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Welcome to Embodied Writing Warrior, a show for women who refuse the white metal wellness and crave food freedom built for real life, where your fire gets pained not dead.
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Fall in lust with your own momentum and enjoy pleasure-led creativity.
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Because healing was never meant to be a full-time job.
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I'm Kayla, writer and help coach Gone Row.
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Now let's make consistency feel like foreplay.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast.
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We have another guest interview coming in hot, and today's conversation was honestly one of the most inspiring and genuinely fun conversations I have had in a while.
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In this conversation, I'm joined by Brianne Roberge, a writer and the host of the brilliantly named Go Regulate Yourself podcast.
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As you might imagine, this was a raw and unfiltered conversation.
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And we talked a lot about what happens when the life you build around other people's expectations collapses and you finally have the opportunity to discover what you were meant to do instead.
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One of my favorite takeaways from this conversation is this idea that the universe will start by throwing pebbles.
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If you're on a path that might not be fully aligned, if you don't listen, it throws rocks.
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And if you still don't listen, eventually it starts throwing these boulders until you finally receive the message and step into the purpose that was meant for you all along.
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And Brianne got thrown a whole bunch of boulders, which you'll hear about shortly.
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She shares her powerful journey from nursing to coaching, how she went through a devastating and very public business failure, and then ultimately came back to the dream that she carried since childhood, becoming a writer.
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As you can imagine, this story inspired me on such a personal level.
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In this episode, we talk about cancel culture, shame, social media, the journey from coaching to writing, breaking free from the need for external validation, finding your real voice, refusing to carry other people's projections, and so much more.
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Brianne is honest, hilarious, deeply reflective, and completely unfiltered in the best possible way.
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Enjoy this conversation, and I'll see you again soon.
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Hello, Brianne, and welcome to the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I'm excited to be here.
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I am very excited to have you and to share your story with the listeners because you have a powerful story of reinvention that is going to inspire all of the writers and the creatives listening.
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So can we really start with where you started, where you are now, and what that journey looked like?
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Yeah, for sure.
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I mean, how much time do we have?
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So it's a long story, but it's a good one.
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And I will try to shorten it the best I can.
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So I have had a very interesting, a little bit unorthodox journey into writing.
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And it has been messy and filled with so much challenge, a lot of shame, and learning how to kind of authentically become myself.
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And so backing it up, like 10 plus years, I came from a childhood that was very abusive.
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I had a lot of different experiences in my life from a very young age that taught me that I was to be seen and not heard.
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My body belonged to others and not to myself.
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I had to make sure that everybody else was okay before myself.
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It was really important to people please and seek a lot of validation and make sure that I was doing okay in everything that I was doing in my life.
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And so my mom kind of raised me as a mostly single mom for most of her life.
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Um, definitely didn't choose great partners.
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My bio-dad um was an abusive man.
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My stepfather was also an abusive man.
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And when I got into this space of deciding what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, you know, in their high school, and I try to tell you, what do you want to be and what do you want to create out of the years that follow?
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I was a very confused, very um hurt child.
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And I always looked to everybody else's side of myself to decide what it is that I wanted to do.
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And my mom pushed me into a career of nursing, which was never something that I really wanted.
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But her and my stepdad insisted that it was going to have a good paycheck, lead to a lot of really good things in life, etc.
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And so I ended up pursuing that, knowing that I didn't actually want to be a nurse.
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I wanted to be a writer my entire life.
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I remember when I was younger, I had a poem published.
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I used to write family newsletters all the time.
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I was always stealing my grandparents' typewriter and, you know, writing up whatever I could.
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Even my grade nine science project, I can remember this still, and I actually found a copy of this a couple of years ago.
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I wrote a choose your own ending storybook for my grade nine science project.
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And so writing was always something that I absolutely loved.
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I wanted to be in that space, but you know, writing's not a career.
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A lot of people tell you that you can make money in, especially not in my family.
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I was the first to go to university, the first to go into the medical role.
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And it was supposed to be this really prestige thing, right?
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With all my family expecting me to do really well here.
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So I went into nursing and quickly forgot about writing.
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Didn't really have time for it, other than all of the essays and horrible papers I had to write throughout my degree, which is not the same thing.
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And I didn't really have a lot of writing in my background.
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But what I did was try to make the best out of the situation that I was in.
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And about 10 years ago, this is kind of the point where I had been, I guess you can say, finalizing like my nursing degree and moving into like the actual world of working bedside and the hospital, that sort of thing.
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And I remember this kind of being the start of my conscious healing journey, where I started to actually realize that I had a lot of trauma and there was something that I could do about it.
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And I didn't have to continue to show up in my life being triggered and you know, allowing that to kind of rule the roost, if you will.
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And so I started to make some changes and started to work on myself.
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And I decided that I was going to become like more health-oriented.
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And so I actually ended up enrolling in a health coaching certification program.
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And what that taught me was that there was a lot of things within my power that I could change in my life.
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And health was a really big component of a person's life.
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So why not that be my focus?
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So I ended up taking nursing and coaching and creating like this business that ended up having a lot of health coaching, a lot of trauma coaching in it.
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I always seemed to kind of come back to that.
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But the the bread and butter of it was helping people get healthy and happy in the most natural way possible.
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And so over the course of those last 10 years, things started to really shift and move in there.
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I built some a really good like solo practice doing this.
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And then I hired on a couple of nursing staff.
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And then I got this really bold, albeit really stupid, idea about three years ago, four years ago now, that I was gonna take this company and massively expand it.
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And I ended up hiring on over 20 staff, opening up over four clinic locations, and thought we were gonna be like on the cusp of this really big turn in the world where people were looking for these types of options.
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And I had no business taking an expansion of that size.
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I had no idea what I was doing or how to do it properly, how to manage people or run a company of that size.
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And it fell flat in my face relatively quickly.
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I ended up losing everything.
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The business went under.
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We ended up being put into a bankruptcy, all of our assets, my husband's pension, literally everything that we had, ended up getting lost in the mix of this catastrophic failure.
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Not to mention, in addition to the finances, I had to lay off all of my staff.
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We had to close all of our clinic locations.
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And so now we're being placed into the position where money's gone.
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We don't have the ability to pay off remaining wages or pay the vendor contracts or the leases or any of these things that we had signed for.
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And a lot of people ended up getting hurt because of it.
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And when people get hurt, oftentimes they direct their energy towards where they believe the root cause that problem is, which was me.
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And so, on top of all of the financial loss and the catastrophic failure and the very, very public failure that it was, I ended up also being put into like a cancel culture attempt of me online, where now everybody was angry and they were coming for blood, and I was the source of that.
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So my face, my picture, my story, everything like that was posted online in every single group you can imagine in our local community.
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And I had anonymous emails and comments on social media and all the things coming in consistently.
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There was times when I would wake up to hundreds of comments or hundreds of messages or emails telling me what a terrible person I was, what a fraud and imposter, and how I did this purposely to hurt other people.
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I even escalated at one point to being anonymous death threats in my email box.
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And it was a very traumatic period of time.
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And I'm not gonna lie, my nervous system during this period really shut down internally because I would, you know, go to our grocery store or run errands, and I would have this thought of, you know, who's gonna recognize me, who's gonna see me, and I would be darting around the store and constantly on edge.
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And I lived a couple of years in that fight or flight mode, not knowing what was gonna happen or who was gonna say what.
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And so as a result, I mean, you know, this really traumatic, horrible situation that happened was actually a really big blessing in disguise for me.
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Because what I didn't realize during the course of this, you know, how we always say, you know, the universe throws you a pebble.
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When you don't listen, it throws a rock.
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And when you don't listen, it throws you a boulder.
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Well, I had conceived like probably 500 boulders before I even chose to start this company or move into this expansion or do any of these things.
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And I just, I wasn't listening.
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I had this really deep-seated wound of needing to people please and show up for other people and like I said, validate, you know, everything that was happening in my life.
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I wanted to be liked, right?
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I wanted to be liked by other people, loved by other people.
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I wanted them to have good opinions of me and never say anything bad about me.
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And that actually being that huge driving force behind all of the decisions that I made in this company, and what ultimately led to it crashing was because I was trying to please everybody else.
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And especially I was trying to please my mother, right?
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I haven't had a relationship with her for 14 years.
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We've been no contact for four years.
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And this really was a way of me being like, oh, look what I did and look what I created and who I became, even though we don't talk anymore.
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And that reality was a huge slap in the face for me because I had to realize that all the choices that I was making in my life never actually were for me.
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I was showing up as a completely different version of myself, a masked version.
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Nothing that I was doing in my life was what I actually wanted or who I was.
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And I did make some really hard choices from that point moving forward.
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So in the last four years, I walked away from my nursing license.
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I hung up my screw-ups for good and my stethoscope for good.
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I walked away from coaching only as of last summer.
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And then I kind of have this last year of really trying to figure out what it was that I wanted.
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I knew that I wanted to go back into writing because I've wanted, as I said, to be a writer my whole life.
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And I've spent this last year since I fully hung up coaching, really finding the confidence to be in this space, finding my voice to execute that in a different way than I ever have and be more raw and unfiltered and unapologetic in what I have to say.
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And it's been this really beautiful lesson and learning curve that so many incredible opportunities have come out of.
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But I first had to go through like this major death and rebirth cycle in order to get to where I am now.
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So that's the gist of everything.
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That is a wild story, and just the fact that you had to lose multiple levels of safety all at once.
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So the financial safety, the safety of like, am I gonna get hurt when I go to the grocery store?
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And that like activation you'd feel from the emails and the comments, like getting canceled is like I feel like that would be like one of the yuckiest things that can happen in today's society because it's everywhere and it just like seeps into everything.
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And what I love is the fact that you were able to mine the gold from that and realize this was a very painful way of being directed to my purpose, but I was being directed, and now you're in this like really inspirational place from like where I'm sitting.
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So now you have this podcast and it's called Go Regulate Yourself.
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And I love it.
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It's like curse happy.
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There's like, you know, you're saying it like it is, it is unfiltered.
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It's such a great, like, I love listening.
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So can you share a little bit about what that title stands for and maybe how you even came to come up with that name because it's so creative and it people know exactly what they're getting as soon as they hear that title, which is awesome.
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Yeah, for sure.
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So Go Regulate Yourself was actually born out of this whole cancel culture attempt of me online.
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Because a really big thing that I recognized in this was that when people were telling me that I was a fraud, I was an imposter, I was a terrible person, all of this stuff, the problem wasn't that they were saying it.
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The problem is that I was believing it.
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I believed it to be true.
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I thought that they were correct.
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And I held on to that for way too long, longer than I should have.
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And when I finally started to break free of this mold of people pleasing, one of the things we recognize is that like healing doesn't necessarily make you more gentle, more nice, more laid back.
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It actually makes you very honest.
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And you're able to recognize, no, I actually do know who I am.
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I know that I have a good heart, and I no longer have to show up to prove that to somebody else.
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And if they don't see it, they don't recognize it that it's not a me problem, that's a you problem.
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And so go regulate yourself was born out of two kinds of notions, which, if your audience hasn't guessed it already, is a spin-off of go fuck yourself.
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And it's the idea behind it is on one hand, a very endearing reminder to take care of yourself, right?
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It's important for you to heal, for you to face the inner demons and the wounds that you have, to do something with the stuff that you've been handed in life.
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Because while you might not be responsible for everything that happens to you, you are responsible for what comes next.
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And the only way that your life improves is by you deciding that you're gonna do something about it.
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So it's that endearing reminder to like, hey, go regulate yourself, go take care of yourself, go do something for yourself.
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But then on the other hand, it's also a reminder that you are not responsible for anybody else in how they feel, how they think, what they project upon you, their triggers, the things that they needed to learn in their life.
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You are not responsible for any of it.
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So when somebody's up in your, you know, craw and they're trying to give you all their shit and tell you to wear it and that it's yours, you have this opportunity to not pick it up, to set it down, to walk away from it and to remind them to go regulate themselves.
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And so that was very much where the energy of this was born from.
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And now you're right, there's a lot of cussing in there, but the premise of it is being about mental health, right?
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And mental health meaning real life, about when we heal and when we do all this work, it's not about becoming saints or, you know, thinking of ourselves as being enlightened and therefore better than somebody else.
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It's about actually taking care of ourselves at the end of the day and being realistic about what that looks like in today's world.
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Because this isn't a world where things just never happen that challenge us.
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We're going to consistently be triggered or have things pop up for us in our reality that are going to challenge us in how we show up and how we speak and the values that we hold for ourselves.
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And so the whole mission behind the podcast is to talk about real life stuff.
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I share a lot about my own traumas, things that I went through, and also am going through every single day with the hopes that it might help somebody feel a little bit less alone and also get the tools, the resources, the knowledge to be able to move forward from whatever hardships they are facing in their lives.
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I love the dual meaning of that.
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And I love that you took such uh unfortunate circumstance and like you know, put a little bit of like Stephen Potler talks about big S bite versus little S fight.
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Big S fight is like I'm trying to hurt somebody.
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We don't want that.
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But little S spite is like, oh, you're gonna cancel me.
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I'm gonna come up with this ridiculously clever podcast name and create a movement.
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Thank you.
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So I love that.
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And I want to talk a little bit about social media in general because this is something I have had such a wretched relationship with.
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And what you're sharing kind of reminds me of something I heard David Goggins talk about.
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And he hates social media too because he's like, I don't want to go on here and post this stuff because these people don't know me, they don't know what I've been through.
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And he goes on this tangent and like feel that it's it's it's such a rough place, and there's you know, like you said, hundreds of people emailing you commenting, not all those people were directly impacted by the businesses you had to shut down.
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So there's so much like turbulence in that entire online world, and you're still on there, you have a social media presence.
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What is posting on there now like versus posting back when you were still in the people pleasing, the seeking validation, all those different things?
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That's such a good question.
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I feel like before, every time that I would post, I would go down like this spiral, this rabbit hole of what do they want to see?
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What version of me do they want to see?
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What way can I make somebody else feel like they they like every part of me, right?
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There's nothing to offend.
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I walked on eggshells with everything that I said.
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I would rewrite it a million times and always be worried about offending or being taken the wrong way.
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And if, God forbid, I did get a comment where somebody had something negative to say about what I had posted, I would either like feel this immense like guilt and shame and fear around their comment.
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And oh my God, who's gonna see that?
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And what are they gonna say?
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And it's gonna be this whole thing.
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Or I would overexplain and I would go into this method of like, oh no, you're right, and here's all the reasons why you're right.
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And this is actually the way that I was saying it to make you like seem like I was saying it in a different way.
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I was so scared of using my voice.
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I didn't actually even know what my voice was or my opinions that I did have because I was so conscious of other people's.
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I really bit my tongue a lot.
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And now when I'm on social media or I'm in that presence, very different experience.
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I post whatever the hell it is that I want, whatever's speaking to me, whatever I feel like is resonating.
00:20:53.759 --> 00:21:05.279
And it's so interesting because the more that I'm doing that, the more traction my stuff is getting than it ever has before with people resonating, comments, sending me messages, and just saying that they feel that way too.
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:14.400
That usually also breeds into like different writing topics or podcast topics on a deeper level when you are having those very open conversations with people.
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.960
I don't tread the water anymore, walk on eggshells, or worry about what people are gonna say.
00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:29.440
And in fact, you know, maybe I went too far to one side, but I actually really enjoy the negative comments now because I like to act like that mirror for other people, right?
00:21:29.599 --> 00:21:41.599
When somebody has something really nasty to say about what I've shared or my perspective, or even about me, you know, some people love to take things and make it very personal about your appearance or whatever else when you do share stuff.
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:48.640
Whenever that happens, I actually love to engage in conversations with people in the comments because I just act like the mirror.
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:52.079
And it's like, oh, it's very interesting that that's what you picked up based on this.
00:21:52.240 --> 00:21:58.319
Like, what's going on for you in this area that that is making you think or see this in that particular way?
00:21:58.559 --> 00:21:59.599
And it's very interesting.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.279
Because most of the time after you do that, people don't comment back.
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:06.960
So you hope that maybe you got the idea across.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:10.400
But in other times, sometimes it does open up a really beautiful conversation.
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:13.599
I've had people actually change their original comment, be like, you know what?
00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:17.839
I take it back, or I thank you for changing my perspective or helping me see that in a different way.
00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:21.839
So it's kind of cool now, my interactions on social media.
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:23.039
There is no fear.
00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:35.440
And you know, I'm still in the very beginning stages, I would say, of like really allowing my light to shine and showing up fully in that space, but it feels so much more aligned than it ever happened as before.
00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:37.839
That is amazing.
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:45.920
Like to be someone who gets to the point where you arrive, getting those like almost troll comments is so powerful.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:56.160
And I feel like that's a really great approach because I don't know where I heard it, but they say that like when you point a finger, there's like three point fingers pointing back at you, like literally.
00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.720
So I feel like that's kind of what's happening for you here.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:11.680
So on your social media now, who would benefit most from following you and what can they expect to see on your page, in your content, all the things.
00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:18.960
So I can have two very distinct divisions of like how I show up and I use my voice, I'll say.
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:30.079
So on my like, I'll call it a personal social media where I'm doing like a lot of my own face and shares and thoughts and stuff like that, and sharing a lot of my writing pieces.
00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:39.599
That's a space for anybody I would say who's like in their 30s or around their 30s, who is navigating messy transitions in life.
00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:57.279
So if you are moving from an old identity to a new version of you, you're healing, you're recreating, you're looking to put in boundaries, to show up as the best version of you and really romanticize this thing called life and make it as delicious and joyful and delightful as possible.
00:23:57.599 --> 00:24:02.880
That would be what my kind of like personal space is for, my writing space is for.
00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:04.720
We talk a lot about those things.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:09.440
I still share a lot of my journey, but it's just a very different type of share.
00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:35.599
It's more of a reflective piece, going a little bit deeper into some of that introspection and inviting you to kind of do the same in relationships and beyond, versus now on like my podcast pages and the voice that's in that space, that is a little bit more raw, more explicit, more like let's talk about this from a very taboo angle and invite in some of those conversations that we might not have otherwise.
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:40.319
And so that is kind of more of explicit nature, we will say, right?
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:52.720
If you're not somebody who's into a lot of cussing or like those type of things, then maybe that isn't the best space for you, because there is a lot of that, but it's just very real and unfiltered in that space.
00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:57.200
And I would say both are for anybody who is in that space of healing, right?
00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:06.799
If you're in the space of trying to overcome some really hard stuff and get to a place where you want to feel a little bit better, either of those can be very allocated towards your journeys.
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:15.680
It's kind of fun that you have like your PG-rated one and then like your R-rated one, and people can self-select, which is so magical.
00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:23.680
So, what are some of your favorite taboo topics to talk about on your show that don't be discussed nearly enough?
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:34.319
I like to talk a lot about shame, which seems like it's not a taboo topic and that a lot of people talk to about it.
00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:45.839
But I think that truly the way in which I talk about shame is to a depth that a lot of people aren't necessarily willing to look at or be around or even hold within that space.
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:55.200
Like I said, I am very open and I share a lot of my journeys, the deep, like dark stuff, the things that we would normally hide in a closet and walk away and never want to show anybody.
00:25:55.359 --> 00:26:10.799
I'm talking about my own stuff openly within these spaces in regards to overcoming shame because I allowed shame to depict so many of my choices in my life and really keep me hidden away from being true in my relationships or any part of my life, to be honest.
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:26.079
And I think that shame is one of the biggest driving forces to turn us towards like numbing agents, whether we are using things for addiction or we end up being down the road of like suicidal ideation, which I was for a really long time, self-harm, et cetera.
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:29.200
Shame can keep us completely locked off from our life.
00:26:29.359 --> 00:26:41.519
And I think that is one of the scariest things about going through hard stuff in your life, is not exactly that moment, but what comes after that moment and the choices that that can, I guess, inflict upon our lives.
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:46.240
And so I feel like that's a really big taboo piece that I love to talk about.
00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:54.000
I also love to talk about demanding more for your life and not being as scared to like call in really big things.
00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:58.720
I just talked about relationships the other day and expecting relationships to give us something.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:09.200
And I know that triggered a lot of people because they don't want to, they want to follow societal contracts and ways of being right that we're expected to show up with.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:11.200
And so things like that are really big.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:22.559
I like to talk about sex and pleasure and all of these components, really just like I said, overcoming hard stuff and calling in really beautiful, joyous stuff for your life moving forward.
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:30.160
And some of that can get pretty twisted in a really great way and sometimes triggers the hell out of people, which is kind of what I'm here for.
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:37.440
So I think sometimes getting triggered is one of the biggest catalysts for healing.
00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:43.599
So you are doing the Lord's work or the death work, one or the maybe both anyways.
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:45.599
Right, yes.
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:50.319
So, Brian, this has been such a fun, inspiring conversation.
00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:52.400
Two more questions as we wrap up.
00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:58.160
I will always get my guests to give the listeners some kind of an embodied activation.
00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:06.559
So it can be a writing exercise, a nervous system writing exercise, a embodied way to demand more from your relationships.
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:19.759
Yeah, actually, I would love to leave them with something that I have literally just clicked into place this last week because it's been showing up for me in my life in a way I didn't even realize.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:26.240
But a really quick way of assessing what is actually the root cause behind the problems that you face in your life.
00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:31.599
And long story short, I had a massage last week where I went in with lower back pain.
00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:33.599
It's been driving me nuts, really painful.
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:35.839
And I told her that going in for the massage.
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:39.599
And for the entire hour, she did not touch my lower back.
00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:43.039
She worked on my glutes, my hamstrings, everywhere else.
00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:47.519
And during the massage, I was like, she's not even touching the place that I told her was a problem.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:54.480
And then I started to feel my lower back completely released during the entire massage as she worked on every other area.
00:28:54.640 --> 00:29:07.119
And it clicked for me that often where we think the logical problem is, like what is actually causing the problem in our lives, is not actually the root cause of what the problem is.
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:17.039
And so it's a way of us being able to look, say you're having a fight with your spouse and you seem to continually keep coming back to this conversation of money.
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:18.480
Is money the root?
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:20.000
Is the relationship the root?
00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:21.440
Are those the actual problems?
00:29:21.680 --> 00:29:28.240
Or does it maybe stem from a wound or a belief around the fact that maybe you don't feel safe?
00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:30.799
Maybe you're experiencing some scarcity.
00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:38.880
Maybe you need to have a little bit more understanding or compassion, or maybe there's something that's coming up about worthiness for you.
00:29:39.039 --> 00:29:47.680
There's going to be a root cause that is actually leading you towards the problems in your life or the cycles, the patterns that keep coming up.
00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:57.039
And 99% of the time, I would argue, it's not where your brain goes towards the logical root of the problem.
00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:59.440
It's something entirely different.
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:09.279
And it takes a little bit of some self-reflection piece to be able to assess what that might be, analyze it, and actually put some time and attention towards it.
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:26.319
But maybe perhaps bringing that up in a meditation or if you go for some walks outside or some silent periods of your life, maybe exploring where the challenges you're facing right now might actually be coming from instead of the problem that you keep thinking it is because of, and just see what comes up.
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:36.960
That is such a good one because I think there is this tendency to focus on the symptoms instead of what's really deep and driving those symptoms in the first place.
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:44.640
And then when people want to learn more about you, connect with you further, where are the best places for them to go?
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:46.799
As you've already talked about your podcast.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:48.400
So in addition to that.
00:30:49.119 --> 00:30:49.680
Absolutely.
00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:50.079
Yeah.
00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:54.799
So for the podcast, I mean, you can find it on Facebook, Instagram, all the things.
00:30:54.960 --> 00:30:57.039
GoRegulateYourself is our handle.
00:30:57.119 --> 00:31:01.359
You can go to go regulateyourself.com, which will pull up the main website for the podcast.
00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:04.000
You'll find all the things there, all the episodes, etc.
00:31:04.559 --> 00:31:12.079
But if you're interested in the writing side of thing or my personal pages, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at it's Brian Roberge.
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:17.759
And then Brian Roberge.com will bring you to my main substack, which is my writing profile.
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:23.359
And my host, or I guess you can say, platform is called the 30 Something Bible.
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:41.279
So it is around surviving and thriving in these very hot, messy 30 years of like when transitions come up and things happen, and suddenly, you know, you think you have your whole life figured out and suddenly you're thrown for a complete loop and things are changing faster than you can imagine.
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:44.079
That is what the 30-something Bible is all about.
00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:50.480
So again, you can go to Brian Roberge.com or you can find me at it's Brian Roberge on Facebook or Instagram.
00:31:50.799 --> 00:31:51.279
Beautiful.
00:31:51.359 --> 00:31:54.480
And I will include links to all of that in the episode description.
00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:57.519
So thank you so much for being here.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:31:59.680
Thank you for having me.
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:05.359
Ready to stop outsourcing your inner knowing and crack your own code?
00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:08.559
Grab my free gift, Know Your Hungers.
00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:17.599
Discover the five hidden blocks behind your food struggles, and get a customized audio care package based on your results.
00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:21.440
You're not broken, you're just misdiagnosed.
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:30.000
Visit embodiedwriting warrior.com slash gift or click the link in the show notes.
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.160
Welcome to Embodied Writing Warrior, a show for women who refuse the white metal wellness and crave food freedom built for real life, where your fire gets pained not dead.
00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:17.280
Fall in lust with your own momentum and enjoy pleasure-led creativity.
00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:21.440
Because healing was never meant to be a full-time job.
00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.879
I'm Kayla, writer and help coach Gone Row.
00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:29.440
Now let's make consistency feel like foreplay.
00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:34.960
Welcome back to another episode of the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast.
00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:48.399
We have another guest interview coming in hot, and today's conversation was honestly one of the most inspiring and genuinely fun conversations I have had in a while.
00:00:48.799 --> 00:01:00.399
In this conversation, I'm joined by Brianne Roberge, a writer and the host of the brilliantly named Go Regulate Yourself podcast.
00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:06.319
As you might imagine, this was a raw and unfiltered conversation.
00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:21.359
And we talked a lot about what happens when the life you build around other people's expectations collapses and you finally have the opportunity to discover what you were meant to do instead.
00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:31.680
One of my favorite takeaways from this conversation is this idea that the universe will start by throwing pebbles.
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If you're on a path that might not be fully aligned, if you don't listen, it throws rocks.
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And if you still don't listen, eventually it starts throwing these boulders until you finally receive the message and step into the purpose that was meant for you all along.
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And Brianne got thrown a whole bunch of boulders, which you'll hear about shortly.
00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:18.639
She shares her powerful journey from nursing to coaching, how she went through a devastating and very public business failure, and then ultimately came back to the dream that she carried since childhood, becoming a writer.
00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:24.400
As you can imagine, this story inspired me on such a personal level.
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:45.599
In this episode, we talk about cancel culture, shame, social media, the journey from coaching to writing, breaking free from the need for external validation, finding your real voice, refusing to carry other people's projections, and so much more.
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Brianne is honest, hilarious, deeply reflective, and completely unfiltered in the best possible way.
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Enjoy this conversation, and I'll see you again soon.
00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:04.479
Hello, Brianne, and welcome to the Embodied Writing Warrior Podcast.
00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:06.159
Thank you so much for having me.
00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:07.759
I'm excited to be here.
00:03:08.159 --> 00:03:22.879
I am very excited to have you and to share your story with the listeners because you have a powerful story of reinvention that is going to inspire all of the writers and the creatives listening.
00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:29.919
So can we really start with where you started, where you are now, and what that journey looked like?
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Yeah, for sure.
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I mean, how much time do we have?
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So it's a long story, but it's a good one.
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And I will try to shorten it the best I can.
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So I have had a very interesting, a little bit unorthodox journey into writing.
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And it has been messy and filled with so much challenge, a lot of shame, and learning how to kind of authentically become myself.
00:03:56.879 --> 00:04:04.960
And so backing it up, like 10 plus years, I came from a childhood that was very abusive.
00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:12.240
I had a lot of different experiences in my life from a very young age that taught me that I was to be seen and not heard.
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My body belonged to others and not to myself.
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I had to make sure that everybody else was okay before myself.
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It was really important to people please and seek a lot of validation and make sure that I was doing okay in everything that I was doing in my life.
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And so my mom kind of raised me as a mostly single mom for most of her life.
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Um, definitely didn't choose great partners.
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My bio-dad um was an abusive man.
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My stepfather was also an abusive man.
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And when I got into this space of deciding what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, you know, in their high school, and I try to tell you, what do you want to be and what do you want to create out of the years that follow?
00:04:56.639 --> 00:05:00.480
I was a very confused, very um hurt child.
00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:06.240
And I always looked to everybody else's side of myself to decide what it is that I wanted to do.
00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:12.319
And my mom pushed me into a career of nursing, which was never something that I really wanted.
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But her and my stepdad insisted that it was going to have a good paycheck, lead to a lot of really good things in life, etc.
00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:24.399
And so I ended up pursuing that, knowing that I didn't actually want to be a nurse.
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I wanted to be a writer my entire life.
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I remember when I was younger, I had a poem published.
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I used to write family newsletters all the time.
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I was always stealing my grandparents' typewriter and, you know, writing up whatever I could.
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Even my grade nine science project, I can remember this still, and I actually found a copy of this a couple of years ago.
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I wrote a choose your own ending storybook for my grade nine science project.
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And so writing was always something that I absolutely loved.
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I wanted to be in that space, but you know, writing's not a career.
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A lot of people tell you that you can make money in, especially not in my family.
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I was the first to go to university, the first to go into the medical role.
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And it was supposed to be this really prestige thing, right?
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With all my family expecting me to do really well here.
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So I went into nursing and quickly forgot about writing.
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Didn't really have time for it, other than all of the essays and horrible papers I had to write throughout my degree, which is not the same thing.
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And I didn't really have a lot of writing in my background.
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But what I did was try to make the best out of the situation that I was in.
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And about 10 years ago, this is kind of the point where I had been, I guess you can say, finalizing like my nursing degree and moving into like the actual world of working bedside and the hospital, that sort of thing.
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And I remember this kind of being the start of my conscious healing journey, where I started to actually realize that I had a lot of trauma and there was something that I could do about it.
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And I didn't have to continue to show up in my life being triggered and you know, allowing that to kind of rule the roost, if you will.
00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:09.040
And so I started to make some changes and started to work on myself.
00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:13.360
And I decided that I was going to become like more health-oriented.
00:07:13.519 --> 00:07:17.920
And so I actually ended up enrolling in a health coaching certification program.
00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:23.519
And what that taught me was that there was a lot of things within my power that I could change in my life.
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And health was a really big component of a person's life.
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So why not that be my focus?
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So I ended up taking nursing and coaching and creating like this business that ended up having a lot of health coaching, a lot of trauma coaching in it.
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I always seemed to kind of come back to that.
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But the the bread and butter of it was helping people get healthy and happy in the most natural way possible.
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And so over the course of those last 10 years, things started to really shift and move in there.
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I built some a really good like solo practice doing this.
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And then I hired on a couple of nursing staff.
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And then I got this really bold, albeit really stupid, idea about three years ago, four years ago now, that I was gonna take this company and massively expand it.
00:08:10.959 --> 00:08:24.639
And I ended up hiring on over 20 staff, opening up over four clinic locations, and thought we were gonna be like on the cusp of this really big turn in the world where people were looking for these types of options.
00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:29.120
And I had no business taking an expansion of that size.
00:08:29.279 --> 00:08:37.200
I had no idea what I was doing or how to do it properly, how to manage people or run a company of that size.
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And it fell flat in my face relatively quickly.
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I ended up losing everything.
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The business went under.
00:08:47.360 --> 00:08:57.840
We ended up being put into a bankruptcy, all of our assets, my husband's pension, literally everything that we had, ended up getting lost in the mix of this catastrophic failure.
00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:02.399
Not to mention, in addition to the finances, I had to lay off all of my staff.
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We had to close all of our clinic locations.
00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:08.240
And so now we're being placed into the position where money's gone.
00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:17.759
We don't have the ability to pay off remaining wages or pay the vendor contracts or the leases or any of these things that we had signed for.
00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:20.960
And a lot of people ended up getting hurt because of it.
00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:28.799
And when people get hurt, oftentimes they direct their energy towards where they believe the root cause that problem is, which was me.
00:09:29.039 --> 00:09:46.559
And so, on top of all of the financial loss and the catastrophic failure and the very, very public failure that it was, I ended up also being put into like a cancel culture attempt of me online, where now everybody was angry and they were coming for blood, and I was the source of that.
00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:55.519
So my face, my picture, my story, everything like that was posted online in every single group you can imagine in our local community.
00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:03.279
And I had anonymous emails and comments on social media and all the things coming in consistently.
00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:14.159
There was times when I would wake up to hundreds of comments or hundreds of messages or emails telling me what a terrible person I was, what a fraud and imposter, and how I did this purposely to hurt other people.
00:10:14.480 --> 00:10:20.320
I even escalated at one point to being anonymous death threats in my email box.
00:10:20.559 --> 00:10:24.240
And it was a very traumatic period of time.
00:10:24.559 --> 00:10:41.679
And I'm not gonna lie, my nervous system during this period really shut down internally because I would, you know, go to our grocery store or run errands, and I would have this thought of, you know, who's gonna recognize me, who's gonna see me, and I would be darting around the store and constantly on edge.
00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:47.519
And I lived a couple of years in that fight or flight mode, not knowing what was gonna happen or who was gonna say what.
00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:56.960
And so as a result, I mean, you know, this really traumatic, horrible situation that happened was actually a really big blessing in disguise for me.
00:10:57.279 --> 00:11:03.759
Because what I didn't realize during the course of this, you know, how we always say, you know, the universe throws you a pebble.
00:11:03.919 --> 00:11:05.120
When you don't listen, it throws a rock.
00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:07.200
And when you don't listen, it throws you a boulder.
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:16.480
Well, I had conceived like probably 500 boulders before I even chose to start this company or move into this expansion or do any of these things.
00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:18.720
And I just, I wasn't listening.
00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:28.320
I had this really deep-seated wound of needing to people please and show up for other people and like I said, validate, you know, everything that was happening in my life.
00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:29.600
I wanted to be liked, right?
00:11:29.679 --> 00:11:32.000
I wanted to be liked by other people, loved by other people.
00:11:32.159 --> 00:11:37.120
I wanted them to have good opinions of me and never say anything bad about me.
00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:48.799
And that actually being that huge driving force behind all of the decisions that I made in this company, and what ultimately led to it crashing was because I was trying to please everybody else.
00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:51.919
And especially I was trying to please my mother, right?
00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:55.360
I haven't had a relationship with her for 14 years.
00:11:55.519 --> 00:11:57.600
We've been no contact for four years.
00:11:57.759 --> 00:12:06.000
And this really was a way of me being like, oh, look what I did and look what I created and who I became, even though we don't talk anymore.
00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:16.480
And that reality was a huge slap in the face for me because I had to realize that all the choices that I was making in my life never actually were for me.
00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:20.480
I was showing up as a completely different version of myself, a masked version.
00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:25.200
Nothing that I was doing in my life was what I actually wanted or who I was.
00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:28.639
And I did make some really hard choices from that point moving forward.
00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:32.080
So in the last four years, I walked away from my nursing license.
00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:35.600
I hung up my screw-ups for good and my stethoscope for good.
00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:39.759
I walked away from coaching only as of last summer.
00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:46.080
And then I kind of have this last year of really trying to figure out what it was that I wanted.
00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:51.759
I knew that I wanted to go back into writing because I've wanted, as I said, to be a writer my whole life.
00:12:52.080 --> 00:13:10.000
And I've spent this last year since I fully hung up coaching, really finding the confidence to be in this space, finding my voice to execute that in a different way than I ever have and be more raw and unfiltered and unapologetic in what I have to say.
00:13:10.240 --> 00:13:17.679
And it's been this really beautiful lesson and learning curve that so many incredible opportunities have come out of.
00:13:17.919 --> 00:13:24.720
But I first had to go through like this major death and rebirth cycle in order to get to where I am now.
00:13:24.960 --> 00:13:27.840
So that's the gist of everything.
00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:37.440
That is a wild story, and just the fact that you had to lose multiple levels of safety all at once.
00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:42.480
So the financial safety, the safety of like, am I gonna get hurt when I go to the grocery store?
00:13:42.639 --> 00:14:00.559
And that like activation you'd feel from the emails and the comments, like getting canceled is like I feel like that would be like one of the yuckiest things that can happen in today's society because it's everywhere and it just like seeps into everything.
00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:18.559
And what I love is the fact that you were able to mine the gold from that and realize this was a very painful way of being directed to my purpose, but I was being directed, and now you're in this like really inspirational place from like where I'm sitting.
00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:22.799
So now you have this podcast and it's called Go Regulate Yourself.
00:14:22.879 --> 00:14:23.840
And I love it.
00:14:23.919 --> 00:14:25.279
It's like curse happy.
00:14:25.360 --> 00:14:29.120
There's like, you know, you're saying it like it is, it is unfiltered.
00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:32.240
It's such a great, like, I love listening.
00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:47.039
So can you share a little bit about what that title stands for and maybe how you even came to come up with that name because it's so creative and it people know exactly what they're getting as soon as they hear that title, which is awesome.
00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:49.440
Yeah, for sure.
00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:56.399
So Go Regulate Yourself was actually born out of this whole cancel culture attempt of me online.
00:14:56.960 --> 00:15:08.480
Because a really big thing that I recognized in this was that when people were telling me that I was a fraud, I was an imposter, I was a terrible person, all of this stuff, the problem wasn't that they were saying it.
00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:10.960
The problem is that I was believing it.
00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:12.639
I believed it to be true.
00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:14.720
I thought that they were correct.
00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:19.360
And I held on to that for way too long, longer than I should have.
00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:29.759
And when I finally started to break free of this mold of people pleasing, one of the things we recognize is that like healing doesn't necessarily make you more gentle, more nice, more laid back.
00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:32.240
It actually makes you very honest.
00:15:32.720 --> 00:15:37.919
And you're able to recognize, no, I actually do know who I am.
00:15:38.080 --> 00:15:43.120
I know that I have a good heart, and I no longer have to show up to prove that to somebody else.
00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:47.519
And if they don't see it, they don't recognize it that it's not a me problem, that's a you problem.
00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:55.600
And so go regulate yourself was born out of two kinds of notions, which, if your audience hasn't guessed it already, is a spin-off of go fuck yourself.
00:15:56.159 --> 00:16:03.759
And it's the idea behind it is on one hand, a very endearing reminder to take care of yourself, right?
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:12.320
It's important for you to heal, for you to face the inner demons and the wounds that you have, to do something with the stuff that you've been handed in life.
00:16:12.480 --> 00:16:18.240
Because while you might not be responsible for everything that happens to you, you are responsible for what comes next.
00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:22.960
And the only way that your life improves is by you deciding that you're gonna do something about it.
00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:29.360
So it's that endearing reminder to like, hey, go regulate yourself, go take care of yourself, go do something for yourself.
00:16:29.600 --> 00:16:41.679
But then on the other hand, it's also a reminder that you are not responsible for anybody else in how they feel, how they think, what they project upon you, their triggers, the things that they needed to learn in their life.
00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:43.360
You are not responsible for any of it.
00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:59.200
So when somebody's up in your, you know, craw and they're trying to give you all their shit and tell you to wear it and that it's yours, you have this opportunity to not pick it up, to set it down, to walk away from it and to remind them to go regulate themselves.
00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:03.279
And so that was very much where the energy of this was born from.
00:17:03.519 --> 00:17:09.839
And now you're right, there's a lot of cussing in there, but the premise of it is being about mental health, right?
00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:21.119
And mental health meaning real life, about when we heal and when we do all this work, it's not about becoming saints or, you know, thinking of ourselves as being enlightened and therefore better than somebody else.
00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:27.200
It's about actually taking care of ourselves at the end of the day and being realistic about what that looks like in today's world.
00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:32.400
Because this isn't a world where things just never happen that challenge us.
00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:44.480
We're going to consistently be triggered or have things pop up for us in our reality that are going to challenge us in how we show up and how we speak and the values that we hold for ourselves.
00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:50.000
And so the whole mission behind the podcast is to talk about real life stuff.
00:17:50.160 --> 00:18:07.279
I share a lot about my own traumas, things that I went through, and also am going through every single day with the hopes that it might help somebody feel a little bit less alone and also get the tools, the resources, the knowledge to be able to move forward from whatever hardships they are facing in their lives.
00:18:07.599 --> 00:18:09.759
I love the dual meaning of that.
00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:23.200
And I love that you took such uh unfortunate circumstance and like you know, put a little bit of like Stephen Potler talks about big S bite versus little S fight.
00:18:23.519 --> 00:18:26.160
Big S fight is like I'm trying to hurt somebody.
00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:26.799
We don't want that.
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:29.519
But little S spite is like, oh, you're gonna cancel me.
00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:33.279
I'm gonna come up with this ridiculously clever podcast name and create a movement.
00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:34.160
Thank you.
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:35.839
So I love that.
00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:45.680
And I want to talk a little bit about social media in general because this is something I have had such a wretched relationship with.
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:50.400
And what you're sharing kind of reminds me of something I heard David Goggins talk about.
00:18:50.559 --> 00:18:57.119
And he hates social media too because he's like, I don't want to go on here and post this stuff because these people don't know me, they don't know what I've been through.
00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:12.319
And he goes on this tangent and like feel that it's it's it's such a rough place, and there's you know, like you said, hundreds of people emailing you commenting, not all those people were directly impacted by the businesses you had to shut down.
00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:21.200
So there's so much like turbulence in that entire online world, and you're still on there, you have a social media presence.
00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:31.200
What is posting on there now like versus posting back when you were still in the people pleasing, the seeking validation, all those different things?
00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:33.759
That's such a good question.
00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:42.640
I feel like before, every time that I would post, I would go down like this spiral, this rabbit hole of what do they want to see?
00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:45.200
What version of me do they want to see?
00:19:45.359 --> 00:19:50.559
What way can I make somebody else feel like they they like every part of me, right?
00:19:50.640 --> 00:19:51.599
There's nothing to offend.
00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:54.079
I walked on eggshells with everything that I said.
00:19:54.160 --> 00:20:00.319
I would rewrite it a million times and always be worried about offending or being taken the wrong way.
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:13.680
And if, God forbid, I did get a comment where somebody had something negative to say about what I had posted, I would either like feel this immense like guilt and shame and fear around their comment.
00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:15.279
And oh my God, who's gonna see that?
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:16.400
And what are they gonna say?
00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:18.319
And it's gonna be this whole thing.
00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:25.200
Or I would overexplain and I would go into this method of like, oh no, you're right, and here's all the reasons why you're right.
00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:30.640
And this is actually the way that I was saying it to make you like seem like I was saying it in a different way.
00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:32.720
I was so scared of using my voice.
00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:40.400
I didn't actually even know what my voice was or my opinions that I did have because I was so conscious of other people's.
00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:42.400
I really bit my tongue a lot.
00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:48.000
And now when I'm on social media or I'm in that presence, very different experience.
00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:53.599
I post whatever the hell it is that I want, whatever's speaking to me, whatever I feel like is resonating.
00:20:53.759 --> 00:21:05.279
And it's so interesting because the more that I'm doing that, the more traction my stuff is getting than it ever has before with people resonating, comments, sending me messages, and just saying that they feel that way too.
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:14.400
That usually also breeds into like different writing topics or podcast topics on a deeper level when you are having those very open conversations with people.
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.960
I don't tread the water anymore, walk on eggshells, or worry about what people are gonna say.
00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:29.440
And in fact, you know, maybe I went too far to one side, but I actually really enjoy the negative comments now because I like to act like that mirror for other people, right?
00:21:29.599 --> 00:21:41.599
When somebody has something really nasty to say about what I've shared or my perspective, or even about me, you know, some people love to take things and make it very personal about your appearance or whatever else when you do share stuff.
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:48.640
Whenever that happens, I actually love to engage in conversations with people in the comments because I just act like the mirror.
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:52.079
And it's like, oh, it's very interesting that that's what you picked up based on this.
00:21:52.240 --> 00:21:58.319
Like, what's going on for you in this area that that is making you think or see this in that particular way?
00:21:58.559 --> 00:21:59.599
And it's very interesting.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.279
Because most of the time after you do that, people don't comment back.
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:06.960
So you hope that maybe you got the idea across.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:10.400
But in other times, sometimes it does open up a really beautiful conversation.
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:13.599
I've had people actually change their original comment, be like, you know what?
00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:17.839
I take it back, or I thank you for changing my perspective or helping me see that in a different way.
00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:21.839
So it's kind of cool now, my interactions on social media.
00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:23.039
There is no fear.
00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:35.440
And you know, I'm still in the very beginning stages, I would say, of like really allowing my light to shine and showing up fully in that space, but it feels so much more aligned than it ever happened as before.
00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:37.839
That is amazing.
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:45.920
Like to be someone who gets to the point where you arrive, getting those like almost troll comments is so powerful.
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:56.160
And I feel like that's a really great approach because I don't know where I heard it, but they say that like when you point a finger, there's like three point fingers pointing back at you, like literally.
00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.720
So I feel like that's kind of what's happening for you here.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:11.680
So on your social media now, who would benefit most from following you and what can they expect to see on your page, in your content, all the things.
00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:18.960
So I can have two very distinct divisions of like how I show up and I use my voice, I'll say.
00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:30.079
So on my like, I'll call it a personal social media where I'm doing like a lot of my own face and shares and thoughts and stuff like that, and sharing a lot of my writing pieces.
00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:39.599
That's a space for anybody I would say who's like in their 30s or around their 30s, who is navigating messy transitions in life.
00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:57.279
So if you are moving from an old identity to a new version of you, you're healing, you're recreating, you're looking to put in boundaries, to show up as the best version of you and really romanticize this thing called life and make it as delicious and joyful and delightful as possible.
00:23:57.599 --> 00:24:02.880
That would be what my kind of like personal space is for, my writing space is for.
00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:04.720
We talk a lot about those things.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:09.440
I still share a lot of my journey, but it's just a very different type of share.
00:24:09.519 --> 00:24:35.599
It's more of a reflective piece, going a little bit deeper into some of that introspection and inviting you to kind of do the same in relationships and beyond, versus now on like my podcast pages and the voice that's in that space, that is a little bit more raw, more explicit, more like let's talk about this from a very taboo angle and invite in some of those conversations that we might not have otherwise.
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:40.319
And so that is kind of more of explicit nature, we will say, right?
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:52.720
If you're not somebody who's into a lot of cussing or like those type of things, then maybe that isn't the best space for you, because there is a lot of that, but it's just very real and unfiltered in that space.
00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:57.200
And I would say both are for anybody who is in that space of healing, right?
00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:06.799
If you're in the space of trying to overcome some really hard stuff and get to a place where you want to feel a little bit better, either of those can be very allocated towards your journeys.
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:15.680
It's kind of fun that you have like your PG-rated one and then like your R-rated one, and people can self-select, which is so magical.
00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:23.680
So, what are some of your favorite taboo topics to talk about on your show that don't be discussed nearly enough?
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:34.319
I like to talk a lot about shame, which seems like it's not a taboo topic and that a lot of people talk to about it.
00:25:34.559 --> 00:25:45.839
But I think that truly the way in which I talk about shame is to a depth that a lot of people aren't necessarily willing to look at or be around or even hold within that space.
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:55.200
Like I said, I am very open and I share a lot of my journeys, the deep, like dark stuff, the things that we would normally hide in a closet and walk away and never want to show anybody.
00:25:55.359 --> 00:26:10.799
I'm talking about my own stuff openly within these spaces in regards to overcoming shame because I allowed shame to depict so many of my choices in my life and really keep me hidden away from being true in my relationships or any part of my life, to be honest.
00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:26.079
And I think that shame is one of the biggest driving forces to turn us towards like numbing agents, whether we are using things for addiction or we end up being down the road of like suicidal ideation, which I was for a really long time, self-harm, et cetera.
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:29.200
Shame can keep us completely locked off from our life.
00:26:29.359 --> 00:26:41.519
And I think that is one of the scariest things about going through hard stuff in your life, is not exactly that moment, but what comes after that moment and the choices that that can, I guess, inflict upon our lives.
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:46.240
And so I feel like that's a really big taboo piece that I love to talk about.
00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:54.000
I also love to talk about demanding more for your life and not being as scared to like call in really big things.
00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:58.720
I just talked about relationships the other day and expecting relationships to give us something.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:09.200
And I know that triggered a lot of people because they don't want to, they want to follow societal contracts and ways of being right that we're expected to show up with.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:11.200
And so things like that are really big.
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:22.559
I like to talk about sex and pleasure and all of these components, really just like I said, overcoming hard stuff and calling in really beautiful, joyous stuff for your life moving forward.
00:27:22.799 --> 00:27:30.160
And some of that can get pretty twisted in a really great way and sometimes triggers the hell out of people, which is kind of what I'm here for.
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:37.440
So I think sometimes getting triggered is one of the biggest catalysts for healing.
00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:43.599
So you are doing the Lord's work or the death work, one or the maybe both anyways.
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:45.599
Right, yes.
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:50.319
So, Brian, this has been such a fun, inspiring conversation.
00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:52.400
Two more questions as we wrap up.
00:27:52.559 --> 00:27:58.160
I will always get my guests to give the listeners some kind of an embodied activation.
00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:06.559
So it can be a writing exercise, a nervous system writing exercise, a embodied way to demand more from your relationships.
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:19.759
Yeah, actually, I would love to leave them with something that I have literally just clicked into place this last week because it's been showing up for me in my life in a way I didn't even realize.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:26.240
But a really quick way of assessing what is actually the root cause behind the problems that you face in your life.
00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:31.599
And long story short, I had a massage last week where I went in with lower back pain.
00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:33.599
It's been driving me nuts, really painful.
00:28:33.759 --> 00:28:35.839
And I told her that going in for the massage.
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:39.599
And for the entire hour, she did not touch my lower back.
00:28:39.759 --> 00:28:43.039
She worked on my glutes, my hamstrings, everywhere else.
00:28:43.200 --> 00:28:47.519
And during the massage, I was like, she's not even touching the place that I told her was a problem.
00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:54.480
And then I started to feel my lower back completely released during the entire massage as she worked on every other area.
00:28:54.640 --> 00:29:07.119
And it clicked for me that often where we think the logical problem is, like what is actually causing the problem in our lives, is not actually the root cause of what the problem is.
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:17.039
And so it's a way of us being able to look, say you're having a fight with your spouse and you seem to continually keep coming back to this conversation of money.
00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:18.480
Is money the root?
00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:20.000
Is the relationship the root?
00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:21.440
Are those the actual problems?
00:29:21.680 --> 00:29:28.240
Or does it maybe stem from a wound or a belief around the fact that maybe you don't feel safe?
00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:30.799
Maybe you're experiencing some scarcity.
00:29:31.039 --> 00:29:38.880
Maybe you need to have a little bit more understanding or compassion, or maybe there's something that's coming up about worthiness for you.
00:29:39.039 --> 00:29:47.680
There's going to be a root cause that is actually leading you towards the problems in your life or the cycles, the patterns that keep coming up.
00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:57.039
And 99% of the time, I would argue, it's not where your brain goes towards the logical root of the problem.
00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:59.440
It's something entirely different.
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:09.279
And it takes a little bit of some self-reflection piece to be able to assess what that might be, analyze it, and actually put some time and attention towards it.
00:30:09.519 --> 00:30:26.319
But maybe perhaps bringing that up in a meditation or if you go for some walks outside or some silent periods of your life, maybe exploring where the challenges you're facing right now might actually be coming from instead of the problem that you keep thinking it is because of, and just see what comes up.
00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:36.960
That is such a good one because I think there is this tendency to focus on the symptoms instead of what's really deep and driving those symptoms in the first place.
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:44.640
And then when people want to learn more about you, connect with you further, where are the best places for them to go?
00:30:45.039 --> 00:30:46.799
As you've already talked about your podcast.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:48.400
So in addition to that.
00:30:49.119 --> 00:30:49.680
Absolutely.
00:30:49.759 --> 00:30:50.079
Yeah.
00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:54.799
So for the podcast, I mean, you can find it on Facebook, Instagram, all the things.
00:30:54.960 --> 00:30:57.039
GoRegulateYourself is our handle.
00:30:57.119 --> 00:31:01.359
You can go to go regulateyourself.com, which will pull up the main website for the podcast.
00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:04.000
You'll find all the things there, all the episodes, etc.
00:31:04.559 --> 00:31:12.079
But if you're interested in the writing side of thing or my personal pages, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at it's Brian Roberge.
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:17.759
And then Brian Roberge.com will bring you to my main substack, which is my writing profile.
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:23.359
And my host, or I guess you can say, platform is called the 30 Something Bible.
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:41.279
So it is around surviving and thriving in these very hot, messy 30 years of like when transitions come up and things happen, and suddenly, you know, you think you have your whole life figured out and suddenly you're thrown for a complete loop and things are changing faster than you can imagine.
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:44.079
That is what the 30-something Bible is all about.
00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:50.480
So again, you can go to Brian Roberge.com or you can find me at it's Brian Roberge on Facebook or Instagram.
00:31:50.799 --> 00:31:51.279
Beautiful.
00:31:51.359 --> 00:31:54.480
And I will include links to all of that in the episode description.
00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:57.519
So thank you so much for being here.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:31:59.680
Thank you for having me.
00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:05.359
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