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Hi, and welcome to Hypothetically Intentional, where we ask the question what if we set intentions with everything we do?
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I'm your host, Michelle Albers, and today I have Coach TJ with me.
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Welcome, TJ.
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Hey, Michelle.
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Thanks for having me on today.
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Thanks for being here, and I hear you are willing to set an intention for us today.
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Yeah, I um just wanted to kind of ground us, and and the the kind of theme that I have for today is called prune the overgrowth.
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It says just like a shrub that's grown unwildly, an aspect of your life needs pruning.
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Cut back what's outgrown, its cozy container, and become too much, like a commitment, a role, or a habit.
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View your life as a garden with just enough room to comfortably fit each relationship and responsibility.
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Don't overdo.
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Trim what's spread beyond the grounding boundary, or even become parasitic as wise preparation for new growth.
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And I just think that like prune the overgrowth, it's such a great thing to be doing during fall, isn't it?
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It's like it's prune the overgrowth of like the things you haven't cut back since summer, or when you were doing your spring cleaning, it's kind of like the perfect intention for our conversation today.
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It's so beautiful.
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And I have to say, there's something that stood out to me when you were reading that, and that was the the sentence, don't overdo it.
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Because I think like getting started with the pruning is hard, but once you start, sometimes you stop being mindful and you just kind of you can overdo it.
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And so I I actually love that just one little reminder of being it to me.
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What I heard there is be intentional when you do this.
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Yeah.
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That's amazing.
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So will you tell us the name of your business?
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Because I know you're coach, but will you say it?
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Because I I have questions just about that.
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Sure, absolutely.
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Um, so there's a whole journey with it, but my business is called Feminine Free and Fit.
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And um, like we were discussing before we came on air, like I have struggled to really relate to um the divine in relationship to the to the matriarchal side of things, and that's where this kind of stems from.
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Like, in a lot of kind of contemporary spaces that I've been in in a religious setting or a religious institution, there's a real struggle for guys to find uh a relationship to God or the divine in the context of matriarchal nurturing, naturing, grounding, pruning, all of those things.
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And the self is so kind of um rooted in the ego, um, that the feminine is nuanced, it's kind of frowned upon and almost too tender to touch.
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It's it's almost like it's the hot topic or the soft topic that nobody wants to touch or walk on.
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It's like the eggshells uh that we in in kind of uh from my previous kind of context don't touch upon enough.
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Um so I think it's why my business is called feminine free and fit, because for me as a person, it's been my whole healing journey and it's been the answer to really all of my questions about my my identity and my life.
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So you mean like the divine feminine within has been challenging for you?
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And so I love that you incorporated it into the name of your business.
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Yeah, I think the only way to really be upfront and honest about it is to name it for what it is.
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Yeah, people might have more questions or curiosity, but the name in itself, and it's we're a year old now, and I people are still questioning me, and I'm like, Well, we've been doing this a year.
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I'm not one of the first coaches I spoke to when I was having this conversation last fall when I was on the field of play in a soccer match for you know uh the the varsity high school that I was at at Liberty University, of all places.
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I had a coaching call with a divine feminine coach while I was on the sidelines, and she said, This is not gonna last two minutes, and that was kind of the motivation that spurred me on because she didn't believe that somebody in that position at that time could be who I am today, and I think that has shown me all of what I needed to know, which was that even to the divine feminine followers who are female and fully in tune with their feminine, they would not think that guys would be willing to kind of express or experience their shadow work or their divine feminine nature if they truly like went up close to it and personal.
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And I think that's kind of what's really hit home for me is that the shadow work and the divine feminine on the hot side of things is actually where guys sit most, more than women, I would argue, because we have really hot moments, like hot flushes, and we don't know what to do with our emotions in a way that we're like incomprehensibly and inexcusably antisocial.
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Like we turn into animals, we're like rogue agents, we become like this hostile alpha that has no boundaries, no borders, and completely off the wall.
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And that's not an insult to say that women aren't like that, because I know that feisty felines can be really like hot, but for guys, I think there's just no regulation.
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There's no regulation of breath, there's no regulation of emotions, there's no regulation of self.
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Um, and so coming from that angle where I was just constantly like that all the time.
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Yeah.
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So do you is that do you do you typically work with more men than women, or is it not necessarily gendered like that?
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And it's more about, you know, from the inside out regulating and learning how to what to do with emotions when they come up.
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And well, and you mentioned soccer.
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Like you coach mind, body, spirit, as well as like physical sports and things.
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Say more about that.
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Yeah, the reason I've like come at this from the perspective of the brand name was because we were called free and fit.
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So the original brand name was the the freedom represented uh Galatians 5, 1A, which says it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
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Very Christian, very, you know, fearless kind of mantra.
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And then the second part was the World Health Organization's definition of fitness, which is mental, physical, spiritual, and social health.
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I added the spirituality.
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So the World Health Organization defines fitness as physical, mental, and social.
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And the spiritual element for me was what just distinguished the free and fit challenge, which was my original curriculum that I wrote back in 2015, you know, 11 years ago now.
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And I wrote that whilst I was living in London.
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I was a youth pastor, a school chaplain, and a teacher.
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I taught religious education.
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I was in inner city London where there was large gang crime.
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That April of 2016, the city that I was in, we experienced 36 stabbings, some of which were fatal, right on side our church courtyard.
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There were like four Mondays in that month of April where there were stabbings on each corner.
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So it was toxic masculinity at its finest, you know, like gang crime, initiations, stab wounds, all the things.
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And that's when I wrote that curriculum and I wrote about the issues that kids would face, whether they were what we would say in England year seven, grade six here in the US to K, you know, really K through 12.
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But we had our the irony was in that year when I was the appointed chaplain to that school, it was the first year that they had girls in the school.
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So it was a really funny time when I look back at it, because it was the integration, it was an all-boys school, and it was the first year of integration of girls into the school.
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And I was the physical education teacher for the year seven girls soccer team and the six-form boys team.
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Talk about like total pose apart.
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Yeah, and so that kind of defines this moment.
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Like if I go back to that point, this was always a journey for me.
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Like I, you know, my mother and father divorced when I was 13.
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I was raised by my mother during the week, and I would travel on weekends to my father.
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So it was kind of like a chaotic kind of cultural life for me.
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It was like I was in the southwest of England in Devon on the weekends, and I was during the week just outside of Inner City London.
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So, like, you've got poles apart different cultures where I was growing up, and every weekend I was ferried back and forth.
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And I think that the feline part of me was expressed at that point.
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My sister and my mother became like my family.
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My father had two daughters, and like and my stepmother.
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So there was more female influence in my life than my father probably would have liked.
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Yeah, and it was a generational family of um Freemasonry.
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So it's like a deep patriarchal, like two generations served in the first and second world war.
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My father stopped serving, I didn't serve.
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So there was like a real heaviness around the patriarchal in my family, and then like through my parents' divorce, through the kind of, like I said to you, experiences I had in inner city London to inner city New York, where I was trained in my seminary career as a pastor, and where I birthed my entrepreneurship really into Charlotte, North Carolina, where you would have thought in the South the feminine side of me would have died in a Bible about kind of culture.
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But it's actually what birthed it, probably more naturally, because there was so much opposition to it that my body and my soul cried out.
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Because when I was preaching and when I was teaching, I do so with a justice mindset.
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My denomination who I work with is proud of like the justice work of inequality, and that has always been my journey to be a cognitive person who fights for whether it's um racial inequality, you know, poor to rich, uh refugee to um kind of expat, because I'm an expat myself.
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My best friend is an Iranian refugee, and and and his wife has just moved to the country.
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She's literally uh sitting her doctor's exam in Manchester this week um to become like a doctor in the UK from Iran.
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He's Iran, he like his specialism in uh doctorate is defense.
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It's just you don't write this stuff, it's like so inexplicably.
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My life story is the fruit of um the purpose that I have that I'm yet to fully ignite, if you know what I mean.
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Like I'm on this pathway to to something greater injustice, and like I'm recognizing in myself the injustices that the world has experienced and I've not been aware of in my little, you know, white privileged contemporary Christian corner.
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So I'm like trying to find ways to identify how to help and not hinder.
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And kind of like one of the biggest transitions for me, and I I think this is a great example, of kind of like answering that question to, you know, why coach, why feminine, why free and fit?
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And so why coach?
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Because you listen and you have to facilitate the instruction that somebody is directing themselves as a coach.
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Your job is not to tell somebody what to do, but to tease out of them, as you would as a teacher, as you would as a pastor, as you would as a chaplain, as you would as a youth worker, to to listen and to hear what it is that is the root cause of somebody's injustice in their life.
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And that can be understanding, it can be developmental, it can be cognitive.
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But if you have these different skills that I've picked up in my life, I think it's really the the the the kind of like bait, if you like, as a coach, you're trying to give someone bait, you're trying to feed them what you're they're telling you so that you can reel in for them what is um the solution to their kind of root cause problem.
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And so that kind of feminine part of me that has been awoken is like the the yoga part of me, you know, that has been born from kind of being a competitive runner to a yoga instructor to where I left the church um as a full-time pastor to becoming a janitor in a yoga studio.
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Like it's the very humbling part of my story, which I feel like defines um what I sought to find out, which was the curiosity of how can I help?
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And the song, I think it's you know, don't give men the microphone.
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I forget the lyrics, but the song is don't give men the microphone.
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And often in my case, I've seen pastor after pastor after pastor after pastor fall off of um their pulpit stage because of different issues, including, you know, infidelity, divorce, financial management, and and all of it, I think, is rooted in this one cause that they do not have a relationship to their feminine.
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Because they can't nurture themselves when they're in peak periods, either in large organizations where there's too many people for them to attend to and their growth is too quick that they can't nurture themselves, or it's in a small organization where they don't have enough staff or volunteers to support them, and they don't have the self-awareness to recognize that they need to nurture themselves as they're nurturing others.
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And it's that kind of like matriarchal self that I established in me as I surrendered, that I recognized that humbleness does not mean title or restricting yourself to less, it means becoming less so that you can enable others to become more.
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And so, like the softening, the surrendering was necessary for me, um, but it was voluntarily.
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I mean, I I was not resigned from my position until theoretically, end of May.
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And I made the choice in the beginning of January that I wanted to be a janitor in a yoga studio.
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And I'm still there now.
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I even made the decision in in this last month to allow space for my own healing from a failed yoga audition.
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And while others were still going for spaces, I was like, I can't audition in the same time while other people who are my friends, who are like I felt the pain of their failed auditions, and so like I felt like if I was auditioning again with them, that I could be taking their place.
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And I found out that for this month, I was one of the only people auditioning, and I was like, Well, that gives me peace because that means I'm not taking someone else's place as a guy, taking someone else's place, and that I was stepping into a space which was unoccupied, and my you know, my studio manager said, We need eight people, so like there's a need.
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Whereas the previous months, my friends were still auditioning, they still had their classes, and the majority female, there's one guy who I won't say the name, but has been subbing every class and trying to take over everything, which totally tells me that that would be me.
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Like, that would be me maybe just two years ago or even six months ago, trying to take ground, trying to dominate, trying to be the alpha.
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And as soon as I recognize that that rises up in me, I have to step back because it's like a recognition that a lot of guys will tell me you should not be afraid to lead.
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There's nothing wrong with you leading.
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And that's the response that I receive from guys when I talk about it.
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And I say, but leadership doesn't necessarily come from being the number one figure in a team of people leading them.
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Oftentimes, the best leader is the one that's on the sidelines, who's able to listen and speaks up in particular moments when you need words of wisdom.
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Um, and that's the kind of leader I think I need to be more of, rather than somebody who's dominating and trying to take ground and trying to be the egotistical part of it.
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So when we talk about spirituality and the feminine, it leads me to what I've just started right now, which is in the past couple of months, I've been studying um with a lady called Megan Waterson.
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She's doing a course this year on Mary Magdalene, and the House of Mary Magdalene is the kind of name of this group, and it's for nine months studying the Gospel of Mary, and it goes back to the idea that um the the developmental structure of Mary's writings were that in her gospel the main theme is mercy, and there's two things she's trying to define, which Megan talks about, which is that one way of seeing Jesus' teachings is that his whole instruction was less about the ego and and more about the heart, and the heart of who Jesus was, and the heart of his teachings, and his instructions, and who he had by his side at crucial moments in his life and afterlife.
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And so that draws me to the resurrection, and it draws me to the story of how his body was found, and how like the whole conceptual understanding of how the gospel was spread is through healers who were tending to him with an ancient tradition of coming to anoint his body as a death ritual, and that was how they found his body.
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And and I think that as um patriarchal conceptual uh understanding, it it may not be my belief, but if you have to balance your body and mind, soul and spirit, you have to be able to understand, listen, hear, conceptually take on different perspectives of religious beliefs and doctrinal and dogmatic beliefs sometimes define a denomination, a church, a religious group, or a people group, and it excludes parts of yourself that you may not be aware of need attending to, like a garden.
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If you leave the weeds and you let them grow, then parts of you will die.
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Um, and if you allow that dogmatic like doctrinal theological belief to take root, that can be your weed because there's no space for your full self to fully be expressed.
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And so for so many guys who don't have a relationship to the divine and the feminine, that's kind of part of how I try to speak to families and females, because in a family, you have a male and a female as the headship together in in traditional 2.4 children, you know, like the the family of a male and a female, as parent and and and and mother and father, or patriarchal and matriarchal, however, your family, if it's blended, if it's of two women and two men, however that appears, there needs to be a balance of patriarchal and matriarchal influence, however that forms.
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And so if you're in a family without that, and it's discombobulated into a um kind of heavy patriarchal.
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Now that could be a man and a woman, that could be two women or two men, it it can be any formula of human expression, but the matriarchal nurture, if that is left there, then the pruning that we set for the intention of this is not possible.
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And the pruning has to start in the self, and so a lot of deconstruction of what people do lies in what they think is their religious beliefs, but I think that actually greater than that for humanity is a need for deconstruction in our familial upbringing.
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Um, we're as as children between the age of zero to twelve, that's where in our cognitive um you know mental progression from birth to adult.
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We make foundational beliefs firm.
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Like the whole human psyche is created between that age group.
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And that was the whole of my family time.
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Like, you know, my parents divorced when I was 13, but the work had already been done, you know, the foundations were set.
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So I I'm almost deconstructing not just my religious institutional um patriarchal structures, but I'm also having to deconstruct my familial patriarchal instruction so that I can fully develop to be a balanced human being.
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And that's not necessarily therapy.
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That's self-reflection, self-awareness, life experience, and just identifying that there's a there's a need for me to pause on on my career, my life, my my own personal progression before I do anything because I haven't yet healed from this trauma.
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You know?
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And I just wonder as like families begin to create life or begin to form their child's upbringing, how much of that that they're aware that that familial deconstruction needs to happen.
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And that's kind of like where my coaching comes in, because I think for a family, I want to be able to speak to the father, I want to be able to speak to the mother, and I want to be able to help the children.
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And as a teacher, as a pastor, as a coach, you know, I'm talking about I've worked through, you know, the beginnings of life at baptism, the commissioning of, you know, the teenager to receive their first communion, to death rights at the funeral burial.
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Like I've walked through in my career every part of life stage, and I'm working now with kids yoga and elderly yoga in a very different format, but I'm still in the same places I've always been.
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You know, I've been a youth worker and now I'm teaching kids yoga.
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I was a pastor and I'm now teaching chair exercises classes to the elderly in over 55 communities.
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I've uh if there is a relationship to the divine, that theme has never left me.
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And my beliefs may have been opened, but they don't necessarily have to shift.
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And I think that's the core thing about everything I've learned is that although I've gone through this rebrand, although I've been blessed with a whole shift in my psyche, self, and health, I don't need to shift my beliefs because I've been opened to all of these different experiences.
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You know, like I can still believe what I want to believe, and I can still appreciate other people without having predetermined judgments about who they are, what they look like, or where they come from.
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And I think in our age today, based upon our algorithm and our social media and our just human DNA, everything is about kind of putting somebody in a box.
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And we as humans, we are not that simple.
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We are not that simple, and we are very complex.
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And as much as society and structures and systems and algorithms and AI try to contain us, we in ourselves are unfulfilled, depressed, let's be, let's be clear, and stressed because we're not fully living as human beings as we were meant to be born into inhabit this world by living off the earth.
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The fruit of our DNA is that we're meant to like meander around in fields, work for a day, and live and and be amongst the earth.
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We were never created to be on screens or to be built into this life of like um developmental technological rhythms where we are on a screen to nine to five to then be on our phones and reels from six to ten.
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Like that's just not how we were created.
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And yet, society is creating this bubble for us to be on screens and to be in our chairs and to be in our cars and to be restricted.
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But we have this expansive universe that we live in, this world which is so vastly amazing, with so many of us populating it, yet we don't live.
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And so, like just this realization for me is kind of like it's not even about the size of what box I'm in, or the restriction or denial of self.
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It's all about the expansiveness of our creator allowing us to live freely without obligation or um, you know, just this inherent need to define everything we do by a name, a label, a brand, or uh an identity, and and the the freedom that we have when we can find ourselves truly centered upon the universe that we live in rather than the belief systems that we have to exist within it, um, we can truly live.
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But if we deny the opportunity we've been given, our life, like I said, becomes restricted, uh suppressed, and and really like we're we're negatively kind of unofficially grounded, and we're not pruning, we're like the reverse, we're we're kind of nullified and denied the opportunity to live.
00:27:55.599 --> 00:28:19.680
So I just think like that's that's been the freedom of the feminine for me, and and just the the whimsical parts of it, which are not necessarily woo-woo or particularly rooted in um dare I say the word, um heretical lifestyles.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:43.680
They're more about just expressing myself to engage with people, belief systems, or groups that I was never able to in the spaces I was living in before, and I'm so much more softer, gentler, kinder on myself than than I ever was before, and I still struggle with that.
00:28:44.079 --> 00:28:52.640
But um I'm better than I was yesterday, but I really mean that, and I think that that's a phrase we throw around a lot.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:29:04.799
But I'm better than I was yesterday because I've lived through yesterday, I've experienced it, I've learned from it, and now today I'm well informed to live differently.
00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:07.279
Yeah, that's amazing.
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:19.039
Well, and if we circle it all the way back to the beginning and the pruning, I feel like what you just talked about, I mean, you gave us so many things to chew on and to think about and to even not even think about, but like to embody and explore, I guess I'll say it that way.
00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:22.480
Because I think sometimes we just overthink about it and that creates the labels in the boxes.
00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:29.440
But when we can embody and get curious about and explore, like embody what works and explore what doesn't, prune it, you know, that's amazing.
00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:37.279
But if we go all the way back to pruning, I hear what I just heard in what you just said feels so much about it's like pruning your internal world.
00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:44.400
Like it feels like your journey has been somebody told you you couldn't do something, and it was a wake-up call for you, is kind of what I heard in that.
00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:50.480
And then it started to unopen and unlock, maybe even or unbox, maybe is a good way to put it.
00:29:50.720 --> 00:30:01.920
A bunch of things that you brought awareness and intention to that has now shifted your entire life and maybe changed a how you want to show up in the world, but also how you're able to show up in the world.
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:16.880
And I think that's such a a beautiful reminder where you landed there of the internal landscape and how we get to engage with that, how it feels aligned for us, and if we set the intention to live better today than we did yesterday.
00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:18.400
What a beautiful intention.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.920
And where does that take us, you know, three months down the road?
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:38.880
I think that because that little, you know, tiny degree that we make internally today, when you walk it out, that pie wedge becomes wider and wider, and it's a bigger shift, takes us to a different place, more than we realize is possible, is is is what I heard in all the things that you were saying.
00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:41.680
So thank you for sharing all of that.
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:43.759
That's such so many things to reflect on.
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.079
I have probably a million questions, but we'll be here for three hours.
00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:47.759
So we might have to do a part two.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:49.599
Sure.
00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:53.920
I it made me think of one example which I really like.
00:30:54.319 --> 00:31:10.880
And one of the things that I've continued to do through my journey is provide chaplaincy because it's kind of interfaced and it's not forward-facing, it's it's very um 360-degree reflective and and it's interfaced.
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:30.240
And so, really, what I've identified with is in one of the settings that I'm in where I do that chaplaincy, I encounter retail assistants in the brand Pandora, which obviously is jewelry, it's very feminine, it's pink, it's bright, it's fluorescent, it's all the things.
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:37.599
And when I go in there, I always say, I wonder what's opened and awaken in Pandora's box.
00:31:37.839 --> 00:32:02.480
And the girls laugh, and I and I think to myself, from my dogmatic doctrinal perspective, it was almost like I opened Pandora's box, but actually, opening Pandora's box was the gift, it was what opened for me like a doorway to freedom, and it's on the other side of like so much oppression, so much you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that.
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:43.680
And is it wise to hide or to deny all of these things to to our young people who will never get to experience some of the most beautiful things in our world because we tell them it's not okay, but everything in moderation and and with caution, and and if we can apply that to life, um and somebody who struggles with OCD and and and has like an awareness of how that obsession can lead to so much distraction from what you want to do.
00:32:43.759 --> 00:33:03.359
And as a perfectionist, I think like the thing that helps me to kind of surrender and soften is the uh is the inherent nervous system that is now awoken in me that's almost like a metaphorical womb space that I'm sure a lot of guys don't realize they have.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:26.880
And the solar plexus, it it when you become aware of your chakras, when you regulate your nervous system, when you breathe with intention, it it awakens and it enables you to just see things from a gentler and a more balanced perspective.
00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:30.319
And I cannot say that my journey is unique.
00:33:30.480 --> 00:34:05.680
I think that actually more and more guys would probably privately share that they've done this same kind of shedding, shadow work, um, but haven't been able to identify with it as that and and other things or called it other things, and whether it's like burning past experiences by writing them down, or it's you know going to cryotherapy and and having you know a deep plunge, or going to the sauna.
00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:15.840
Like there's so many different ways we we burn or we freeze, and that kind of hot and cold that we're talking about is the way that we deal with our emotions.
00:34:15.920 --> 00:34:18.639
Like we either want to burn it or we want to freeze it.
00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:22.800
We either want to destroy it and run completely out of head on.
00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:33.760
Like, you know, I always say this, I either do one thing or the other, I'll either explode and like cause a self-meltdown, or I'll ruin something, I'll destroy it.
00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:41.679
And that's kind of the hot and cold of like the cryotherapy that I've been getting to the you know, hot yoga classes I've been going to.
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:44.480
So it's kind of like the extreme.
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:53.920
But if you can get those temperatures into your life naturally, then you find balance because you Well Yeah, go ahead.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:54.320
Go ahead.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:35:10.960
Yeah, you're touching on the the parts of your body that needs regulation through, you know, expressing your door endorphins, and I just find myself like softer and gentler more of the time because I've been able to experience those extreme temperatures.
00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:11.920
Yeah.
00:35:12.239 --> 00:35:17.199
Well, and I think if we're always in the extreme temperatures, that's like full-blown avoidance on some level.
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:19.760
Because you can't burn it or freeze it unless it's ready to go.
00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:26.719
So it's just going to keep resurfacing until you until you actually sit with it and move through it or move with it and then through it, you know.
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:39.760
And so it's like this how do we have awareness and discernment to know our capacity to know if we're ready to sit with it, move through it, versus, you know, be on the extreme ends all the time.
00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:44.960
And it's that softness you talk about, like that alchemy in the middle, where, well, middle, right?
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:53.440
In the in the in the in-between where you get to explore it and get curious about it in a way that offers yourself that divine feminine side.
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:56.159
But there has to be divine masculine too, right?
00:35:56.239 --> 00:35:57.119
Like we need all of it.
00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:08.639
Yeah, I mean, I one thing I'm confident of is that I never need to worry about, like, people say to me, Are you worried that you're gonna have too much of the feminine versus the masculine?
00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:10.480
I'm like, there's no way.
00:36:10.719 --> 00:36:12.159
I am so alpha.
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:18.000
Like, as soon as I turn to my scroll on my football team, bang, I'm there.
00:36:18.079 --> 00:36:20.000
I don't need a trigger or a switch.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:22.400
I'm like naturally masculine.
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:25.199
There's no need to worry about that.
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:31.519
Like a competitive, I'm like, I want to do everything first, I want to be first, I want to be number one.
00:36:31.679 --> 00:36:35.840
Like, there's no need for me to be aware of my masculine.
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:41.920
Like, there's just a uh a natural embedded DNA part of me that's there.
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:45.440
So I'm not at all worried about that.
00:36:45.599 --> 00:37:29.760
Um, and I'm not trying to speak ill of it because I've studied it from a sporting context in a Christian context, which is going way back to, you know, the foundations of the Commonwealth, to the you know, DNA of my own family and and origins of my family name, which go back to the you know, one of the first um kind of like Washington's first like um family lawyer was was the senior uh lawyer to Massachusetts, and and and that's how far this goes back, like to the Battle of Britain.
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:33.519
Like my family name just travels all the way through history.
00:37:34.079 --> 00:37:46.079
Um and it it's all patriarchal, Freemasonry, and masculine, and I and I'm the last tie to it, like in my family uh DNA, and I flipped it.
00:37:46.320 --> 00:38:02.480
We you know, I d I don't think I'm gonna have um biological children, and I don't think um that's not without trying, but it's it's it's uh it's almost like the end of a patriarchal hold.
00:38:03.199 --> 00:38:06.480
And and the only expression that continues is feminine.
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:08.559
My sisters can have children.
00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:24.320
My sisters had children, my two other sisters will have children, but the biological patriarchal part of us has almost died, and that is kind of quite beautiful in the life will continue in a more feminine, you know.
00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:36.960
As much as my sister is having a boy, and she's extremely masculine, like it it goes without saying that there is still the nurture and nature.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:48.880
She my sister is so feminine to my nephew because of her cognitive awareness of the patriarchal, but she can't name it or identify it with it, but it's there.
00:38:49.119 --> 00:39:02.079
So I just I think like the whole release of um that stronghold over me and my family is quite beautiful in a way.
00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:08.000
Um that's the comfort I find from you know not having biological children, I think.
00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:08.880
Yeah.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:10.639
Yeah.
00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:21.280
Well, I know your time is restricted today a little bit, and I want to honor your time, but I would love it if you would share on the mic how people can find you.
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:22.800
Yeah, sure.
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:26.079
I mean, the best way is Instagram at feminine free and fit.
00:39:26.159 --> 00:39:28.159
Uh, you can DM me right there.
00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:36.559
I am all work in progress with all of these things because as much as I've shared, it it's a lot of work.
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:40.559
Um, and working on the self is a full-time job.
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:46.000
Um, so if that's where you are, uh we're a family-driven company.
00:39:46.159 --> 00:40:23.280
I'm a family wellness concierge, if you like, and I provide coaching for the self in a life coach capacity to the family so that they can decipher what their family needs, whether that's a yoga instructor, a tennis coach, you know, an after school activities director, a first communion, wherever you are, if you're dealing with a life stage change in your family, where you're caring for a loved one at latter stages of life, that's that's where I am, like there for the family as a whole.
00:40:23.599 --> 00:40:34.639
And as a teacher, a pastor, and as a coach, I feel like I'm able to offer some very nuanced and passive feedback.
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:39.280
And and a lot of people say, you know, you don't have kids, how would you know?
00:40:39.360 --> 00:41:08.079
And I would say, well, part of being an expert is being able to be impartial and being able to see the upbringing from your own upbringing to teaching in education, to coaching students from varsity high school to college, to coaching adults to dealing with premarital to cognitive awareness of self-care for the life-ending stages of a parent.
00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:13.440
That is not about being a parent in a family.
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:25.119
That is about being a person available to an individual who needs your help when they're mourning, grieving, and seeking counsel from a pastoral perspective.
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:47.760
And both as a teacher and as a pastor, that pastoral care that I've learned through my MNA and education to a master's in divinity, to all the experiences that I've had in life, whether in a city London or rural South Carolina, it it really defines the the depth of um what an individual needs where you can be impartial and sincere.
00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:59.199
Um, and that that comes from being able to abstractively see the the emotions you're going through because of the the stage that you're at in life to that outcome.
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:02.880
So at feminine free and fit Instagram, DM me.
00:42:03.199 --> 00:42:03.679
Beautiful.
00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:08.239
Or simply text me, 201-774-4133.
00:42:08.559 --> 00:42:15.039
Um, I prefer direct communication and I prefer small groups, family sizes.
00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:22.880
Um, if you have a squad of 12 or if you're just with one individual child, like that's where you you want me to be.
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:34.800
And I just like small families, I like small beginnings because the notorious part of the work that I do is that I'm only with people for six to twelve weeks.
00:42:35.039 --> 00:42:41.119
You know, like it's a stage, it's a season, and it's kind of crisis management a lot of the time.
00:42:41.360 --> 00:42:45.920
So um that's that's where that sits, if that makes sense.
00:42:46.239 --> 00:42:47.119
Yeah, beautiful.
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:47.599
Thank you.
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:50.880
Thank you so much for sharing your story or parts of your story today, too.
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:52.079
I appreciate it very much.
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:53.360
And thanks for joining us here.
00:42:53.599 --> 00:42:55.199
Yeah, no worries, thank you.
00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:08.400
Hi, and welcome to Hypothetically Intentional, where we ask the question what if we set intentions with everything we do?
00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:12.080
I'm your host, Michelle Albers, and today I have Coach TJ with me.
00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:13.359
Welcome, TJ.
00:00:13.919 --> 00:00:14.720
Hey, Michelle.
00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:15.839
Thanks for having me on today.
00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:20.640
Thanks for being here, and I hear you are willing to set an intention for us today.
00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:31.199
Yeah, I um just wanted to kind of ground us, and and the the kind of theme that I have for today is called prune the overgrowth.
00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:36.079
It says just like a shrub that's grown unwildly, an aspect of your life needs pruning.
00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:42.320
Cut back what's outgrown, its cozy container, and become too much, like a commitment, a role, or a habit.
00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:48.719
View your life as a garden with just enough room to comfortably fit each relationship and responsibility.
00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:49.759
Don't overdo.
00:00:50.159 --> 00:00:58.399
Trim what's spread beyond the grounding boundary, or even become parasitic as wise preparation for new growth.
00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:04.719
And I just think that like prune the overgrowth, it's such a great thing to be doing during fall, isn't it?
00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:17.359
It's like it's prune the overgrowth of like the things you haven't cut back since summer, or when you were doing your spring cleaning, it's kind of like the perfect intention for our conversation today.
00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:18.560
It's so beautiful.
00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:25.040
And I have to say, there's something that stood out to me when you were reading that, and that was the the sentence, don't overdo it.
00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:34.000
Because I think like getting started with the pruning is hard, but once you start, sometimes you stop being mindful and you just kind of you can overdo it.
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:39.200
And so I I actually love that just one little reminder of being it to me.
00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:42.000
What I heard there is be intentional when you do this.
00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:42.959
Yeah.
00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:44.480
That's amazing.
00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:46.799
So will you tell us the name of your business?
00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:48.480
Because I know you're coach, but will you say it?
00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:50.319
Because I I have questions just about that.
00:01:50.719 --> 00:01:51.840
Sure, absolutely.
00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:57.040
Um, so there's a whole journey with it, but my business is called Feminine Free and Fit.
00:01:57.359 --> 00:02:13.120
And um, like we were discussing before we came on air, like I have struggled to really relate to um the divine in relationship to the to the matriarchal side of things, and that's where this kind of stems from.
00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:35.120
Like, in a lot of kind of contemporary spaces that I've been in in a religious setting or a religious institution, there's a real struggle for guys to find uh a relationship to God or the divine in the context of matriarchal nurturing, naturing, grounding, pruning, all of those things.
00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:50.719
And the self is so kind of um rooted in the ego, um, that the feminine is nuanced, it's kind of frowned upon and almost too tender to touch.
00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:58.400
It's it's almost like it's the hot topic or the soft topic that nobody wants to touch or walk on.
00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:09.599
It's like the eggshells uh that we in in kind of uh from my previous kind of context don't touch upon enough.
00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:25.680
Um so I think it's why my business is called feminine free and fit, because for me as a person, it's been my whole healing journey and it's been the answer to really all of my questions about my my identity and my life.
00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:31.120
So you mean like the divine feminine within has been challenging for you?
00:03:31.199 --> 00:03:34.560
And so I love that you incorporated it into the name of your business.
00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:40.639
Yeah, I think the only way to really be upfront and honest about it is to name it for what it is.
00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:51.599
Yeah, people might have more questions or curiosity, but the name in itself, and it's we're a year old now, and I people are still questioning me, and I'm like, Well, we've been doing this a year.
00:03:51.759 --> 00:04:06.080
I'm not one of the first coaches I spoke to when I was having this conversation last fall when I was on the field of play in a soccer match for you know uh the the varsity high school that I was at at Liberty University, of all places.
00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:52.000
I had a coaching call with a divine feminine coach while I was on the sidelines, and she said, This is not gonna last two minutes, and that was kind of the motivation that spurred me on because she didn't believe that somebody in that position at that time could be who I am today, and I think that has shown me all of what I needed to know, which was that even to the divine feminine followers who are female and fully in tune with their feminine, they would not think that guys would be willing to kind of express or experience their shadow work or their divine feminine nature if they truly like went up close to it and personal.
00:04:52.480 --> 00:05:23.120
And I think that's kind of what's really hit home for me is that the shadow work and the divine feminine on the hot side of things is actually where guys sit most, more than women, I would argue, because we have really hot moments, like hot flushes, and we don't know what to do with our emotions in a way that we're like incomprehensibly and inexcusably antisocial.
00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:34.480
Like we turn into animals, we're like rogue agents, we become like this hostile alpha that has no boundaries, no borders, and completely off the wall.
00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:44.160
And that's not an insult to say that women aren't like that, because I know that feisty felines can be really like hot, but for guys, I think there's just no regulation.
00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:49.040
There's no regulation of breath, there's no regulation of emotions, there's no regulation of self.
00:05:49.519 --> 00:05:58.399
Um, and so coming from that angle where I was just constantly like that all the time.
00:05:59.199 --> 00:05:59.839
Yeah.
00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:07.680
So do you is that do you do you typically work with more men than women, or is it not necessarily gendered like that?
00:06:07.759 --> 00:06:14.720
And it's more about, you know, from the inside out regulating and learning how to what to do with emotions when they come up.
00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:16.720
And well, and you mentioned soccer.
00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:23.920
Like you coach mind, body, spirit, as well as like physical sports and things.
00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:25.199
Say more about that.
00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:31.839
Yeah, the reason I've like come at this from the perspective of the brand name was because we were called free and fit.
00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:39.040
So the original brand name was the the freedom represented uh Galatians 5, 1A, which says it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:43.600
Very Christian, very, you know, fearless kind of mantra.
00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:53.120
And then the second part was the World Health Organization's definition of fitness, which is mental, physical, spiritual, and social health.
00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:54.959
I added the spirituality.
00:06:55.120 --> 00:06:59.920
So the World Health Organization defines fitness as physical, mental, and social.
00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:10.160
And the spiritual element for me was what just distinguished the free and fit challenge, which was my original curriculum that I wrote back in 2015, you know, 11 years ago now.
00:07:10.560 --> 00:07:13.199
And I wrote that whilst I was living in London.
00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:17.360
I was a youth pastor, a school chaplain, and a teacher.
00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:19.199
I taught religious education.
00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:23.120
I was in inner city London where there was large gang crime.
00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:31.199
That April of 2016, the city that I was in, we experienced 36 stabbings, some of which were fatal, right on side our church courtyard.
00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:36.879
There were like four Mondays in that month of April where there were stabbings on each corner.
00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:44.959
So it was toxic masculinity at its finest, you know, like gang crime, initiations, stab wounds, all the things.
00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:56.319
And that's when I wrote that curriculum and I wrote about the issues that kids would face, whether they were what we would say in England year seven, grade six here in the US to K, you know, really K through 12.
00:07:56.399 --> 00:08:06.079
But we had our the irony was in that year when I was the appointed chaplain to that school, it was the first year that they had girls in the school.
00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:14.319
So it was a really funny time when I look back at it, because it was the integration, it was an all-boys school, and it was the first year of integration of girls into the school.
00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:22.000
And I was the physical education teacher for the year seven girls soccer team and the six-form boys team.
00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:24.399
Talk about like total pose apart.
00:08:25.680 --> 00:08:29.439
Yeah, and so that kind of defines this moment.
00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:33.120
Like if I go back to that point, this was always a journey for me.
00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:37.360
Like I, you know, my mother and father divorced when I was 13.
00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.840
I was raised by my mother during the week, and I would travel on weekends to my father.
00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:47.120
So it was kind of like a chaotic kind of cultural life for me.
00:08:47.279 --> 00:08:55.679
It was like I was in the southwest of England in Devon on the weekends, and I was during the week just outside of Inner City London.
00:08:55.919 --> 00:09:02.720
So, like, you've got poles apart different cultures where I was growing up, and every weekend I was ferried back and forth.
00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:08.480
And I think that the feline part of me was expressed at that point.
00:09:08.639 --> 00:09:10.720
My sister and my mother became like my family.
00:09:10.879 --> 00:09:15.360
My father had two daughters, and like and my stepmother.
00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:20.639
So there was more female influence in my life than my father probably would have liked.
00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:26.399
Yeah, and it was a generational family of um Freemasonry.
00:09:26.559 --> 00:09:34.000
So it's like a deep patriarchal, like two generations served in the first and second world war.
00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:36.480
My father stopped serving, I didn't serve.
00:09:36.720 --> 00:10:08.720
So there was like a real heaviness around the patriarchal in my family, and then like through my parents' divorce, through the kind of, like I said to you, experiences I had in inner city London to inner city New York, where I was trained in my seminary career as a pastor, and where I birthed my entrepreneurship really into Charlotte, North Carolina, where you would have thought in the South the feminine side of me would have died in a Bible about kind of culture.
00:10:08.799 --> 00:10:19.600
But it's actually what birthed it, probably more naturally, because there was so much opposition to it that my body and my soul cried out.
00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:26.480
Because when I was preaching and when I was teaching, I do so with a justice mindset.
00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:56.240
My denomination who I work with is proud of like the justice work of inequality, and that has always been my journey to be a cognitive person who fights for whether it's um racial inequality, you know, poor to rich, uh refugee to um kind of expat, because I'm an expat myself.
00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:01.440
My best friend is an Iranian refugee, and and and his wife has just moved to the country.
00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:10.320
She's literally uh sitting her doctor's exam in Manchester this week um to become like a doctor in the UK from Iran.
00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:16.480
He's Iran, he like his specialism in uh doctorate is defense.
00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:21.919
It's just you don't write this stuff, it's like so inexplicably.
00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:30.480
My life story is the fruit of um the purpose that I have that I'm yet to fully ignite, if you know what I mean.
00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:46.799
Like I'm on this pathway to to something greater injustice, and like I'm recognizing in myself the injustices that the world has experienced and I've not been aware of in my little, you know, white privileged contemporary Christian corner.
00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:53.600
So I'm like trying to find ways to identify how to help and not hinder.
00:11:53.840 --> 00:12:08.240
And kind of like one of the biggest transitions for me, and I I think this is a great example, of kind of like answering that question to, you know, why coach, why feminine, why free and fit?
00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:10.399
And so why coach?
00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:20.879
Because you listen and you have to facilitate the instruction that somebody is directing themselves as a coach.
00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:38.720
Your job is not to tell somebody what to do, but to tease out of them, as you would as a teacher, as you would as a pastor, as you would as a chaplain, as you would as a youth worker, to to listen and to hear what it is that is the root cause of somebody's injustice in their life.
00:12:38.879 --> 00:12:45.120
And that can be understanding, it can be developmental, it can be cognitive.
00:12:45.279 --> 00:13:06.559
But if you have these different skills that I've picked up in my life, I think it's really the the the the kind of like bait, if you like, as a coach, you're trying to give someone bait, you're trying to feed them what you're they're telling you so that you can reel in for them what is um the solution to their kind of root cause problem.
00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:29.360
And so that kind of feminine part of me that has been awoken is like the the yoga part of me, you know, that has been born from kind of being a competitive runner to a yoga instructor to where I left the church um as a full-time pastor to becoming a janitor in a yoga studio.
00:13:29.519 --> 00:13:44.080
Like it's the very humbling part of my story, which I feel like defines um what I sought to find out, which was the curiosity of how can I help?
00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:50.480
And the song, I think it's you know, don't give men the microphone.
00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:53.519
I forget the lyrics, but the song is don't give men the microphone.
00:13:53.600 --> 00:14:16.000
And often in my case, I've seen pastor after pastor after pastor after pastor fall off of um their pulpit stage because of different issues, including, you know, infidelity, divorce, financial management, and and all of it, I think, is rooted in this one cause that they do not have a relationship to their feminine.
00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:40.559
Because they can't nurture themselves when they're in peak periods, either in large organizations where there's too many people for them to attend to and their growth is too quick that they can't nurture themselves, or it's in a small organization where they don't have enough staff or volunteers to support them, and they don't have the self-awareness to recognize that they need to nurture themselves as they're nurturing others.
00:14:40.720 --> 00:15:03.039
And it's that kind of like matriarchal self that I established in me as I surrendered, that I recognized that humbleness does not mean title or restricting yourself to less, it means becoming less so that you can enable others to become more.
00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:13.440
And so, like the softening, the surrendering was necessary for me, um, but it was voluntarily.
00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:20.320
I mean, I I was not resigned from my position until theoretically, end of May.
00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:25.519
And I made the choice in the beginning of January that I wanted to be a janitor in a yoga studio.
00:15:25.600 --> 00:15:26.480
And I'm still there now.
00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:35.440
I even made the decision in in this last month to allow space for my own healing from a failed yoga audition.
00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:53.759
And while others were still going for spaces, I was like, I can't audition in the same time while other people who are my friends, who are like I felt the pain of their failed auditions, and so like I felt like if I was auditioning again with them, that I could be taking their place.
00:15:54.480 --> 00:16:19.679
And I found out that for this month, I was one of the only people auditioning, and I was like, Well, that gives me peace because that means I'm not taking someone else's place as a guy, taking someone else's place, and that I was stepping into a space which was unoccupied, and my you know, my studio manager said, We need eight people, so like there's a need.
00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:37.120
Whereas the previous months, my friends were still auditioning, they still had their classes, and the majority female, there's one guy who I won't say the name, but has been subbing every class and trying to take over everything, which totally tells me that that would be me.
00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:45.919
Like, that would be me maybe just two years ago or even six months ago, trying to take ground, trying to dominate, trying to be the alpha.
00:16:46.080 --> 00:17:02.320
And as soon as I recognize that that rises up in me, I have to step back because it's like a recognition that a lot of guys will tell me you should not be afraid to lead.
00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.279
There's nothing wrong with you leading.
00:17:05.599 --> 00:17:09.119
And that's the response that I receive from guys when I talk about it.
00:17:09.279 --> 00:17:17.920
And I say, but leadership doesn't necessarily come from being the number one figure in a team of people leading them.
00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:28.480
Oftentimes, the best leader is the one that's on the sidelines, who's able to listen and speaks up in particular moments when you need words of wisdom.
00:17:28.640 --> 00:17:38.960
Um, and that's the kind of leader I think I need to be more of, rather than somebody who's dominating and trying to take ground and trying to be the egotistical part of it.
00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:53.200
So when we talk about spirituality and the feminine, it leads me to what I've just started right now, which is in the past couple of months, I've been studying um with a lady called Megan Waterson.
00:17:53.440 --> 00:18:45.599
She's doing a course this year on Mary Magdalene, and the House of Mary Magdalene is the kind of name of this group, and it's for nine months studying the Gospel of Mary, and it goes back to the idea that um the the developmental structure of Mary's writings were that in her gospel the main theme is mercy, and there's two things she's trying to define, which Megan talks about, which is that one way of seeing Jesus' teachings is that his whole instruction was less about the ego and and more about the heart, and the heart of who Jesus was, and the heart of his teachings, and his instructions, and who he had by his side at crucial moments in his life and afterlife.
00:18:45.920 --> 00:19:07.759
And so that draws me to the resurrection, and it draws me to the story of how his body was found, and how like the whole conceptual understanding of how the gospel was spread is through healers who were tending to him with an ancient tradition of coming to anoint his body as a death ritual, and that was how they found his body.
00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:56.079
And and I think that as um patriarchal conceptual uh understanding, it it may not be my belief, but if you have to balance your body and mind, soul and spirit, you have to be able to understand, listen, hear, conceptually take on different perspectives of religious beliefs and doctrinal and dogmatic beliefs sometimes define a denomination, a church, a religious group, or a people group, and it excludes parts of yourself that you may not be aware of need attending to, like a garden.
00:19:56.480 --> 00:20:02.640
If you leave the weeds and you let them grow, then parts of you will die.
00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:17.920
Um, and if you allow that dogmatic like doctrinal theological belief to take root, that can be your weed because there's no space for your full self to fully be expressed.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:57.359
And so for so many guys who don't have a relationship to the divine and the feminine, that's kind of part of how I try to speak to families and females, because in a family, you have a male and a female as the headship together in in traditional 2.4 children, you know, like the the family of a male and a female, as parent and and and and mother and father, or patriarchal and matriarchal, however, your family, if it's blended, if it's of two women and two men, however that appears, there needs to be a balance of patriarchal and matriarchal influence, however that forms.
00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:09.440
And so if you're in a family without that, and it's discombobulated into a um kind of heavy patriarchal.
00:21:09.519 --> 00:21:26.559
Now that could be a man and a woman, that could be two women or two men, it it can be any formula of human expression, but the matriarchal nurture, if that is left there, then the pruning that we set for the intention of this is not possible.
00:21:26.799 --> 00:21:45.200
And the pruning has to start in the self, and so a lot of deconstruction of what people do lies in what they think is their religious beliefs, but I think that actually greater than that for humanity is a need for deconstruction in our familial upbringing.
00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:59.440
Um, we're as as children between the age of zero to twelve, that's where in our cognitive um you know mental progression from birth to adult.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:04.880
We make foundational beliefs firm.
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:09.200
Like the whole human psyche is created between that age group.
00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:10.799
And that was the whole of my family time.
00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:16.480
Like, you know, my parents divorced when I was 13, but the work had already been done, you know, the foundations were set.
00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:34.480
So I I'm almost deconstructing not just my religious institutional um patriarchal structures, but I'm also having to deconstruct my familial patriarchal instruction so that I can fully develop to be a balanced human being.
00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:37.920
And that's not necessarily therapy.
00:22:39.279 --> 00:23:03.680
That's self-reflection, self-awareness, life experience, and just identifying that there's a there's a need for me to pause on on my career, my life, my my own personal progression before I do anything because I haven't yet healed from this trauma.
00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:04.720
You know?
00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:19.440
And I just wonder as like families begin to create life or begin to form their child's upbringing, how much of that that they're aware that that familial deconstruction needs to happen.
00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:30.559
And that's kind of like where my coaching comes in, because I think for a family, I want to be able to speak to the father, I want to be able to speak to the mother, and I want to be able to help the children.
00:23:30.720 --> 00:23:50.880
And as a teacher, as a pastor, as a coach, you know, I'm talking about I've worked through, you know, the beginnings of life at baptism, the commissioning of, you know, the teenager to receive their first communion, to death rights at the funeral burial.
00:23:51.039 --> 00:24:03.839
Like I've walked through in my career every part of life stage, and I'm working now with kids yoga and elderly yoga in a very different format, but I'm still in the same places I've always been.
00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:07.359
You know, I've been a youth worker and now I'm teaching kids yoga.
00:24:07.599 --> 00:24:14.240
I was a pastor and I'm now teaching chair exercises classes to the elderly in over 55 communities.
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:19.440
I've uh if there is a relationship to the divine, that theme has never left me.
00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:25.759
And my beliefs may have been opened, but they don't necessarily have to shift.
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:45.759
And I think that's the core thing about everything I've learned is that although I've gone through this rebrand, although I've been blessed with a whole shift in my psyche, self, and health, I don't need to shift my beliefs because I've been opened to all of these different experiences.
00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:57.920
You know, like I can still believe what I want to believe, and I can still appreciate other people without having predetermined judgments about who they are, what they look like, or where they come from.
00:24:58.160 --> 00:25:11.359
And I think in our age today, based upon our algorithm and our social media and our just human DNA, everything is about kind of putting somebody in a box.
00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:15.920
And we as humans, we are not that simple.
00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:20.000
We are not that simple, and we are very complex.
00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:46.160
And as much as society and structures and systems and algorithms and AI try to contain us, we in ourselves are unfulfilled, depressed, let's be, let's be clear, and stressed because we're not fully living as human beings as we were meant to be born into inhabit this world by living off the earth.
00:25:46.559 --> 00:25:56.960
The fruit of our DNA is that we're meant to like meander around in fields, work for a day, and live and and be amongst the earth.
00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:13.039
We were never created to be on screens or to be built into this life of like um developmental technological rhythms where we are on a screen to nine to five to then be on our phones and reels from six to ten.
00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:15.680
Like that's just not how we were created.
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:25.759
And yet, society is creating this bubble for us to be on screens and to be in our chairs and to be in our cars and to be restricted.
00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:35.359
But we have this expansive universe that we live in, this world which is so vastly amazing, with so many of us populating it, yet we don't live.
00:26:35.599 --> 00:26:48.000
And so, like just this realization for me is kind of like it's not even about the size of what box I'm in, or the restriction or denial of self.
00:26:48.160 --> 00:27:29.519
It's all about the expansiveness of our creator allowing us to live freely without obligation or um, you know, just this inherent need to define everything we do by a name, a label, a brand, or uh an identity, and and the the freedom that we have when we can find ourselves truly centered upon the universe that we live in rather than the belief systems that we have to exist within it, um, we can truly live.
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:54.559
But if we deny the opportunity we've been given, our life, like I said, becomes restricted, uh suppressed, and and really like we're we're negatively kind of unofficially grounded, and we're not pruning, we're like the reverse, we're we're kind of nullified and denied the opportunity to live.
00:27:55.599 --> 00:28:19.680
So I just think like that's that's been the freedom of the feminine for me, and and just the the whimsical parts of it, which are not necessarily woo-woo or particularly rooted in um dare I say the word, um heretical lifestyles.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:43.680
They're more about just expressing myself to engage with people, belief systems, or groups that I was never able to in the spaces I was living in before, and I'm so much more softer, gentler, kinder on myself than than I ever was before, and I still struggle with that.
00:28:44.079 --> 00:28:52.640
But um I'm better than I was yesterday, but I really mean that, and I think that that's a phrase we throw around a lot.
00:28:53.440 --> 00:29:04.799
But I'm better than I was yesterday because I've lived through yesterday, I've experienced it, I've learned from it, and now today I'm well informed to live differently.
00:29:05.359 --> 00:29:07.279
Yeah, that's amazing.
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:19.039
Well, and if we circle it all the way back to the beginning and the pruning, I feel like what you just talked about, I mean, you gave us so many things to chew on and to think about and to even not even think about, but like to embody and explore, I guess I'll say it that way.
00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:22.480
Because I think sometimes we just overthink about it and that creates the labels in the boxes.
00:29:22.559 --> 00:29:29.440
But when we can embody and get curious about and explore, like embody what works and explore what doesn't, prune it, you know, that's amazing.
00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:37.279
But if we go all the way back to pruning, I hear what I just heard in what you just said feels so much about it's like pruning your internal world.
00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:44.400
Like it feels like your journey has been somebody told you you couldn't do something, and it was a wake-up call for you, is kind of what I heard in that.
00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:50.480
And then it started to unopen and unlock, maybe even or unbox, maybe is a good way to put it.
00:29:50.720 --> 00:30:01.920
A bunch of things that you brought awareness and intention to that has now shifted your entire life and maybe changed a how you want to show up in the world, but also how you're able to show up in the world.
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:16.880
And I think that's such a a beautiful reminder where you landed there of the internal landscape and how we get to engage with that, how it feels aligned for us, and if we set the intention to live better today than we did yesterday.
00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:18.400
What a beautiful intention.
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.920
And where does that take us, you know, three months down the road?
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:38.880
I think that because that little, you know, tiny degree that we make internally today, when you walk it out, that pie wedge becomes wider and wider, and it's a bigger shift, takes us to a different place, more than we realize is possible, is is is what I heard in all the things that you were saying.
00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:41.680
So thank you for sharing all of that.
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:43.759
That's such so many things to reflect on.
00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:46.079
I have probably a million questions, but we'll be here for three hours.
00:30:46.160 --> 00:30:47.759
So we might have to do a part two.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:49.599
Sure.
00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:53.920
I it made me think of one example which I really like.
00:30:54.319 --> 00:31:10.880
And one of the things that I've continued to do through my journey is provide chaplaincy because it's kind of interfaced and it's not forward-facing, it's it's very um 360-degree reflective and and it's interfaced.
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:30.240
And so, really, what I've identified with is in one of the settings that I'm in where I do that chaplaincy, I encounter retail assistants in the brand Pandora, which obviously is jewelry, it's very feminine, it's pink, it's bright, it's fluorescent, it's all the things.
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:37.599
And when I go in there, I always say, I wonder what's opened and awaken in Pandora's box.
00:31:37.839 --> 00:32:02.480
And the girls laugh, and I and I think to myself, from my dogmatic doctrinal perspective, it was almost like I opened Pandora's box, but actually, opening Pandora's box was the gift, it was what opened for me like a doorway to freedom, and it's on the other side of like so much oppression, so much you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that.
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:43.680
And is it wise to hide or to deny all of these things to to our young people who will never get to experience some of the most beautiful things in our world because we tell them it's not okay, but everything in moderation and and with caution, and and if we can apply that to life, um and somebody who struggles with OCD and and and has like an awareness of how that obsession can lead to so much distraction from what you want to do.
00:32:43.759 --> 00:33:03.359
And as a perfectionist, I think like the thing that helps me to kind of surrender and soften is the uh is the inherent nervous system that is now awoken in me that's almost like a metaphorical womb space that I'm sure a lot of guys don't realize they have.
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:26.880
And the solar plexus, it it when you become aware of your chakras, when you regulate your nervous system, when you breathe with intention, it it awakens and it enables you to just see things from a gentler and a more balanced perspective.
00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:30.319
And I cannot say that my journey is unique.
00:33:30.480 --> 00:34:05.680
I think that actually more and more guys would probably privately share that they've done this same kind of shedding, shadow work, um, but haven't been able to identify with it as that and and other things or called it other things, and whether it's like burning past experiences by writing them down, or it's you know going to cryotherapy and and having you know a deep plunge, or going to the sauna.
00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:15.840
Like there's so many different ways we we burn or we freeze, and that kind of hot and cold that we're talking about is the way that we deal with our emotions.
00:34:15.920 --> 00:34:18.639
Like we either want to burn it or we want to freeze it.
00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:22.800
We either want to destroy it and run completely out of head on.
00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:33.760
Like, you know, I always say this, I either do one thing or the other, I'll either explode and like cause a self-meltdown, or I'll ruin something, I'll destroy it.
00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:41.679
And that's kind of the hot and cold of like the cryotherapy that I've been getting to the you know, hot yoga classes I've been going to.
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:44.480
So it's kind of like the extreme.
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:53.920
But if you can get those temperatures into your life naturally, then you find balance because you Well Yeah, go ahead.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:54.320
Go ahead.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:35:10.960
Yeah, you're touching on the the parts of your body that needs regulation through, you know, expressing your door endorphins, and I just find myself like softer and gentler more of the time because I've been able to experience those extreme temperatures.
00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:11.920
Yeah.
00:35:12.239 --> 00:35:17.199
Well, and I think if we're always in the extreme temperatures, that's like full-blown avoidance on some level.
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:19.760
Because you can't burn it or freeze it unless it's ready to go.
00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:26.719
So it's just going to keep resurfacing until you until you actually sit with it and move through it or move with it and then through it, you know.
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:39.760
And so it's like this how do we have awareness and discernment to know our capacity to know if we're ready to sit with it, move through it, versus, you know, be on the extreme ends all the time.
00:35:40.159 --> 00:35:44.960
And it's that softness you talk about, like that alchemy in the middle, where, well, middle, right?
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:53.440
In the in the in the in-between where you get to explore it and get curious about it in a way that offers yourself that divine feminine side.
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:56.159
But there has to be divine masculine too, right?
00:35:56.239 --> 00:35:57.119
Like we need all of it.
00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:08.639
Yeah, I mean, I one thing I'm confident of is that I never need to worry about, like, people say to me, Are you worried that you're gonna have too much of the feminine versus the masculine?
00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:10.480
I'm like, there's no way.
00:36:10.719 --> 00:36:12.159
I am so alpha.
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:18.000
Like, as soon as I turn to my scroll on my football team, bang, I'm there.
00:36:18.079 --> 00:36:20.000
I don't need a trigger or a switch.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:22.400
I'm like naturally masculine.
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:25.199
There's no need to worry about that.
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:31.519
Like a competitive, I'm like, I want to do everything first, I want to be first, I want to be number one.
00:36:31.679 --> 00:36:35.840
Like, there's no need for me to be aware of my masculine.
00:36:35.920 --> 00:36:41.920
Like, there's just a uh a natural embedded DNA part of me that's there.
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:45.440
So I'm not at all worried about that.
00:36:45.599 --> 00:37:29.760
Um, and I'm not trying to speak ill of it because I've studied it from a sporting context in a Christian context, which is going way back to, you know, the foundations of the Commonwealth, to the you know, DNA of my own family and and origins of my family name, which go back to the you know, one of the first um kind of like Washington's first like um family lawyer was was the senior uh lawyer to Massachusetts, and and and that's how far this goes back, like to the Battle of Britain.
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:33.519
Like my family name just travels all the way through history.
00:37:34.079 --> 00:37:46.079
Um and it it's all patriarchal, Freemasonry, and masculine, and I and I'm the last tie to it, like in my family uh DNA, and I flipped it.
00:37:46.320 --> 00:38:02.480
We you know, I d I don't think I'm gonna have um biological children, and I don't think um that's not without trying, but it's it's it's uh it's almost like the end of a patriarchal hold.
00:38:03.199 --> 00:38:06.480
And and the only expression that continues is feminine.
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:08.559
My sisters can have children.
00:38:08.800 --> 00:38:24.320
My sisters had children, my two other sisters will have children, but the biological patriarchal part of us has almost died, and that is kind of quite beautiful in the life will continue in a more feminine, you know.
00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:36.960
As much as my sister is having a boy, and she's extremely masculine, like it it goes without saying that there is still the nurture and nature.
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:48.880
She my sister is so feminine to my nephew because of her cognitive awareness of the patriarchal, but she can't name it or identify it with it, but it's there.
00:38:49.119 --> 00:39:02.079
So I just I think like the whole release of um that stronghold over me and my family is quite beautiful in a way.
00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:08.000
Um that's the comfort I find from you know not having biological children, I think.
00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:08.880
Yeah.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:10.639
Yeah.
00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:21.280
Well, I know your time is restricted today a little bit, and I want to honor your time, but I would love it if you would share on the mic how people can find you.
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:22.800
Yeah, sure.
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:26.079
I mean, the best way is Instagram at feminine free and fit.
00:39:26.159 --> 00:39:28.159
Uh, you can DM me right there.
00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:36.559
I am all work in progress with all of these things because as much as I've shared, it it's a lot of work.
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:40.559
Um, and working on the self is a full-time job.
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:46.000
Um, so if that's where you are, uh we're a family-driven company.
00:39:46.159 --> 00:40:23.280
I'm a family wellness concierge, if you like, and I provide coaching for the self in a life coach capacity to the family so that they can decipher what their family needs, whether that's a yoga instructor, a tennis coach, you know, an after school activities director, a first communion, wherever you are, if you're dealing with a life stage change in your family, where you're caring for a loved one at latter stages of life, that's that's where I am, like there for the family as a whole.
00:40:23.599 --> 00:40:34.639
And as a teacher, a pastor, and as a coach, I feel like I'm able to offer some very nuanced and passive feedback.
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:39.280
And and a lot of people say, you know, you don't have kids, how would you know?
00:40:39.360 --> 00:41:08.079
And I would say, well, part of being an expert is being able to be impartial and being able to see the upbringing from your own upbringing to teaching in education, to coaching students from varsity high school to college, to coaching adults to dealing with premarital to cognitive awareness of self-care for the life-ending stages of a parent.
00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:13.440
That is not about being a parent in a family.
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:25.119
That is about being a person available to an individual who needs your help when they're mourning, grieving, and seeking counsel from a pastoral perspective.
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:47.760
And both as a teacher and as a pastor, that pastoral care that I've learned through my MNA and education to a master's in divinity, to all the experiences that I've had in life, whether in a city London or rural South Carolina, it it really defines the the depth of um what an individual needs where you can be impartial and sincere.
00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:59.199
Um, and that that comes from being able to abstractively see the the emotions you're going through because of the the stage that you're at in life to that outcome.
00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:02.880
So at feminine free and fit Instagram, DM me.
00:42:03.199 --> 00:42:03.679
Beautiful.
00:42:03.920 --> 00:42:08.239
Or simply text me, 201-774-4133.
00:42:08.559 --> 00:42:15.039
Um, I prefer direct communication and I prefer small groups, family sizes.
00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:22.880
Um, if you have a squad of 12 or if you're just with one individual child, like that's where you you want me to be.
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:34.800
And I just like small families, I like small beginnings because the notorious part of the work that I do is that I'm only with people for six to twelve weeks.
00:42:35.039 --> 00:42:41.119
You know, like it's a stage, it's a season, and it's kind of crisis management a lot of the time.
00:42:41.360 --> 00:42:45.920
So um that's that's where that sits, if that makes sense.
00:42:46.239 --> 00:42:47.119
Yeah, beautiful.
00:42:47.280 --> 00:42:47.599
Thank you.
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:50.880
Thank you so much for sharing your story or parts of your story today, too.
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:52.079
I appreciate it very much.
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:53.360
And thanks for joining us here.
00:42:53.599 --> 00:42:55.199
Yeah, no worries, thank you.
