experiencing life and
the things you can't buy, right?
There's so much more thanthe materialistic and placing
(08:52):
value on these things.
And I'll just be honest, like it'sreally shaken me up because I guess
the one thing that I didn't mentionwas that I always felt very secure
with this business, secure with, havingproperties again, like I said, I
would even say that in these classes,like how , even if they were burned
to the ground, you still have stuff.
And right now, I don't know ifthat's true in this situation, right?
(09:13):
There's things that are supposedto be put in place to help you, but
when you have things that go underthe wire, like having the complex
underinsured, and then we found outthat on even our personal insurance,
we were underinsured and didn't know.
So, there's things that you thinkyou're safe guarded in, and it's
not always a sure thing, right?
And so it just really had me stopand think, that's the beauty of
(09:36):
things burning to the ground.
Whether physically when things eitherliterally burn to the ground or
relationships, certain situationsthat have burned to the ground.
It has its positives, right?
There is a way to use that as anopportunity to come up from this.
And I think for me, it's reallygetting more clear on how,
these are businesses of ours.
(09:58):
It's not me.
I have to look for it, but there was
some notes I took from a book I read,and it was from Wayne Dyer because
I talk about him a lot, and he's oneof my favorite, spiritual teachers,
but he had talked a lot about that,like how you are not your job, you
are not the things you do because youcan lose those things, you can lose
your job, people don't live forever,so for me, a big part of my identity
(10:20):
was being my dad's daughter, right?
Like having that relationship withmy father and when he, passed away
and it's no longer been like thisfocal point of my day to day physical
life, that was a loss in my identity.
And that was very hard to figure outlike who I was without that role.
And so this is another kind of wakeup call, I feel like to show me that.
I'm not these properties.
(10:40):
The fact that we have theseproperties in this business.
That's not me.
That's not who I am.
That's not all I do.
And it's crazy how this year hasjust kept throwing me things.
Because it's, this has just been anotherhumbling experience where I'm realizing
yeah, How caught up I've been in certainthings and how I need to slow down and
get back to what's really important tome and get back to why I started this
(11:02):
podcast, get back to what my messageis and what I'm trying to do in the
world, as a person, as a mother as awife and who I am aside of those roles
that I play, and what I'm really tryingTo do with my time here on Earth,
following my soul's calling, right?
I've been really digging deep with that.
And as you do that, asyou let things fall down.
It honestly just feels like I've hadthis chance to just let go of a lot of
(11:26):
things I've been, like, holding on to
you know what I mean?
So, there's this freeing orsigh of relief feeling where I
feel like I can be more relaxed.
And that's a good place to be.
To be able to surrender.
I've talked about that before, andit can be very hard to do, but to
really just to be able to let goand really have faith and surrender
to what is meant for you, right?
(11:47):
What are the important things inmy life that I need to focus on?
And where you put your focus matters.
I've talked about that beforetoo, and something that came up
in, my head, I remembered a quote.
I had is, focusing on the things thatyou're for and not what you're against.
So, you know, in a time where youmight find yourself or you're hitting
rock bottom or something in your lifehas burned to the ground, you get
(12:10):
this chance to assess and you figureout things that maybe you don't want.
And in that we can let ourselves getCaught up on circling around all these
things that we don't want, or gettingsucked into what we are offended by, or
things that bother us, and things that wecan get like worked up and angry about.
(12:31):
We can let that side of thingstake over and let that direct us
in the new direction we're going.
Or, we can acknowledge thethings that we don't want.
But then change our focuson what we do want.
What are we for?
What do we stand for?
And then start, not fighting, butlike marching in that direction.
Like pushing for what we are for, insteadof fighting for what we're against.
(12:57):
And that brought me to thisquote that I remembered.
And I don't know necessarily ifit's a quote, but it's a story about
Mother Teresa and how she was asked.
If she would march against the VietnamWar, I think maybe asking her if she
would stand up and help march andsupport people who are against the war.
And she said, no, I won't do that.
But if you have a march that's forpeace, I'll march with you there.
(13:17):
Showing that even someone like saintMother Teresa, will put in effort for
what she believes and what she's for.
She's for peace.
She wants to march for that.
She doesn't want to.
March that she's against war, right?
It goes back to Dr.
Martin Luther King when he gives thatone famous speech, you know, it's
like you can't You can't, put outdarkness with more darkness, right?
(13:39):
It has to be light.
Like you can't driveout hate with more hate.
It has to be love.
Like you cannot try to combat somethingthat you're against by being just, you
know, as nasty and mean about them.
Like I see, you see this all the time,like in politics, it's like people get
so wrapped up and sucked into their,their sides of who they are for, but
they become so like nasty and evilon going who they're against, right?
(14:05):
Instead of just like saying all thethings that they're for and being on
that positive spotlight, it's likeyou see it with the two candidates a
lot of times, like this candidate isgoing to negatively attack the other
candidate telling you all the things thatthey're not instead of standing up and
saying all the things that they're for.
So when you find yourself humbled,if you find yourself in a space where
you can get that pause, somethingthat happens to you that gets you to
(14:27):
really take a look at your life andwhere you're going and what you want
and what you don't want to remember tofocus on what is that you do want and
start, making your way or making yourplan or your road map or whatever you're
trying to do to be for what you do want.
And, for me and my situation here,it's You know, letting the real estate
(14:47):
business be a business, not gettingattached to it, letting it be what it is.
And focusing on what I do want.
And what I do want is create apositive impact on the world.
And what I do want is, to use my voice,to use the podcast, to get back to
writing to be a good mother and stayconnected and present with my kids
and keep building my relationship withmy husband and strengthening that.
(15:09):
And working on myself and healing my pasttraumas and just trying to be, a better
person where I can forgive myself andbe the best version of myself and keep
growing and learning and just, you know,that constant evolutional growth that you
go through as a person as you get older.
So, thank you.
If you still listen to the podcast, Iknow it's been hard when they haven't
(15:33):
been coming out, weekly like they had beenbefore but I'm getting back to it, right?
Like I said, we are back intoa schedule back into a routine
where I will have more time to getthese episodes out more regularly.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And getting back to what Ilove and what's important to me.
So I just want to thank you.
If you took the time to listen,I appreciate any feedback.
(15:55):
I love having conversations so if youfeel called to, want to write a comment.
I post these podcasts on YouTube so youcan always leave a comment on the video
or you can always write me privately ina direct message on Instagram or Facebook.
My handle is @chelsea.Vanbuskirk soyeah, I hope you guys are all doing
well and remember focus on whatyou're for, not what you're against.
(16:17):
That's what I want to leaveyou with through this episode.
I have so much love for you guys.
I'll see you next time.
Peace.
Hey everyone, what's up?
It's Chelsea Van Buskirkwith the Heart AF podcast.
Hope you guys are all doing well.
It has been quite the ride.
I would say this year hasgone nothing like I planned.
There's been detours, and a lot of themhave been unexpected throughout this year.
I know I talked earlier about,you know, One of the good things
(00:29):
about things breaking down or let'ssay burning to the ground gives you
that chance to analyze everything.
And it gives you that new kind ofcleared out foundation to rebuild.
And, among some of the personal thingsI struggled with this year, we've also
had quite a few things go wrong witha lot of our investment of properties.
(00:52):
And, , I have taken quite a few, weeksin between episodes here on the podcast,
but as I'm settling into, this newseason, I've got all the kids back in
school I have more time to Get on hereand do what I love and get back to the
podcast and getting more episodes out
you know, more consistently andcloser together instead of being
(01:14):
spaced apart like they havebeen since this late spring.
Anyway, I'm sure you've seen or atleast have heard at this point about
the fires on the island of Maui.
And if you don't know,Maui is very near and dear.
to my heart and it's also the place wherewe started our vacation rental business.
(01:37):
And so we do have fiveproperties on the island of Maui.
And two of them did burn completely downto the ground in the Lahaina wildfires.
And the whole fire initself is traumatic, right?
This whole town has just beenliterally burned to the ground.
And there's a lot ofunknowns still at this point.
(01:58):
I'm filming this, Almost a month.
Actually today.
Oh my gosh.
Today is literally onemonth after the fire.
I just realized that today is September8th and the fires happened on August 8th,
which is also 808, which is just crazybecause the area code of Hawaii is 808.
Anyway, it's taken a whileto assess everything.
So many people, have lostloved ones, have lost...
(02:19):
their homes their businesses, it's areally great big loss in a lot of ways.
And, it's one of these things I'vestruggled with because there's a lot of
grief I carry with losing these things andthere's also a lot of guilt because on one
hand, I have my primary residence, right?
Me and my kids, my husband,we're all safe, we have a home.
(02:43):
My husband still has his business thatcan carry us through this time, this
loss of, business and things like that.
So I have a lot to be grateful for.
And there's so many peoplethat , lost their homes.
I know.
Personally, people that have lost theirhomes, some of them have been lucky
enough where their home is still one ofthe ones standing in the neighborhoods
that are just completely burned tothe ground, but they're not livable.
(03:06):
There's no water.
There's no electricity.
It's going to take years to be ableto clean up the mess to get, anything
even remotely able to rebuild.
And there's just a lot of questions.
A lot of things are up in the air.
There's a lot of peoplewho are underinsured.
There's a lot of big corporation bigtime, wealthy investors and developers
who are just salivating, waiting fortheir chance to, take advantage of
(03:29):
people who may really be out of optionsif they're underinsured and aren't
able, to make it through this or tohold on through this rebuild process.
Obviously, if you've seen the news,I mean, there's a lot of government
assistance, you know, helping out and,I firmly believe everything will work
out and , it's just one of these piecesof life and, I really don't want to go
down this rabbit hole of , this disaster.
(03:50):
I know there's a lot ofcontroversy around it too.
I've seen a lot of people aresending me videos of, was the
fire intentionally started?
All these things and , I really feellike that's just like getting into
the weeds, just causing unnecessarydrama really is what it is.
Drama and things that don't reallyneed to be giving attention to.
One of the big things with thissituation though, like I said, we've
had quite a few different instancesthis year with our properties.
(04:12):
We've been doing investmentproperties for nine years now
We've honestly been, very fortunatenot having so many things go wrong.
You know, we've learnedalong the way, right?
We just started doing this withoutreally having any experience with it
before and we just did things, tookaction, and just learned through it.
You know, we made a lot of mistakes alongthe way, but we've been pretty fortunate.
(04:33):
And this year, for whateverreason, it's like we had...
One house that had two floods thatwe're still almost done remodeling.
After all the work thathad to be done with that.
I had another one of ourvacation rentals out in Florida.
We had an AC line leak, it flooded theentire condo that had to be out of use
for two months as we got the floors andall the water damage mitigated and then
(04:56):
the things that were damaged replaced.
I got scammed out of 4, 000on a contractor there too.
So that was anotherlesson I learned there.
We've had so many of theselittle bumps this year.
But again, it's all a learning process.
We had a landscaper, like our HOAcommunity landscaper, a rock, came
out from the, the mower or whateverand broke two of our windows on
one of our townhomes this year.
(05:17):
I mean, it's just crazy all thestuff that we've had this year alone.
Normally things come up every now andthen, maybe the AC goes out, you have
to replace things, that's normal wearand tear when you do have properties
that you're managing and, and takingcare of, you know, stuff happens and
you have to take care of it and thingsbreak and you have to replace it.
We've had so many insurance claimsthis year and now that this kind
of coup de gras of the buildingsbeing burned down to the ground.
(05:39):
Like this is a whole new ball game,things I was not even expecting.
I would teach this in my investmentclasses how, real estate is one of
those things where , it's almost likea guaranteed investment because even if
it burns to the ground, you still havethe land, you still get to rebuild, you
know, and in our case, that's not true.
We do own a very tiny minuscule pieceof land, but it was a condominium
(06:01):
complex, so it's not a standaloneproperty where if that property burns
to the ground, you still own the land.
The second thing is ourcomplex was underinsured.
So, HOA condominium complex,they have an insurance that's
supposed to cover, things.
They did not have the insurance todo a whole rebuild on this building.
So you have almost 300 people wholost either their residences some
people lived on the condominium complex.
(06:21):
Most of them were rental properties.
So people have lost, theirbusiness, their rental income.
And a lot of these people still havemortgages that they have to pay.
So this is another little tidbit.
If your house burns down, youstill have to pay that mortgage.
That does not go away.
So there's just a lot of unknowns.
Honestly, telling you guys all thisstuff, I just really want to show you
how humbling this was for me because Ithink I always had this idea built up
(06:45):
in my head about, you know, it's prettycool that we do this investment thing.
Like not a lot of people do it and Idon't know, like it felt validating
in a way, I guess for myself assomebody who has always felt like
an outsider has always felt likethey had to prove their worthiness.
I felt like the real estate investmentthing was almost like a cool point, right?
Like it was something that I couldsay, this is something that I do.
(07:06):
It's something that I manage.
This is like my job.
And it felt like something that was worthyor, it was very validating, for my self
esteem or my image, I guess you could say.
And so to have it crumbleapart a little bit, right?
This is 25 percent of ourportfolio or our business, right?
Like I've lost, a big chunkof our income in this business
(07:27):
and, I have faith thatit's all going to be okay.
It's going to work out there's again a lotof unknowns, but it really humbled me is
where I want to get at is that it humbledme to see that it's just property, right?
People lose their businesses all the time.
Things happen.
People go bankrupt.
Businesses don't work outhow you thought they would.
People, put a huge chunk of theirsavings or money in the stock
(07:49):
market and it crashes, right?
It happens.
It's unpredictable.
Things happen and you can lose millions ofdollars in one day in certain situations.
It's, it's part of life.
And it has become a lesson to methat these are just things and it's
stuff that I've preached before.
It's stuff that I've talked aboutthat, your assets, what you have.
don't value you, right?
(08:10):
That's not what's your value.
Your value is not in the things you do.
Your value is not in what you own.
Your value is not placedon these external things.
Your value is not placed onexternal circumstances or on
materialistic things, right?
Those things don't matter.
They really don't.
These are things you can'ttake with you when you die.
(08:31):
These are things I guess in some respectsyou can leave behind when you die.
But, at the end of the day..
Your relationships matter and the peopleyou love and how you showed love and
how you showed forgiveness and how youshowed love and forgiveness to yourself.
Like those are things that matter,like really experiencing life and
the things you can't buy, right?
There's so much more thanthe materialistic and placing
(08:52):
value on these things.
And I'll just be honest, like it'sreally shaken me up because I guess
the one thing that I didn't mentionwas that I always felt very secure
with this business, secure with, havingproperties again, like I said, I
would even say that in these classes,like how , even if they were burned
to the ground, you still have stuff.
And right now, I don't know ifthat's true in this situation, right?
(09:13):
There's things that are supposedto be put in place to help you, but
when you have things that go underthe wire, like having the complex
underinsured, and then we found outthat on even our personal insurance,
we were underinsured and didn't know.
So, there's things that you thinkyou're safe guarded in, and it's
not always a sure thing, right?
And so it just really had me stopand think, that's the beauty of
(09:36):
things burning to the ground.
Whether physically when things eitherliterally burn to the ground or
relationships, certain situationsthat have burned to the ground.
It has its positives, right?
There is a way to use that as anopportunity to come up from this.
And I think for me, it's reallygetting more clear on how,
these are businesses of ours.
(09:58):
It's not me.
I have to look for it, but there was
some notes I took from a book I read,and it was from Wayne Dyer because
I talk about him a lot, and he's oneof my favorite, spiritual teachers,
but he had talked a lot about that,like how you are not your job, you
are not the things you do because youcan lose those things, you can lose
your job, people don't live forever,so for me, a big part of my identity
(10:20):
was being my dad's daughter, right?
Like having that relationship withmy father and when he, passed away
and it's no longer been like thisfocal point of my day to day physical
life, that was a loss in my identity.
And that was very hard to figure outlike who I was without that role.
And so this is another kind of wakeup call, I feel like to show me that.
I'm not these properties.
(10:40):
The fact that we have theseproperties in this business.
That's not me.
That's not who I am.
That's not all I do.
And it's crazy how this year hasjust kept throwing me things.
Because it's, this has just been anotherhumbling experience where I'm realizing
yeah, How caught up I've been in certainthings and how I need to slow down and
get back to what's really important tome and get back to why I started this
(11:02):
podcast, get back to what my messageis and what I'm trying to do in the
world, as a person, as a mother as awife and who I am aside of those roles
that I play, and what I'm really tryingTo do with my time here on Earth,
following my soul's calling, right?
I've been really digging deep with that.
And as you do that, asyou let things fall down.
It honestly just feels like I've hadthis chance to just let go of a lot of
(11:26):
things I've been, like, holding on to
you know what I mean?
So, there's this freeing orsigh of relief feeling where I
feel like I can be more relaxed.
And that's a good place to be.
To be able to surrender.
I've talked about that before, andit can be very hard to do, but to
really just to be able to let goand really have faith and surrender
to what is meant for you, right?
(11:47):
What are the important things inmy life that I need to focus on?
And where you put your focus matters.
I've talked about that beforetoo, and something that came up
in, my head, I remembered a quote.
I had is, focusing on the things thatyou're for and not what you're against.
So, you know, in a time where youmight find yourself or you're hitting
rock bottom or something in your lifehas burned to the ground, you get
(12:10):
this chance to assess and you figureout things that maybe you don't want.
And in that we can let ourselves getCaught up on circling around all these
things that we don't want, or gettingsucked into what we are offended by, or
things that bother us, and things that wecan get like worked up and angry about.
(12:31):
We can let that side of thingstake over and let that direct us
in the new direction we're going.
Or, we can acknowledge thethings that we don't want.
But then change our focuson what we do want.
What are we for?
What do we stand for?
And then start, not fighting, butlike marching in that direction.
Like pushing for what we are for, insteadof fighting for what we're against.
(12:57):
And that brought me to thisquote that I remembered.
And I don't know necessarily ifit's a quote, but it's a story about
Mother Teresa and how she was asked.
If she would march against the VietnamWar, I think maybe asking her if she
would stand up and help march andsupport people who are against the war.
And she said, no, I won't do that.
But if you have a march that's forpeace, I'll march with you there.
(13:17):
Showing that even someone like saintMother Teresa, will put in effort for
what she believes and what she's for.
She's for peace.
She wants to march for that.
She doesn't want to.
March that she's against war, right?
It goes back to Dr.
Martin Luther King when he gives thatone famous speech, you know, it's
like you can't You can't, put outdarkness with more darkness, right?
(13:39):
It has to be light.
Like you can't driveout hate with more hate.
It has to be love.
Like you cannot try to combat somethingthat you're against by being just, you
know, as nasty and mean about them.
Like I see, you see this all the time,like in politics, it's like people get
so wrapped up and sucked into their,their sides of who they are for, but
they become so like nasty and evilon going who they're against, right?
(14:05):
Instead of just like saying all thethings that they're for and being on
that positive spotlight, it's likeyou see it with the two candidates a
lot of times, like this candidate isgoing to negatively attack the other
candidate telling you all the things thatthey're not instead of standing up and
saying all the things that they're for.
So when you find yourself humbled,if you find yourself in a space where
you can get that pause, somethingthat happens to you that gets you to
(14:27):
really take a look at your life andwhere you're going and what you want
and what you don't want to remember tofocus on what is that you do want and
start, making your way or making yourplan or your road map or whatever you're
trying to do to be for what you do want.
And, for me and my situation here,it's You know, letting the real estate
(14:47):
business be a business, not gettingattached to it, letting it be what it is.
And focusing on what I do want.
And what I do want is create apositive impact on the world.
And what I do want is, to use my voice,to use the podcast, to get back to
writing to be a good mother and stayconnected and present with my kids
and keep building my relationship withmy husband and strengthening that.
(15:09):
And working on myself and healing my pasttraumas and just trying to be, a better
person where I can forgive myself andbe the best version of myself and keep
growing and learning and just, you know,that constant evolutional growth that you
go through as a person as you get older.
So, thank you.
If you still listen to the podcast, Iknow it's been hard when they haven't
(15:33):
been coming out, weekly like they had beenbefore but I'm getting back to it, right?
Like I said, we are back intoa schedule back into a routine
where I will have more time to getthese episodes out more regularly.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And getting back to what Ilove and what's important to me.
So I just want to thank you.
If you took the time to listen,I appreciate any feedback.
(15:55):
I love having conversations so if youfeel called to, want to write a comment.
I post these podcasts on YouTube so youcan always leave a comment on the video
or you can always write me privately ina direct message on Instagram or Facebook.
My handle is @chelsea.Vanbuskirk soyeah, I hope you guys are all doing
well and remember focus on whatyou're for, not what you're against.
(16:17):
That's what I want to leaveyou with through this episode.
I have so much love for you guys.
I'll see you next time.
Peace.
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