15. The Truth About Joy, Presence, and Sobriety with Jillian Schecher

What if joy is not something you arrive at, but something you return to again and again?

In this episode of The Favourite Self Podcast, Carly sits down with Jillian Schecher, joy educator, founder of the Academy of Joyful Living, creator of The Joy Method, and a coach who helps people lead, feel, and live from a place that is rooted in truth. What unfolds is a deeply honest conversation about emotional honesty, overfunctioning, sobriety, presence, and what it really means to build a life that feels as good as it looks.

Jillian shares how her journey into this work began after getting sober, when everything she had been avoiding rose to the surface and invited her into a different way of living. Together, Carly and Jillian explore the difference between performative positivity and real joy, the importance of listening to your body, and why the life you are creating can only feel as good as your ability to actually receive it. This is such a powerful conversation for anyone craving more truth, more softness, and a deeper connection to themselves.

If this episode resonates, be sure to follow and subscribe to The Favourite Self Podcast, and share it with someone who needs this conversation too.

Key Takeaways:

• Joy is not a destination you arrive at. It is a daily practice of coming back to yourself.

• Real joy is not performative or about being positive all the time. It begins with telling the truth about what you actually feel.

• Overfunctioning can disconnect you from your body, your emotions, and the life you are trying to build.

• The life you desire will only feel as good as your capacity to receive it.

• Listening to your body is often the first step toward deeper alignment, honesty, and healing.

Jillian’s Bio:

Jillian Schecher is a Joy Educator, coach, speaker, author, and founder of The Academy of Joyful Living. She is the creator of The Joy Method™ and helps individuals, leaders, and communities reconnect with joy as a daily practice rather than something to chase or earn. Through her work, Jillian guides people back to themselves so they can lead, live, and create from a place that actually feels good.

Jilian’s Links:

Website: https://jillianschecher.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jillianschecher?igsh=MTB5bHoxcHRoNnEzNA==

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianschecher/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jillianschecher

Joy Facilitator Certification: https://www.theacademyofjoyfulliving.com/joy-sessions-facilitator-program

The Joy Nest: https://www.theacademyofjoyfulliving.com/the-joy-nest

Free Resource, The Joy Reset: https://jillianschecher.com/joyreset

50% off Intro to Joy: 8 Week Joyful Living Program: https://www.theacademyofjoyfulliving.com/introtojoy (Use code JOY50)

The Favourite Self Retreat: https://www.carlyottaway.com/the-favourite-self-retreat

Carly's Links
Website: carlyottaway.com / webofwords.ca
Instagram: @‌itscarlyottaway / @‌webofwords_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlyottaway

Favourite Self Retreat: https://www.carlyottaway.com/the-favourite-self-retreat

Coming Home: https://www.amazon.ca/Coming-Home-Path-Favourite-Permission/dp/1069218308

Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@favouriteselfpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Sobriety is the courage to feel. It's the courage to feel. And it's unlocking how we feel that allows us to come back into right relationship with our emotions, which is energy and motion. They are also our informants to let us know am I in alignment with joy?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the favorite self podcast. I like to think of it not as your future self or your best self, but your favorite self. My favorite self that just makes me feel the truest version of me. What lights your favorite self on fire? I'm Carly Ottaway, founder, author, storyteller, and a woman who learned that building a successful life means nothing if it doesn't feel like yours. This podcast is for women who are building businesses, raising families, leading movements, and asking themselves, is this it or is there more available to me? This is your invitation to come back to yourself. Let's dig in. Okay, some conversations just hit differently. And this is one of them. Before we even hit record, Jillian and I were already like deep into it. I was like, I need to hit record immediately because we were talking about really listening to your body in those moments when you know you're being asked to show up in a way that feels really real. And we were talking about how Jillian almost rescheduled our call, but there was something pulling her. She needed to go on with the recording. And we both were just saying how glad we are that she did because wow, the conversation that we had in this moment feels honestly like magic. This is who Jillian Schecker is. She is a joy educator. She's a coach. She's a founder of the Academy of Joyful Living. She's worked with brands like Lululemon and Google, and she's created the joy method. And she trains facilitators to lead from a place that actually feels good. Her journey into this work started after getting sober when everything that she had been avoiding finally came to the surface. And what she found there became the foundation for how she leads, teaches, and lives. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Favorite Self podcast. I was just having such a good pre-recording conversation here with my guest Jillian, who I'm so excited to bring to the podcast today because when we met the first time, you just omitted so much joy. And I knew we were going to be instant friends. I we were we were driving to an event and it was like your first time in Oakville, maybe? Yeah, I don't know. But you were just like romanticizing the drive so much, looking at the beautiful houses and the tree-lined streets, and just like the lake was over there, even though it's Lake Ontario. We didn't want to tell you the truth about Lake Huntario. Just don't look too closely. Um, anyway, uh, so excited to jump right in with you today. And I'm just happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, I feel the same. Instant connection and thanks for being a part of my dreamy drive of what is going on here in Ontario. I I was in Ontario once went to Pembroke. Like uh when I was a child, we drove me and my grandparents, and then I also went once when I was doing hair. That's a whole other episode. But um, they they wanted me to educate and so flew me out for teacher like education. And so I was in Toronto for like two days. But I mean, it's just so much like, oh my gosh, it's so beautiful. It is so beautiful. And I was like, this is like a romance novel. You guys, what planet have I been dropped into? And I just love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

And tell us where you're from so that everyone knows.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Well, I'm from Mystic Ridge, which I also like, even in that car ride in that night, had the opportunity to be like, this is where I now live. Like, I um was kind of born and raised in Edmonton, moved around a little Calgary and traveled, but really late lived in Edmonton most of my life. Alberta girl, prairie girl. And um last summer manifested our dream life, like literal dream experience in the forest on an acre of land. I call myself a joy wizard. It's called freaking Mystic Ridge. It's like so on brand. And my husband and I are just like literally in love with our lives. So I get to say that now. I come from Mystic Ridge.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I love it. And just to clarify for everyone, when Gillian was in Ontario, it was March. We all know what once you hear you looks and feels like in March. Everyone else is trying to get the heck out of Ontario, but you came and you loved it. And oh my gosh, we're gonna talk about how you manifested this. I love this. And right before we hit record, we were just talking about how you like almost had to cancel the recording. Tell us a little bit about what was going on for you and how you had to practice what you preach.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Oh God, do we love this in leadership? Hey, um, yeah, so I have uh uh eye rash. I've been having lots of like um allergic reactions, kind of hives, you know, irritation, this sort of thing. A couple of weeks ago, I mean, I could really go on and on about this, but um I was in denial that I have a gluten allergy. And so I like to dabble, you know, especially at conferences where you get to like not tell anyone your dietary needs, and you're just like, no, I will eat six loaves of bread, actually, and give me all the gluten and let's freaking go. And that happened. I was in a conference and I was just like gluten, gluten, gluten, like double glutened, and got, you know, ended up with like a rash and just feeling so like I finally I couldn't deny it anymore that I need to pay attention to this. And I feel like since then the volume has been dialed up on like what am I not tending to? And it is exactly what I teach and practice enjoy leadership is you know, we have to make how we are feeling our number one priority, and or we really can't live and serve the mission we're here to serve and the people and be who we want to be for our families and the world when we're not honoring how we're actually feeling. So as the universe does, you know, the loving bitch slap of okay, bitch, you want to teach this, you better be practicing it. And so this past week, there's this eye, like, you know, flare up and so annoying, and it's feeling like it's it's kind of messing with my vision a little bit. And so last night it was kind of like enough is enough. Like I need to honor this, and I was going to cancel. And the message was no, don't. And I was like, okay, wait, am I in overfunctioning, which is what I teach? Like, am I in overfunctioning right now? People pleasing energy, like, and it was like, no, like I don't want to cancel. It's not enough time, it's not an integrity with who I am. But this morning, when I was still like, should I be canceling? Like, I kind of cleared my day because I'm actually really needing to honor this. It was no, you're actually meant to talk about it. And I just, and so this kind of truth to me is why we're here. Like, this is true leadership is being authentic and genuine and sharing. You know, where are we still overlooking ourselves, still overfunctioning? Where are we as the leaders of this work, still needing to practice it? Because I also know deeply we are here to take the medicine that we're giving, you know. And I don't know about you, but I get the reminder, perhaps more than I would like.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Oh my gosh. I uh love all this. First of all, can relate so much, and I'll share in a minute, but I love that reflection back about, you know, of course, that we are here to give our own medicine. And so when you choose to be a coach and mentor on Joy, you are gonna get tested in all the ways. And I can't wait to dive into that. Yeah. Because I feel the same. I feel, I mean, are you into astrology? Yeah. Okay. So I'm like big on that too. And and knowing what your Chiron wound is, are you into do you know what your Chiron is? I don't like okay, let's go more deep. I'm like Kyrie beauty, let's do a sesh. So I've I don't even do readings. I'm just so passionate about it. I'm I'm the friend that like does a reading for all my girlfriends at when we go out for dinner. Line me up. But your Chiron, everyone needs to look up their Chiron in their chart. I always say this to my girlfriends because it's it's basically your deepest wound. And it could be from a past life or or in this life, kind of this wound that you are here to heal. And I believe so much of our purpose and our businesses is rooted in that as entrepreneurs when we are truly in our purpose. So I mine is in Gemini, which is all about communication, using your voice, sharing your story, which is so totally my wounding. Like if I go back, you know, when I started hiding my story and just wounding around that that I had to work through. So I'm so curious. We're gonna look up your chart afterwards and and see where your Chiron lies.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I can't wait. And is this is this feels like it aligns with like the wounded healer? Like this is what we're here to teach in the world. It's purpose related. It's because we're being invited to walk it fully.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yeah, exactly. Ooh, girl, I'm here. I'm so glad I did not cancel this, even with my eye issues.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yes. And I I love, and first of all, I totally would have understood. I'm like so understanding with that, especially with podcasting. But I also love that there was something calling you still to record. And I just know from how much fun I've been having with these conversations and how excited I was to have you that there is a reason for that. And I'm a big believer in that. The timing is so divine. But I feel the same way. I have a I have my tea here because you can hear a little bit of my voice. My family's been fighting a sickness for two weeks that we just haven't been able to officially kick. And I'm like, I cannot get sick this week. I have like amazing guest guests coming on to record the for the podcast. I'm talking at my high school. I'm like going to this wonderful event on Friday. Like, cannot, but at the same time, I'm coming off of a very abundant season. I love how you say that, or I'm still in. And I'm definitely feeling called to rest, but I'm like, I don't know where that rest fits in right now. And it's all good things, but I'm aware of it. The awareness is there. I just need to shift. And I'm, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that and just how you practice that in your own scheduling.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah. And I feel like I'm in. So one thing I really want to share is how much of a practice this actually is. Like with Join, we'll talk about it more. It's not, you know, it's not you reach a certain place and everything's good. We're not here for everything to be good. We'll be in the clouds eating bonbons when we're fully healed and everything is perfect, right? So we're actually here to move through this contrast and continue to learn, which often looks uncomfortable, as I'm like sharing with you and you're sharing with me. Um, I I feel like so. I talk about like building a joy day, joy week, and I can, I'm in my joy life. Like I'm in the life that I wrote about every single day, you know, affirmation style. Like I am using my gifts and working with people I love and bringing joy and like, you know, uh teaching everything. I know all of this, and it's happening, but it's also like I was sharing with my facilitators yesterday, there will always be a toilet to clean. Like, no matter how much we shift into what we desire, there's going to be places where we still get to evolve. And so now my calendar is really full. And I, you know, I call it a success struggle where it's there's busyness. And, you know, um, as I was sharing, you know, I really do call it abundance instead of busy because when I say I'm busy, it feels like I'm a victim of my own, like literally my own self, because I'm the one building my own calendar. And the truth is we are co-creators and deliberate designers. So if something isn't feeling good, we get the opportunity to shift it. And in the joy work, like this is the contrast, the discomfort that isn't here to stop us or hurt us or harm us. It's here to show us where to revision. So I'm like, okay, so what do I need to change? You know, like this week, very full, eye-rich, blurry vision, like definitely need to handle this. And when I notice, I'm like, I don't even have time to go see a doctor. Well, that's like not actually okay. Like, if I don't have space to actually take care of myself, this is not a joy calendar, right? This is joy in disguise. This is performance. This is overfunctioning. This is my freaking Chiron. This is my wound, like right here for me to see. So, where do I get to pull it back? And I just think like I've just been, we have to prioritize ourselves and how we're feeling. Like, we can't do what we're here to do if we're in depletion or burnout or worse, right? Like, and I feel like you know this. And so it's just okay, what do I need to prioritize? And how do I build some space in? What do I need to, you know? I feel like with commitments, and especially people like us who are in such high integrity, you don't want it, like it feels like almost failure to say I can't do something, but it's not I can't, it's I choose to actually honor what does it look like to honor every single thing on our plate so we can experience the abundance instead of the overwhelm. And then it's okay, I actually am going to renegotiate this so that I can show up in my fullness instead and in my overflow instead of overwhelm. Woo! Did we just go to church?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Didn't we do? I think we did. Oh my god. So powerful.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah, I love it constantly. Thrice weekly shifting. Like, and right now, again, this conversation, there's no mistake on why I knew I had to be here. It's to exactly talk about this and to hear that exact message as well. Like, this is not to be preached, just to be practiced deeply. Yes. Is preached a word like this is not to be preached? Absolutely. You nailed it. Chat GPT, this.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah. No, that was so good. I love the reframe because I think it's so easy to slip into, you know, that busy feeling and and coming from that place of abundance. But absolutely when when we need it most is when our self-care slips off, right? And that's such a a good reminder. Okay, I'd really like to kind of pull back a little bit and tell me what was that rock bottom moment for you? Because I feel like there was some moment for you that really shifted things and pulled you into this line of work. So let's go there. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Let's go there. I love it because the truth is, you know, I trick people with all the joy stuff. Joy work is actually shadow work. Like we have to meet those edges of ourselves. And I'll share more with you. So rock bottom for me looked like a lot of disconnection from self. Um, I was always like the joyful kid, you know, I just loved flowers and animals and all the all the things. Um, but when I do look back, I can see those places where I left joy by the side of the road. And because I do think it is actually who we are by nature. And we just through our life, you know, the humanness, we forget it. We get further and further away from it. Um, so I was raised in an alcoholic home, you know, loving and very codependent. And I learned from a very young age that how I felt didn't matter. And so I just stepped into overfunctioning and really parentifying everyone around, like actually being the parent, like taking care of everyone else. And I look back now and I can see it was actually so that I felt okay. It was actually a trauma response. If you're okay, I'm okay. And so walked through a whole life of making everyone else the priority. And when I was in my early 30s, my dad died of a heart attack, and it just felt like my whole world exploded. I just, I didn't even know how to cope. And so I did what I knew how to do, which is go take care of everyone else. I I remember driving home from work in a blur, and I just dropped off my stuff, and I literally just said bye to my husband, who was just like, you know, in a tizzy. And I left and I drove to my stepmom and my brother and Red Deer and in the middle of winter on dodgy highways with dodgy tires, and just went. I just feel so deeply that was a major place where I left myself. It was where I remember the drinking, which is how I started to cope, really kicked in to just like actually take me away from reality. And it also made it so much harder. I remember doing things that were just really not okay. We went and stayed in the hotel he died in and slept in the bed he was in. Like, not with him. That's creepy. But we stayed in the same hotel. And I didn't want to do that actually, looking back. That did not feel comfortable. Like I was just in such a fog and just going along with everything. And there's so many things we didn't have to do that we did, and that I didn't have to do that I did. And that's where the blur, the big blur, like the big disconnects, like really deepened for me. And I remember at the time I was doing hair and I would come home after work after like wearing a mask all day and just pretending to be okay. And I would have a glass of wine or two or three, and numb because I didn't know how to feel that level of feeling. And that really led to a dark time in my life. I was very disconnected. I was blacking out pretty much nightly. And I remember just waking up to look at my husband David to see like what I had done the night before. And it makes me emotional every time I talk about this because I just I have so much compassion for myself. I was in such a shame spiral and just, you know, doing whatever I could to feel okay. And none of it was okay. It led to my rock bottom where I got to choose like, do I want to live or not? And I chose life. And I I essentially, I would say that was the moment I chose joy. It was where I feel like I came back home to myself and and like really atoned for everything I had done with this. Is where like God to me felt really present, like that, and not God, religious God, I'm not religious, I'm very spiritual, but and it's because of this that feeling of the depth of our experience, like the connection to soul and something so much bigger, and really reclaiming myself and deeply atoning for everything. I was reading at the time, um, Marianne Williamson's Law of Divine Compensation, and in it she talks about shame and guilt. And this was probably why I'm here with you today, is because of this wisdom. There's a few wisdom drops that happened for me along my sober journey that are why, like, I'm here and I know I meant to teach this from like from a healed place, is around that guilt and shame are really good for the one second it supports a shift. And she was speaking about how the ego would have us do that very thing that we would hold ourselves hostage with for the rest of our lives if we could. And it's now built into all of my work around opportunities for growth, even on weekly in the Daily Joy Journal. It's what is the opportunity for growth? It's those places and things that feel so gross that you could spiral on, but it's noticing actually, what if I just glean the lesson and the wisdom and take that and then I can release the things that don't actually serve, but they supported this learning. So that was the reclamation was where I really connected to myself so deeply and brought it all home. And then my path forward was really where all of the joy work started. It was the beginning of starting to feel my true feelings.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Wow. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing that and so honestly and vulnerably and talk about a beautiful example of turning your pain into your purpose and so powerful. Oh my gosh. I I had no idea when I asked you that question. I didn't I didn't know that story. Surprise! Um deep work shadow shit. I'm here for it. I'm here for it all. That's what this is all about, you know. Is I think I there, I know there's so many people that can see themselves in your story and like that, you're talking we're talking, hitting that like rock bottom moment. But I'm curious if you can share some ways that we can recognize though that burnout, that disconnect before it gets to the rock bottom too. And I mean, uh you're talking about grief and that there as well, and that the shame layer too. But just in terms of even just our kind of everyday, what do you see in the clients that you work with? And what are some what are some symptoms? And and yeah, do you see that people see it for themselves? Like, do they have the awareness? How long does it take? And did you have the awareness? Right. Yourself. Yeah. Did you know you were in the rock bottom? I have so many questions. Let's talk all day.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

That's everything we're talking all day. Um, so I feel like, yes, this is absolutely what I teach and guide now. And and it's through actually the lens of discomfort. But what is required is for us to feel because, and this is step one, and I call it the joy method. We don't have to go through the whole thing today. I can leave a link of like how to know more about it. But essentially, step one is feeling because we none of us were taught how to feel. Like, think back to growing up. We were usually taught the opposite how to stuff your feelings. Like, don't cry. Shh, it's okay. Like, be quiet. Don't like, don't rock the boat. Oh, God forbid, you freaking tell the truth. And, you know, like, or don't do what others want you to do. You know, it's just all of this conditioning around being the good girl, right? And or good boy, whatever that looks like. It's even worse for men because the what the masculine is tied into like not feeling so deeply. And this work unlocks so powerfully for men when they are given permission to feel like you, it is just it feels like magic, but it's like actually so practical. But it's the feelings that unlock everything. Because what gets to happen is like once you start to feel what's truly there, there's no wrong or bad feeling, it just feels uncomfortable for us. And and really almost like I remember the grief. It felt like it was going to kill me. Like that was how much I needed to resist it, like for years, right? So when I started to feel, I realized it wasn't about the alcohol. The addiction was to not feeling. And so what I was being required to do, which was even more uncomfortable than not drinking, was begin to feel and really start to thaw and start to see what is really there. And I realized like I'd been drinking down my discomfort for years while trying to keep everyone else around me comfortable. And so that was the work, was the feelings. And I was again reaching for anything I could find to understand and feel better in quotations. I stumbled upon um Pema Shodron, who's a Buddhist nun, and she's all about mindfulness. It's she's got such beautiful teachings. And in her book, Living Beautifully, she shared about uh a neuroscientist, Dr. Jillboard Taylor, who had a stroke and studied her own recovery. And she found that a feeling only lasts 90 seconds. If you feel it. If you feel it, which who likes to feel uncomfortable? No one, I still avoid it. So, you know, but that piece Wisdom allowed me to start to feel, and now it's again built into the joy method and all the work because what's interesting is our our desire to resist the discomfort is what's keeping us stuck and actually in suffering. Joy requires us to feel all of it, not just the good. Joy requires us to feel all of the discomfort and pain because we can't numb pain and experience joy. Renee Brown quote right there. And like, which I so identify with because I noticed when I got sober and actually started to feel it was like I was meeting my joy ceiling. Like I was, you know, it was like this too much. I'm there's too much goodness. I feel too much love. It's like it's gonna be taken away. Like all of my scarcity was coming in around, oh my god, my husband's gonna die. Like I love him so much. I this home, like even when we moved to the to this new home, I felt the scare, I felt it come in, the joy ceiling. Like every noise, I'm like, oh my god, is it gonna burn down? Like, ah, this is like it's too good to be true energy. And so meeting those edges of joy is just as uncomfortable as that, like it's also uncomfortable. So the truth is with like discomfort, I feel like we get to see, we get our our feelings are our our compass, they are our informants. But when we're cut off from them because we, for a variety of reasons, you know, we don't want to feel the discomfort, it's a very human desire. Like pain, move away from pleasure, move toward. But what we don't realize is that joy, like that internal experience of joy, requires us to move through the pain because power and purpose, right? Like actually, this is not here to hurt us, harm us, stop us. It's here for us to reclaim our power so that we can turn it into purpose and share it with others, ideally. Again, this is why I teach joy facilitation is like, what does it look like when you reclaim that and then you can share it? Is we don't all have to go through the suffering anymore. We can actually learn through each other's experiences instead. So I feel like this was a long-winded answer to say, like in terms of people like noticing where things aren't working is how we actually get into alignment with joy. So instead of seeing my eye hives or your throat as a problem that we want to avoid or push away, what is this here to tell us and show us? Just like anything else that's uncomfortable in our lives. What is this here to show me? And for me, this was here to show me a with you to talk about this. Cause if I didn't have this discomfort, I probably wouldn't be sharing this story, which could unlock power for others. But also it's here to show me where am I in overfunctioning and where was I about to push through my day today and coach and guide others, enjoy leadership, which requires me to do exactly what I'm being invited to do, which is honor how I'm feeling and be honest. My body is sharing with me that I'm a little bit overtaxed right now, and I really need to listen if I want to fucking teach you to do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Oh my god. Okay, I know why our mutual friend Stacy said that we need to connect. And she's the best connector. First of all, shout out to Stacy. She AC Miller, too, she people. And the fact I like, I see so much of my story in you. And I and we're gonna go there into it all, but uh also I'm like, okay, as soon as you said your eye, my throat, I'm like, okay, my throat chakra, my voice that I'm here, like, and then for you, I can like just tell how you can see people, and that's a gift for you. So it's so fascinating when the physical symptoms also represent, you know, so much more than that. I'm interrupting this episode real quick to tell you about something super special coming this fall. I am so excited to officially introduce the favorite self retreat, a one-day in-person experience unlike anything we've ever created before. Together, we're going to uncover and rewrite the old stories keeping you stuck, reconnect with the gifts and parts of yourself that you may have lost along the way, and help you step into what's next, feeling clearer, more grounded, and safe to be fully seen. If you've been loving the conversations on this podcast around identity, visibility, becoming and reconnecting with your favorite self, you are going to love this experience. You can join the wait list now through the link in the show notes to be the first to receive the date, location, full details, and early access to tickets. Okay, back to the episode. Okay. I so I want to get into the story around how you manifested your beautiful property. And like I can I can relate to all this because um I'm not sure how familiar you are with my story, but we lost our home in a fire that we were renovating and rebuilt and are in our dream home now, but I completely resonate, especially because of the fire. I mean, there was a time when we didn't know if we were covered also by insurance. So that was like the hardest part. It was like truly the feeling of if we lose all of financial security, what is left and being able to sit in that discomfort of like recognizing, okay, if I lose it all, I have my family, I have my health, I have so much presence, and that's what I need. And I have what I need to rebuild and I can start again. And and it just like it literally was the massive shedding of all the pieces of me that weren't supposed to come with me that I believe is so huge in manifestation. And that's why I'm like so cute, especially real estate. I find real estate so fascinating with because your home too is and your environment. Um, I'm also big into numerology of your home. So our number adds up to seven, and seven represents sanctuary in numerology.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

That's why I call my home a sanctuary.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Is there a seven in your numerology for your address? It's three. But there's like then there's roads, like there's township road, but it's three is our home. Okay, but we'll have to look up what three is because I only remembered mine. It was like seven sanctuary. Wow. Um, but I remember moving in and having that feeling, especially kind of like in the calmness. We moved in and like all the chaos of like the rebuild and still having our business and young kids. And then suddenly we're settled in. And that's when I really had to sit with it and and also just like feel the worthiness of this is a home that we didn't expect, you know, because we rebuilt it from scratch. There was no way we could have financially been able to do that where we are if the fire hadn't happened. And now I have to hold this level, you know, and just like feel worthy of this joy that this home brings to us. And it was really strange for a little while there. And, you know, yeah, I remembered it. So I'm I'm curious kind of your perspective on that. And then I also want to talk about how you differentiate between like joy and like happiness or success. Can we go there as well?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah. Oh my gosh, Carly. I first of all, wow, like I feel like I I feel your essence. I didn't do a deep dive. I wish, I was like, you should do a deep dive. And then, yeah, okay, sure. I should have told me not to do i hives, you know?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Want to have a hive story.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

No, where you oh my god, the show notes are gonna be epic. Um, but I had no idea about the fire, but it's interesting that I brought that up because like a fear, obviously, and there's two things. I want to share about the home, and there feels like a piece to share around contrast, which is we actually got this opportunity through contrast as well. Like, and contrast being the things that you would never choose to experience, a fire. In my case, you know, well, like for me, it was like death of dead, you know, like, or it could be very big and small, like could be just weekly places where things happen, you like a little fender bum bump bender, or like, or not even that severe, but like things that you wouldn't choose because it shoots us into discomfort, right? Or fear, whatever those things are. For us, we lived in a home in like kind of inner city, you know, in Edmonton and loved it. Like I just I love character, as you can tell from our drive down the frickin' lake view, like all the stone and like just romanticizing it all. But we lived in this cute little 1950s home and you know, molded ceilings and all the things that are just like you know, special and loved it, but it was a dodgy area. And through the Rona, it got worse. Like, obviously, like a lot of energy um and people, you know, stealing and this sort of thing. And and it just felt a little bit scary. Like I remember thinking, I need to get out. And in 2020, I really felt like I want to move to the country. I've always wanted to live on an acreage, and you know, through school, horses are my childhood passion. If anyone had a horse or said the word horse, I was like, oh my God, let's be best friends. Like, let's go, you know. Um, I always saw myself like living on the land in some way. And so I wanted that, but my husband wasn't ready for it. He had grown up on an acreage and just didn't feel like he wanted that lifestyle. He felt like it would be a lot of work, all the reasons he didn't want to. So apparently, you know, it's kind of tricky to manifest a new fucking dream home without your partner being involved or demanifesting. So I was like, okay, we'll let this go until it's time. Wait a demanifest. Um, and I just, you know, if that seed was planted. Fast forward to 2025 last year. There was a home that had been uh demolished next door to us. It's it was older. And, you know, we were excited about like what was going to be built here and what kind of neighbors we would have. And I came home one night in the spring and there was uh all of a sudden a fence around it and it showed a sign of an like a eight a multiplex being built. But in Edmonton, there was a bylaw that was passed with like that felt like no one really knew about because we would have all fought it, where you can just build however you want, including like eight homes units facing a house and a yard, like which feels like the wrong way. Like, okay, do multiplexes, but make them face the street. Like, what are we even doing here? It's like ridiculous. I should share a picture, flash to the picture, but so that felt like extreme contrast. Like, oh my gosh, you know, we're such private people. We I'm cancer and he's got cancer in his chart, like home, sanctuary, nurture, not eight families in our like personal space, like facing my windows, all of it. So that felt like a lot of contrast. And we were pissed for about a day, and then it was the next day where we both just knew this was for us, like instead of to us, not even for us, but uh, because like when you're going through the shit, people saying it happens for a reason feels like not okay, right? So, but when he raise up to the even higher level or more eagle-hearted level, to me, it's it's actually happening through us, like on a soul level, we actually came to move through these, you know, fires to glean this fire, to glean the friggin' gold, the diamond, and to move forward with the wisdom. And for you, like into a new level, new life, whatever that looks like for me. It was also the same thing. And so even David said, I feel like roots are being ripped out for us to plant them somewhere else. And I said, You're right. And that's when things started to open and his abundance started to open up as well. And, you know, luckily I have an incredible mortgage broker, Lisa McKinnis, who I'm like, hey, we need a mortgage. Um, I have also, you know, clients who are realtors, high-end realtors, they're freaking amazing, who we called, they were there the next day. I just put the call out. We need to, it's go time. And um, just was able to just dream. Like, I just started looking without a cap, without a ceiling. I started looking without a ceiling, which I've never done. Like, like we've really entered the whole house market on a very low budget. Okay. Like, there's no reason for me to not have a ceiling when I'm looking for properties. But I found the first what I would have called like dream situation. And it was way more than what we would have thought we could afford. Um, and my mortgage broker was literally like, no, you like you can do this. And there was ways to look at it, like, you know, I do joy sessions and you know, maybe we'll use it in these ways. And David's a painter, and like he's got the room to pursue his painting, and we could have show like there's just so much when you think bigger and got approved for way higher. And we saw the one house and it was kind of smoke and mirrors. And then, and then I just left it open. I was just okay, spirit, show us. Like, I was just open to being guided. And then I just did my own search and literally found this home. I've been manifesting living on water that like moving water, not staying, like, not a lake, but like, I still like your lake. But um, I'm like, I would move to that lake. It felt moving. But it was like moving water, and it was like, okay, a river. And I was like, where are there homes near the river? I didn't even know how this existed, except for like the bazillion-dollar homes that I had seen previously. And yeah, it's this little multi-like, or sorry, subdivision on the edge of the river, Mystic Ridge. We came, we saw. I was like, this is like both of us felt it. And and David finally understood when I was saying land, and like, not like farmers, you know, we don't need to farm. We do, but we have like less lawn than we did in our old face. It's all trees, it's a forest. And he's turned into what I call the mountain man because he's like always chopping wood and making fires. We have like two wood-burning fireplaces. We have everything that I've ever literally just thought I would love one day. And it felt like honestly, because of the level of surrender and trust, which is what I teach a practice, practice and teach. Um, it was so useful. And it, and so yeah, living the dreams and and then getting to experience, okay, what are those fears? Like where how do I need to expand to hold this? Um, and just getting to so compassionate, compassionately meet those edges of where I get to see and like I, you know, inner child work, like really holding that little girl part of me that thinks like this is too much or we're not worthy, and just knowing like I'm actually here to ground codes of joyful abundance in the world. I know this deeply. And and it allowed me to step more fully into my purpose and share so shamelessly because I believe we're here to dream and dream friggin' big, and anything I've learned is possible. And it doesn't have to be hard, and it does we don't have to struggle and suffer. It gets to be flowing and fun and easeful and light, and we get to experience ourselves as healed while we are healing.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Oh my okay, we're officially best friends or small. I I just seen so much with my story and yours, and and it's like such a powerful reflection because I you're making me connect dots too when it came to manifesting our house. You know, it was not like we got it faster than I thought we were going to. It was kind of this like dream vision that for me, it really was the trees. Initially, in my vision, it was these willow trees, these very romantic, whimsical giant willow trees. But when we were house hunting, it was like when the market was crazy, we lost out on so many homes. We got outbid constantly, which forced us to stretch our budget and to dream bigger and get uncomfortable. And we thought we were priced out of this area, but we were coming in with a different budget. And then we bought off market because our dog walker walked the dog of the former owners and knew that they were looking to sell. And we bought off-market because of that. Like it's just wild how everything lined up. But I remember coming into the house, and as soon as I walked in the house, I was like, no, like it just like needed so much work. I was like, this isn't happening. And then I walked out in the backyard and I saw the giant maple trees, like nothing we had seen. We looked at so many houses and the beautiful property. And I was like, Yes, okay, now we're talking. Like the house can change. We were going to change the house, not nearly to the extreme that we ended up having to change and literally rebuilding from the footing. So it's so fascinating to me. And it just like opened and I went through such a deep season of surrender and truly just taught me so much. And and ultimately, like, I I've shared this before, but like I feel like that fire is was such a pivotal moment for me because it's what ultimately inspired me to finally write my book. Since releasing my book, Coming Home, one of the things I've heard again and again is that it feels like a mirror. Women have told me it felt like having a late-night conversation with a friend, that it really helped them see their own courage, their own heartbreaks, their own hopes, and the parts of themselves still waiting for permission. And honestly, that's exactly why I wrote it. Coming home is for the woman who is building a business, a family, a life, a dream, and looking to do it in a way that actually feels true to who she is. It's a book about healing, storytelling, motherhood, ambition, identity, and the courage to build your own path when the one in front of you doesn't quite fit. So if you've been craving a reminder that you are allowed to want more, become more, and still come home to yourself in the process, I think you would love coming home. You can grab your copy through the link in the show notes. My book is buddy, got me to launch this podcast. Yes. It's got me these speaking opportunities, the these connections that have come from it. And really they root back to that. It was kind of this moment where I finally was like, okay, I'm done hiding my story. It's time for me to step into it and and share it.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Wow. I have full shivers. Like full, full shivers. Thank you, Stacey Millard. Yeah. Seriously. Enter Thrive Accounting Sponsorship.

unknown 39:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

To commit to everything in your abundant life and more. Um, yes. Yeah, I love that. Oh my God, that needs to be your tangle.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

There you go, Stacy. Yeah. Okay. I I'd really, yeah, tell me a little bit about just kind of how again, let's break it down a little bit more practically in terms of how you see joy. You know, I think it's easy for us to get distracted or feel like we're kind of constantly chasing this milestone or this feeling, especially when it comes to business owners and like highly ambitious business owners that, you know, are constantly chasing the next goal and then forgetting to even sit in it and celebrate it as well. So can you share a little bit on that?

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Oh, there's so much coming through. Okay. Remind me to pick it back up if I lose my way. Okay. Because there's a lot to share. We're going wherever we're meant to go. The first thing coming through to share was around how I need to talk a little bit more about the sobriety piece because again, we think about it as the addiction or the substance, but it's what what ways am I numbing, or in what ways am I seeking an experience that I'm not actually getting? Um, I'm in a sobriety um speaker panel this coming week, and uh, and it feels important because I think the work I do, it does. Um, it is sober related because here's what sobriety truly is sobriety is the courage to feel. It's the courage to feel, and it's unlocking how we feel that allows us to come back into right relationship with our emotions, which is energy and motion. They're also our informants to let us know am I in alignment with joy? Like joy, everyone can have a different experience of what joy is. But the so I just say like joy is alignment with how we most want to feel, but it's honoring our feelings that allows us to align with it. Does that make sense? Yes. And so joy is really internal. Joy is, you know, who we are and we forget it. So what it requires for us to remember joy is to make space for it. Just make space for it. And this is what I call the practice of joy. Now, making room for it is good. Like, and that could be just enough, is just have space to like literally walk in the trees, connect with your breath, like, or just be and connect with yourself, whatever that looks like. For me in my work, it looks like I call it joy journaling. So it's really it's using the joy method, which is honoring our feelings, using our mind as a magic wand, noticing our thoughts where they are and shifting them, and then setting powerful intentions and celebrating ourselves. So, gratitude, celebration, self-celebration is something I I share all the time because it's so powerful. And we're taught to really like dim and and and be small around where we're winning, where I wanted to start a new revolution of like self-celebration and really tearing each other on because celebration of self and each other is actually the easiest way to raise our vibration. And when I'm speaking of rooms and I get them to like celebrate with each other, first it brings up awkwardness. But once you get through that, you can feel the whole vibe of the root room actually increase. And it's having permission to share my wins. Like to me, that's because in the journal, it's how will you celebrate this week? Like you're gonna manifest on Mondays, like just set your powerful intention, and then we're gonna walk it out with alignment and aligned action and then celebrate at the end. How we celebrate. And everyone's like, I don't know, like, how do I celebrate myself? And and I find the most powerful way is to literally just share it with someone, like be seen and heard in your wins. Happiness and joy are different because happiness, I think happiness is what most people think of joy. Um, and I'm not saying that it's wrong, it's just more surface level. Happiness is much more related to our external experiences and it's more related to conditions. It feels like, you know, when you think about the last thing that you bought or thought you had to have or needed, right? And you got the thing. And do you still feel the same way after you get it? It's fleeting, it's not long-lasting, it's, you know, it's conditional. And we can also line up that, line that up with our desire to control the conditions of our lives to feel happy or to feel okay, whether we're controlling a person or rescuing or fixing or managing, or we're needing the this exact home or this exact car or this exact job or this exact partner, or you know, really starting to get in there and try and make everything the way it needs to be for us to feel good, that's fleeting. And it's it will keep you in a shitload of suffering, if I'm honest. Like I've tried to rescue everyone around me. That never worked. And and honestly, because I've had the opportunity, which I see it is now, to walk through addiction myself, no one could have ever told me to quit, you know, smoking or drinking. Like those were spiritual transformations that I needed to recognize within myself. And to be honest with you, it actually worked. Came through in the guise of suffering. Like, you know, people wanted me to quit smoking. Well, I fucking loved it. And I thought it was joy until I realized it was just relieving withdrawal, which would felt joyful, happiness, right? So there was that. And then with the drinking, so much suffering, years of it. And again, everyone would have wanted me to not be in that experience. But I needed to get to the point where I wanted to shift. And we can't do that for others. Those are like miracle moments. And and now I actually look at suffering as healing because I've reclaimed my power in it. And now I'm in my purpose of it. So if we can even see it, maybe not when we're in it, because that's harder, but when you're out of it or beyond it and getting that eagle-eye vision of if you were to look at the pain in your life differently, if you were to look at it where it actually gave you something, what was that thing it gave you? And how can you use that thing in the world to make the world a little better in whatever way? Like whether that's sharing it with someone who you hear on the bus, or you know, maybe it is speaking it or facilitating it, like that it'll be different for us all. But there's so much power and purpose in the sharing of our lessons and seeing them as opportunities and healing instead of suffering. So back to joy is kind of seeing things differently. It's not always are we going to feel good? We're here to feel good, but feeling good doesn't always mean feeling comfortable. And joy actually requires us to move through the discomfort over and over again. Joy is active, joy is fragrant, active. It requires us to participate in it. It's who we are, and we have to we get to remember it daily, right? Like sometimes the race daily.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah. Wow. I feel like no one's ever articulated it in that way. It's so powerful. I love all of that. And I'm curious, you know, you kind of mentioned the horses. I want to come back to that for a second and how that like really awakened a little bit of your inner child. And that was a something from childhood that brought you joy. And for me, with the favorite self, the whole concept around the favorite self, a lot of it is reconnecting to what brought you joy as a child, you know, before the world told you who you should be, before you were conditioned to hide all of your emotions. I feel that I've been so fortunate to have so many resources in my parenting journey and have access to so many resources. And I from early on really felt like part of my biggest job as a parent is to just hold space for my kids to feel the full spectrum of emotions and to feel safe in those emotions and expressing those emotions. And that can be deeply uncomfortable, especially because it triggers my own inner child who was not allowed to, exactly like you said. And, you know, I think that was very generational too, that that obviously caused our parents' generation a lot of discomfort and they didn't have the tools and the resources to be able to understand or handle it. So anyway, circling back to that inner child piece, I just am a big believer that your following the joy of your inner child connects you so deeply to your purpose and your path. And like really I think is the key to to bringing your dream manifestations to life. So I'd love to hear your perspective on that.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Well, I'm like, I'm gonna find the horses around here. Like you thank you for reminding me to not let that go. Like we moved in in the late summer and I've been playing with the idea of what it looks like to find my find my where are my horses? Like, where am I gonna go hang out with horses? Um, bring that back in, not necessarily not riding, maybe just being around them. And I feel like I'm literally in the country now. Like, this is like prime horse time. It's prime horse time in my life, you guys. So I'm gonna hold myself accountable and really just find the place where I feel like I'm gonna probably take lessons um and make that a priority in my joy calendar because I'm the boss of the calendar. Um, so I'm gonna do that. And I think, yeah, I just I feel like thank you for that reminder today. You know, your medicine um and your wisdom around that that's that's a piece of us to honor. And I think for many of us also reclaim, I just so identify with that. And I think it's really, really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like whenever you are feeling that disconnect, for me, there is an element of finding ways to reconnect with your inner child. And I did that over the holidays. I re-watched my favorite childhood movie with my daughter. I remember the first time we re-watched it together. She's seven now. I think she would have been six the first time. And it wasn't a common movie, it's A Little Princess, for anyone wondering. I feel like the girls that grew up in my time, like either you knew it or you didn't. But I it was so emotional to watch it back and so healing for my inner child to experience that. And I think we can find that in so many ways. And and the reason I thought of that too was because for you, kind of the horses led you home. And for me, the trees did. And a big part of that, as much as I had the willow trees on my vision board, really, if I'm if I'm honest, it was more than maple trees because what brought me joy in my childhood was jumping in the piles of leaves in the fall, and how much I just loved it and felt so magical. And now I get to watch my kids do that and and join them in that as well. Like it really is so incredible.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

That's so cool. I also feel deep connection to trees in the home that we were in. There were three trees, they were intertwined. And I always said to David, it's me, you and Lily. We got it for a baby, Lily. Um, back to three, the number three, which to me actually means alchemy. Like when I feel into the energy of three, it's like me, you know, us, like me, spirit, and then what gets to be possible. Yeah, like the magic. So the trees they actually chopped down when they were building this frickin' monster. And I actually did ceremony with the trees for two weeks. I would sit and just cry. Like I felt more grief about those trees than I did the home itself. And I realized it was probably a couple months before I was sitting at my kitchen window. This is wild. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, we're getting woo-y girl. This is why we're solstices. I was sitting there and I had this deep, all of a sudden, awareness of the trees. And because there was also all these spruce that were lined up on the neighbor's lawn, and like it's an older area and there's trees everywhere. And again, that's why I feel like I've always identified with the more mature neighborhoods. The message was like the trees are protecting you. And I got this like rush in of like grandfather energy. And the message was more deeply, like, not protecting necessarily like physically, which they are, but it's also from, you know, like I don't know, what I don't even know what it's called, like radio waves and like kind of, you know, like that sort of stuff, like EMF kind of stuff. Um, protecting, like, because the trees are literally the lungs of the earth. And I remember I was in a dog park, our dog park a block away from our old place was all trees. And I actually did like a ceremony with the freaking trees. And I learned so much from them. One of the things I learned, and maybe you can identify with this, is like there was all the beautiful lush ones, and then there was this one tree that was like really decrepit. And and like when I tapped into the energy, it felt like despair. And the other ones felt like joy and abundance. And the message was around like to honor the ones that aren't as bright and shiny. Like, I feel like sometimes in our leadership, tell me if I'm wrong, um, it's very easy to just want to be around the people that are in the higher vibration and that we feel good and comfortable around. But in our it, like our light is not just meant for those who are in the light. Like we're really here to actually shine the way and honor those who might not be as far ahead. Um, and so it was really this reminder to not overlook those who aren't as loud or as as healed or and to really honor that. Wow, I didn't know I was gonna go there. Anyway, I took a picture of the trees, and it was when I realized um or saw also a picture of the human lungs and just really feeling like how much the trees actually hold us on this planet and in the earth. And when we moved to this forest, when we got the keys, we were laying in our sunroom, which is all surrounded by trees. Literally, I just said sunroom, our sunroom. David said he's gonna call it the dream room. Um, is he actually said, My husband, the business analyst and also painter by night, said, I feel like we were called in. What is that word? Like when you're the steward, he said, I feel like we were called in to be the stewards of this land. And I was like, Oh my god, David. Like, yes. And the trees, like the first day we came here for the inspection, I heard on the way here this is a sanctuary. And the next time we came, there was a literal sign that says the sanctuary. Um, and the message I heard around the trees is like the land is here to support healing and the trees want to help. And it's for us to acknowledge this energy around us, and especially with the the wisdom of the roots and you know, like how powerful this is. I just I think we're meant to have this conversation. Maybe it was just for you and I, but it's around like how powerfully held we actually are in so many ways, seen and unseen. And when you can actually tap into those forces, life gets really, really magical and limitless possibilities become possible. And it's all through the inner child, like us being like trees and horses, like these things that were part of our childhood that we felt and perhaps overlooked, or you grow up and you forget, but like when you can return to these pieces, they're like the the soulful breadcrumbs that make things so much more powerful.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Totally. I uh I mean, I'm all for this episode being titled The The Magic of Tree. A whole other audience. If we need this conversation, I know my community does too, and other people are gonna find us, but I love everything that you just shared. And I believe like that return to nature is always the answer. And there's something so powerful about just like laying under a tree and looking up and watching the leaves in the and in the wind and like meditating from that place and just you know how much that can bring you back to yourself. And I think of the trees again in our backyard that have connected us to the birds. I'm totally crazy bird. Oh my god. Oh my god. I was heads. I am upset. And and it wasn't till moving here because I swear we're on a crazy migration path. We get the coolest birds, we have like the apps to track them. We have our life list. Like I'm and I send my family and I send that's literally our family group chat is screenshots of the latest bird that we added to our life list. Cause I love it. And I find so much, I found so birds have been very symbolic to me. I I've shared many stories about that of these swans that um are a big part of my book because when I was trying to figure out the title for my book, I was like, I couldn't figure it out. And I'm asking the universe, like, I need us like some something, I need this to land, I need it to be the right title. And it was the first spring that we had been moved into our new home, or maybe the second spring, either way. It was almost a year. And all of a sudden, this one evening, my husband and I kind of have finally the kids are in bed. We have our quiet time as the sun's setting, and we hear this like honking or this trumpet. And I thought it was geese at first, and then these two wands fly across our backyard, across the tree line, across the sunset, in just the most stunning, like it just took your breath away kind of moment. And it didn't hit me right away. And I was like, oh, cool. Like that was amazing. That was beautiful. We're nerding out on it. The next night, do I not hear them at the exact same time? And the night after that, and the night after that, every night they would fly by. And I'm like, they're coming home to the pond down the street from us. And that's when it landed for my book title. I'm like, it's called Coming Home. I'm coming home to my home that I rebuilt with my family and to myself. And that's the power of nature. And I could nerd out on this forever. I also have to tell you, I just quickly, while you're talking, looked up because I'm like, I need to know the energy of number three in a home. A home with a number three carries a light, joyful, expressive vibe. Like this shit up. It's the kind of space that feels alive, where conversations flow easily, laughter is common, and creativity naturally unfolds. Wow. Full shivers. So it's it's a three home is all about expression, creativity, and energy. Wow. Wow. Everyone go look up this the numerology of your home. Yeah. And maybe it's not, maybe it's not your favorite home or your aligned home, but it it could be the home still that you need in this season of your life. And there's a purpose behind that.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

There's always a purpose. Oh my greatness. Okay, well, I can't wait for our next episode called Birds. Right. Okay, I have to share. Um I literally, like, as you're talking, I remember driving to the mountains once and I looked and I was like, what is that? Like, is that a swan? You know, like a moment of literally being like, is that a swan? And then thinking, no, like you've lost your mind. We're in Alberta. Swans don't exist here. And so I just think it's so funny that you're like, the swans flew by. I also, someone in my joiness community shared a picture and was like, or there's a certain type of swan. And I was like, holy moly, I I thought I was seeing things. So it's just interesting. Two times in the past two weeks that swan energy is coming in. I'm gonna look up like the meaning behind it. Yeah. Um, and I just love it and I love you, and I love your story, and I just so feel your heart, and I'm so grateful to know you. And thank you for the invite to come and connect. Like, I just feel like this is you know, podcasts, we're really just connecting. You're welcome to listen to our connection talk, you know?

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Yeah, you're welcome, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

But I'm so grateful to just meet you. And I feel like this is a beginning of a whole lot of magic.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

Oh my gosh, you have to look up that swan on on the app and see if maybe it's on a path or something. We have I had an eagle spotting in town not that long ago, which is so rare for where we are. And I'm like, no, I it was an eagle. I absolutely and I saw it with the kids and they're nerding out too. Like they also now love watching birds, and uh, my daughter will like run out and be like, a blue heron, you know, and her friends are like, What? I love what you're talking about. I feel like we're gonna hang out in each other's forests and bird together. Yes, please. Okay, let's make it happen. I love it. Oh my gosh, this was so powerful. I'd love to kind of wrap up with a little bit of rapid fire, or maybe not so rapid fire. Um, but first, actually, I I want to know who is your favorite self in this season of life and business for you.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

Like what just came immediately was the honest one. Like just the real, like the real, like who I truly am, which is all of me. It's you know, honoring that little girl aspect and giving her room to experience what she's here to experience and give her that space she really didn't get earlier. Um, it's the version of me that gets to hold a frequency that's higher than I even dreamed possible, and really honoring my power in this lifetime by sharing my gifts fully and unabashedly. I'm yeah, I feel like I'm really proud of myself for um releasing the responsibility for everyone around me so that I can step into my leadership and really like ignite others to share their codes of joy with the world. And I think the piece of me that's just really true, like will show up and say, you know what, I got an eye rash and I wanted to cancel and and is leading through the practice of joy and being and the humanness not needing to be something other than who I am.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Oh my God. So good. I love how much I felt like my favorite self in this conversation with you. And and to me, that's exactly what you said from the start is there's a reason, you know, that you could that you didn't cancel and that this conversation had to happen. I I I am confident others that are listening are feeling that too. Cause I don't know how you possibly couldn't. There's this just really tangible feeling of of joy. Like you just truly uh I need to be around you all the time.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

I want to teach you how to. So that's the other piece that I've learned. Like, and this is the energy I'm in now. Actually, Stacy and I are in a speaker mastermind, and she really brought this home for me is like that if people don't always feel like they can access it. So it is who we are by nature, but we need to be able to access it. And I feel like that's what I do because while I love being the joy for everyone, like it's not feasible, it's not sustainable. And like I've realized that there have been places where maybe I'm doing more lifting than I need to. My role is to ignite it in you. Like, and I call it ignite your inner joy warrior, you know, that piece of you that's like the soft and the strong, the realness, um, that aspect of you that can carry yourself and hold your own hand through those fires so that you can get to the other side and be in the purpose rather than the pain.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

Yes. Yeah. It's like taking a person to fish, right? Right. Yes. That was a huge pivotal moment in my work because I realized as a done-for-you marketing agency, you know, I started off as a social media manager, as a copywriter. And my superpower, I felt, was like really channeling through and seeing my clients' power of their story and reflecting it back to them in their copy for their website, for their emails, for their social media. But I over time realized there was this gap because I'm like, it's one thing for me to write the story and present it to them and reflect it back to them. But if they're not doing the work to truly embody it and believe in that power themselves and own it, then there's no longevity to that. And it's not, they're not gonna be able to hold it that same way. So that's what really shifted my role in my work. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

Like, oh my gosh, full shivers. I literally, I sent out two emails today to a couple of facilitators. We're in the final stages of graduation, like where they write their signature sessions and I realized like where I've been overfunctioning. All this I like suffering is like giving me so much clarity, actually. I'm getting to see what I've not seen yet. And it's where have I been actually trying to lift people, you know, into their into their purpose where I can't, like I can't actually do that for you. I also do underground branding work, you know, where it's and it's the same thing where I can I can do all of this, but if it's not embodied. So, like the new era of leadership is embodied, it's you know, because at the new era is frequency, like the future is frequency, especially in the world of AI, what AI will never have is our energy. And so it's literally, this is why I say the best marketing you can ever do is literally be in your joy and be focusing on what you desire and and be feeling as good as you can. And that to me is better than any post you could write, especially if you're writing it out of force or shooting yourself. It's like, no, the way in which you're being in the world, your energy in the world is what will attract people. And I just it's such the same thing. Like, we're so on the same page. Let's start a new business together. Because we're not busy.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

We're just here first. Yeah, you heard it. But I I I completely agree. And that's why it never resonated for us as in social media to like go about it as here's your perfect formula, here's your template, here's your hooks, you know. As that was like such a huge thing for a while. And and we just stayed true true to our values, which really was there's no one size fits all for everyone. It's really so much, you know, the energy behind what you say is even more impactful than what you're actually saying. Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

So can you tell me? I know this is your podcast, but I did look up Web Awards yesterday. And can you tell me kind of like how do you handle that now? Like, how do you serve clients in ways that honors their embodiment so that the world can feel their energy?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Yeah. It's so we do in-person content shoots. That's a big part of it. And we'll like still bring the strategy behind it and the messaging, but helping them be in a spot to show up as their favorite self in this content shoot when we're banking a bunch of content so that they, you know, need that one day to show up in that energy. And then we can space that content out and still batch it and schedule it so that they're not having to, you know, worry about what they're posting every day. We have still that touch point with them, you know, every week, every day that is like checking in where they're feeling so they can show up in real time as well and they feel supported in that and that we can go in ebb and flow, you know, as stuff comes up. We can change the plan. We have we're flexible, we'll we'll adapt. Um, but I also believe, you know, when something downloads and you feel it in that moment, it's still going to resonate, you know, even if you're kind of batching it for next week. It it's still important to get the message out there. Um, and it's more about like, again, how you're sharing the message versus when exactly you're sharing it. I love it. Okay, we need to talk. Yes. Okay, let's do some rapid fire here because I know we'll we'll go on forever, which I'm here for, but I know I'm I'm told that there should be a time limit on these things. I don't know. I'm so with me. Holy God cancel my next line, so I'm good to go. We got all day. We got all day. Okay, so rapid fire, joy for you feels like sunshine, which is so funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Because I say it's not all sunshine and rainbows, but literally we've been like we just had the longest winter of ever. And just today I walked out to open there's a gate. Like, I can't even believe I just said that. Like that's the life I'm living to open the gate and was just I could smell the sun in the air. It's wild. Yeah. Joy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Justin Bieber's on the sun is out, hallelujah, is like on repeat in my head because literally the sun is out, hallelujah. What a difference. Not today, today's great, but that's okay. Maybe when this episode airs, it will be. Everyone will be the windows down, sign up. Okay. Moving on. What's a belief you've outgrown? Oh, did I have to do it all? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:26

What's something you used to chase that no longer matters?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

Validation.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:34

You got me. You got me there. What's your go-to reset when you're feeling off or disconnected?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Honestly, my puppy Lily, like just being with family, you know, yesterday I was very full and teaching into the evening. And I there was a part of me that's like, no, I have to work. And my husband's just like, No, let's go for a walk. And I just heard the call and I went, and it was just everything. Just take a moment, get outside, breathe in the air. Connect with the trees, like remember who you are.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

Yeah. Yeah. The power of a walk in nature. I tell it's the it's the ultimate medicine. Yeah. A moment when you recently just felt fully aligned.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:10

Oh a moment recently. Okay. I feel like there's a lot, and they're so like I feel like it's a simple one. Honestly, like this morning when I woke up, I had Lily on my left and David on my right. And I literally had my hand on him and my hand on her. And I just laid there thinking, like, I am the most abundant woman in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:31

Beautiful. And this isn't about me, but I'm gonna share that mine is right now. I feel so aligned in this conversation with you. Like, this is literally what lights me up and what I love about this. And I just feel such a connection with you. So what's one word for this season of your life?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

I have to say joy. I was like gonna stretch for something else because I'm it's so obvious, but like soul joy, you know? Deep soul joy. Yes. And what are you currently calling in? Woo working with you? I'm like, am I coming to Toronto? Am I coming back for a content shoot? I feel like Oh my god, yes, please. I feel like honestly, if I'm 100% honest, and it's probably why we're also meeting, is you know, when I think of because I I this work, like my work is joy. Um, but sometimes I find joy can pull me out of joy because I I want to do it so much. Like my mission is, and I I could tell a whole another podcast about this, but it's it's to light up the world like a field full of fireflies from the inside out together. Like that's my mission. And it's a big mission. And but it's also why I have facilitators and others, like I know I'm meant to ignite so that we get to do this all together, like a web, literal web. So I feel like I I want I want to call in the right support without like bloating expenses and team because I've had that experience recently, and I'm kind of bringing reining everything in because apparently you need to have profit to be in business. Okay. Uh, and not just like send all the money back out. But when I think of what I truly need and what would be most helpful for the mission would be the right people to support the the visibility and the and the vibe, like the frequency of it for people to feel the frequency in a way that I don't feel is accessible to me because I I know that I'm not meant to be worrying so much about that. I'm a manifester, so it's more like share the frequency, like speak it and do it. And then, but then to worry about how to process it, like feels not fun for me. Um, but I do I love social and so I love it when I love it. But you know, so I've always thought if I win the lotto, like I would hire the right marketing team. And and I just feel like, well, the lotto is possible. Like we live lotto lives. I manifested my lotto house without winning the lotto. Like, what if the lotto is just believing in it, the possibilities of it, and then I get to call in the right people to support it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

Or just living lotto lives. I love that. Yeah. I love and absolutely this is happening. And also we have some content creation events too. So I feel like that could be a great, especially if you can time it with your next trip. I don't know if you're coming back for high vibe in the fall. Maybe we can plan one around then or something, but oh my god, Jillian. I am just like, I'm gonna be floating on a high for the from this episode all the time. My eye feels sealed. Which feels it feels so good. It feels so good. I haven't had a sip of tea in a while now. I I mean it feels full circle because I yeah, coming back to that conversation at the beginning, like again, these physical symptoms that can mean so much more than that. It's it's incredible. I I'm just so happy to be connected with you. Uh I'm gonna immediately follow up with you and we're gonna have more chats. But thank you so, so much for showing up as your favorite self and reminding us all what that feels like and and just spreading so much joy to this community. I just so appreciate you. Thank you, Carly. I appreciate you. I freaking love you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

I'm so glad we found each other. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:49

Thank you so much, everyone. I hope that you all feel a little more joy in your heart today, and we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Favorite Self podcast. If this episode stirred something in you, there's a reason for it. You could take a moment to share with a friend, someone who's also building something brave. That would mean so much to me. Better yet, leave a review. It helps this message reach even more women who are ready to lead differently. And before you go, remember this your favorite self is already within you, waiting to be heard. See you next time.