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The Felt Sense of Success with Laura Jean
0 Playsin 2 days
I tell a story about the ironic demise of my keepcup, and the difference between light green and deep green choices, before a pot-of-tea-convo with Laura Jean. Laura is a renegade business coach, dietician and permaculturalist who will help you see VALUES in a whole new light, and how to use them to illuminate the life/business/world you really want. Prepare to cry tears of recognition and possibility.
π Building trust in yourself for changes that take courage
π Eating disorder shares and healing strategies
π The very worst thing that can possibly happen
π Body check for making decisions
π Do we change, or choose?
π Lauraβs values
π Why we recreate the same old shit even when living βalternativelyβ
π Figuring out your Bare Ass Minimum
π The felt sense of success
π Money as a tool to enact your values
π Three steps towards a regenerative business
π Commerce vs. capitalism
π Activities for clarifying your values
π§ββοΈ LINKY POOS π§ββοΈ
Gundaroo Growers
π Yellow-tailed black cockatoo sound credit π
π§‘π§‘𧑠Support Reskillience on Patreon π§‘π§‘π§‘
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Transcript
Introduction to Riskiliants Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey, this is Katie and you're tuned into Riskiliants, a podcast about the hard, soft and surprising skills will help us stay afloat if our modern systems don't.
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm recording this in Lutruwita, Tasmania, where I've come to spend the week with my mum and it has been absolutely amazing weather. blowing a gale from the west with random bouts of sideways rain, which is actually the kind of weather i love.
00:00:36
Speaker
And I especially love going walking in it, bending against the wind, blinded by icy droplets and occasionally passing another half-drowned battler and exchanging a small nod of respect.
00:00:48
Speaker
So i was out in the downpour yesterday and i saw a takeaway coffee cup floating down the gutter. So i ran after it and plucked it from the gaping jaws of the drain just before it was gobbled.
00:01:00
Speaker
And it reminded me of a similar situation a while ago when we went out for coffee one morning and as I got out of the car, my keep cup tumbled onto the road and I watched in slow motion as it rolled straight down a stormwater drain.
00:01:17
Speaker
It really doesn't get more ironic than that. A keep cup, a dolphin-saving, earth-loving symbol of virtue, perpetuating the very problem it was designed to prevent.
00:01:28
Speaker
And that made me think about light green and deep green changes. How changes can look good on the surface, like swapping a single-use coffee cup for a reusable keep cup, but can actually produce the same result if the underlying values aren't rejigged.
00:01:45
Speaker
For example, continuously buying new organic clothing or trendy drink bottles or green bags, which ends up being consumerism just of a slightly different colour.
00:01:57
Speaker
A deep green change would involve digging right down to the roots of your habits, of your beliefs, of your values and asking, is this the way I want to grow? And while they'll have to prize my cup of morning coffee from the grip of my corpse, I'm always keen to bring more intentionality to life.
Introducing Laura Jean's Values-Driven Approach
00:02:16
Speaker
And today we're doing that alongside the excellent Laura Jean with a whole lot of gentleness and self-compassion. Laura is a trauma-informed and permaculture-inspired business coach and dietitian who's messing with business as usual through business itself, guiding people to get clear on their values so that their livelihoods contribute to liberation.
00:02:37
Speaker
not enslavement to the status quo. This values piece is pretty damn pivotal, but so easy to skip over because it seems really simple and haven't we heard about defining our values 50 billion times, but something about the way Laura frames it really resonated with me and I hope it does for you too.
00:02:55
Speaker
Laura and I recorded this conversation one sunny morning at her home in a little town outside Canberra. And afterwards, Laura sent us away with homemade cookies and a bouquet of fresh greens from the garden.
00:03:08
Speaker
and one of my personal wealth indicators is being able to pick a bunch of flowers and veggies for visitors. So Laura absolutely nailed it there. Before we start, all of my gratitude goes out to the patrons of this podcast who are helping me pay my rent and bills, literally, which is just incredible.
00:03:25
Speaker
And I'm going to do an episode on our housing arrangement and land access options soon. So thank you to everyone who's funding this podcast as a community, including brand new members, Maya Ward,
00:03:37
Speaker
whose epicness you can enjoy in episode 43. And also Nerula, thank you both so much. We're all hanging out at patreon.com forward slash riskilliance.
00:03:48
Speaker
And please don't sign up through the Patreon app on your phone because Apple will take a 30% fee.
Garden Conversation and Personal Reflections
00:03:53
Speaker
Those swindlers use your browser instead. Now here's Laura Jean and i shooting the breeze in the sunshine with a segue of yellow tailed black cockatoos.
00:04:03
Speaker
Enjoy.
00:04:07
Speaker
Maybe we could just land in this audioscape here and you could let the listeners know where we are and some of the things that we're seeing and provide a bit of a a sensory palette for us to just sink into for a moment.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love that. I always appreciate that. Like whenever I run a group or a space, yeah, having that opportunity just to just kind of settle, settle in space. And always think of it as a little bit of resistance, you know, that's slowing down because it's the opposite of what we're asked to do.
00:04:37
Speaker
So we are catching up and connecting on the lands of the Nambri and the Ngunnawal people, which is colonised as Gundaroo, New South Wales in Australia, for any of your international listeners. There are some, actually. Yeah, I mean, if our accents don't give it away, of course. and You haven't gone jet-setting around the world. And we're in my backyard on my sun-drenched northern-facing deck in a real sprinter day here where you get that real combination of a cool winter morning but the promise of spring.
00:05:03
Speaker
as the day unfolds. So sun's on us, which is really lovely, enjoying a cuppa and listening to the birds. We've got, we were just chatting about them. We've got some fairy wrens, some red-browed finches.
00:05:16
Speaker
can hear some crimson rosellas. Yes, they love they really enjoy the seed. no We've got some melodies emanating from a neighbour's house that maybe the mics could be picking up for the more discerning ears out there.
00:05:31
Speaker
I'm seeing some beautiful pansies, purple pansies, and the burgeoning growth on oregano and thyme after the deep winter. Mm-hmm. Yes, and lots of the bulbs have popped their heads up. The jonquils are only showing their faces. No one else is brave enough yet for the frosty mornings, but soon there'll be like a little edging of ranunculus as you step off the deck and start immersing into the garden and finding a little pocket or corner to sit and enjoy and observe. Well, yeah, it is so beautiful here and it reminds me a little of our small town pocket that's a satellite of larger towns where we live and
00:06:09
Speaker
i'm I'm feeling quite far from home. You know, we've come 12 or 1300 kilometres already and via some very circuitous kind of routes, but it is interesting being on the road and feeling this season unfold and my body yearning to be sensing the temperature of the soil and sowing some seeds and getting started on that springs.
Defining and Living by Values
00:06:33
Speaker
planting and and growing and feeding ourselves um over the summer and into the autumn so yeah it's definitely a tension flying around as we are at the moment in the van of course on wheels but it's beautiful to pause in gardens like this and, and feel your, your homesteading ways and your sense of, of rootedness and place and, um, take a little bit of that for myself.
00:06:57
Speaker
So yeah, thank you for having us this morning. for coming And yeah yeah, I've just been like casting my eyes, like a net over all of the different things that you're doing. And it was so it's so wonderful to see the, the spread of the diversity in your life and,
00:07:13
Speaker
in your community offerings and in your professional life and creative life and all of those things. And the one word that's sticking out to me that unifies all of those elements is is values and like a values-led approach to life. And I'm wondering if we can start with even the question of like, what are your values and how did you arrive at them? And then we can talk about the different ways they're manifesting around you. Yeah, I love that. For me, coming to values initially was the tension, the tension point.
00:07:43
Speaker
oh feeling that something wasn't quite like a fit. Like I described myself as weirdo by, um, a weirdo at heart. And I just always felt like a weirdo, you know, like as a kiddo, um, and growing up and all the things that I was pulled to or enjoyed were, you know, things that were not, was yeah, were weird, you know, by the cultural kind of, um, standards we were based in. At the time when I was sort of going through that phase of like trying to figure it out, was sort of trying to
00:08:15
Speaker
feeling like that sense of like I have to figure out who I want to be but really it was about a kind of and a scratching away at the surface to uncover who I already was and who was there.
00:08:26
Speaker
And what age were you starting to really investigate these, that tension as you described between you and your inner world and what you were seeing around you? When did that start?
00:08:38
Speaker
always been there i think the really big conscious deep dive and looking at it would have been like my late 20s but there's always been moments or pockets of where it's popped up and i've i've sat in that tension and made the choice just i don't know why and i really i think whatever it is that that allowed me to then just have trust and often i would choose the thing that when i look back on it was like completely aligned um with my values so like as a really quick example I always wanted to be a chef from when i was like eight years old till like I was 16. I was like, yes, that's what I'm going to do. And then I did my like work experience placement. I did two weeks and my friends were doing teaching and they would be finishing up their day at three o'clock and I'd be starting my day at three o'clock um and going off being this little kitchen hand at this um restaurant, which was great. I absolutely loved it.
00:09:27
Speaker
But there was this part of me that just was like, hold on a second. That doesn't really align with the kind of life I want to live. And I mean, at the ripe old age of 16, somehow I had this like peace and and I just made a decision and to to change that whole course and trajectory that I'd been on for like eight years like I had a box full of all these cooking things that my aunts were collecting for me and you know this this part of black was actually like a really big part of my identity really for whatever reason I've just had this really strong sense like sometimes people I try and use I suppose more nature analogies but people often talk about your values being your compass and for some reason that's always just been really strong for me
00:10:03
Speaker
I also like think of myself as a nana at heart so I'd always been somebody who really liked op shopping and knitting things and baking and preserving and all those little things like even from a young age but a friend showed me the little tiny video the story of stuff and you know it wasn't that long after I'd seen the Inconvenient Truth and anyway there were just probably some little moments that catalyzed that and i went on a real deep dive into what are my values how do I want to shop in the world um and that probably started me on the yeah journey where I am now of like really articulating my values really getting clear on those and being okay that they weren't what I had been asked to take on you know at the screening last night Meg was talking about you know
00:10:45
Speaker
those different places that our values come from. And I i kind of conceptualize it as values layering, you know, that each kind of season of our life or space we're in, we get another layer of values that we're asked to add on.
00:10:56
Speaker
And it was, I suppose, a shedding of those layers or just recognizing when those layers were in tension with with me and just being at one of those kind of points, those tension points of like, ok okay, well, what's what's my choice in this moment?
Trust and Self-Regulation
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like the inconvenient truth of living by your values is that sometimes you deviate wildly from the path you thought you were on and other people thought you were on and it can seem nonsensical and even confirm confront like a confronting idea to those around you and even to yourself when you've you sunk a lot of energy and and maybe money or time into that pursuit so it takes a lot of courage although when people ask I've been quite similar being on a certain trajectory and then feeling that it's the schism between yeah my heart and and that particular path.
00:11:45
Speaker
And people ask me, wow, how did you how did you have the courage to take off on that on that tangent? And my answer is usually I didn't have a choice. Like it's it's too painful to me to stay in a position that you know my head and heart and every part of me knows isn't fully honest.
00:12:04
Speaker
But I wonder if that's a similar sensation for you, Laura, when you make these these twists and turns in your life what is the logic I suppose yeah I think that that I really resonate with that it's it's that like you get to that point it's like well actually this is the only choice that I can make because to continue along that path is to sacrifice parts of yourself and it's to erode trust in yourself um is what I've found over time and when I work with people sort of in a mentoring capacity um in my business space it's
00:12:36
Speaker
a lot of the time it's actually about helping people to build trust, to trust in themselves that they can take care of what comes when they make those choices. And for whatever reason, that's for me, it's been always strong. So, which I feel proof, like I feel there's a privilege around that and a real,
00:12:54
Speaker
sense of being able to actually make that choice and have that trust. Not everyone has it. um And it's easy to take it for granted a little bit, I think, but actually that can be really hard. And of course, we're embedded in systems where some people don't have like the actual privilege of being able to trust themselves because they have to make those choices for their safety, for their security, for all of those other reasons to exist.
00:13:18
Speaker
And that is the choice they have to make. And they do have to, there is that dismembering um of themselves and and parts of themselves. One of the places I suppose too that kind of like came in which made me think of it when I use that word dismembering is um through my professional work so I'm a dietitian by trade and I worked a lot with people around their relationship with food in their bodies A lot of the way we engage with food and eating asks us to disconnect and dismember and and disconnect from our bodies and our relationship with food and eating and all that has.
00:13:48
Speaker
A lot of that work was helping people to rebuild that trust and to reconnect to themselves, to their to their food and to their bodies. And yeah, so there's that kind of that peace connection there too.
00:13:59
Speaker
So I felt personally like this trust and that courage that we were just speaking about to to follow your heart can actually... be reduced after a period of maybe not doing that.
00:14:11
Speaker
So what I've been drawing on to strengthen myself in this period of my life where I'm really wanting to call in that trust and call on that trust is my past relationship with food and disordered relationship. And similarly to you, I studied naturopathy and was in the nutrition, dysfunctional nutrition space where everyone wants a diet plan and everyone thinks that the rules are the only way to really arrive at some healthy template of eating.
00:14:36
Speaker
um We need to control that part of ourselves or otherwise, you know, we'd just be demonic, gluttonous couch potatoes, right? And I definitely fell into that disordered binge restrict cycle.
00:14:48
Speaker
And the way that I healed that was not through more rules, more restriction, more control, more finessing of a system. It was to fucking drop it and just say to myself...
00:15:01
Speaker
if I have to be, if I have to be all the things that I fear like fat and undesirable and because of these binge episodes, if I have to be that, you know, and I can drop the pain of, of the guilt and the shame around binging, like I would rather be, i would rather be that. I would rather just, yeah, I suppose the, the succinct way of saying it is what I learned was surrendering to my own intuition and my own cravings and,
00:15:27
Speaker
letting that take the path that it will and eventually feeling the regulation and the ability that I have to eat intuitively. That was the path. It wasn't a strategic path. It was, i surrender, like do with me what you will, cravings and body. And that is my main source of evidence that I draw on when I'm making big life decisions that seem to me to have to involve, you know, strategy or control. But actually I remember that time when I just relinquished myself myself to what to what would be and it actually panned out beautifully and now I can listen to my body in moments in every moment and sometimes that is eating more and sometimes that's eating less and sometimes that's toasty and sometimes that's a salad so this is a very long-winded and indulgent tangent but I'm just feeling really alive to this to this part of this conversation so I wonder if yeah you can
00:16:26
Speaker
share more about how we can reinstate trust with ourselves, whether that's nutritionally, whether that's professionally, creatively. and What else do you have to share with us on that front? Yeah, I think it's as simple and as hard as doing it.
00:16:40
Speaker
Like the way we build trust is by doing what we say we're going to do. If we have say, our like we we build trust by evidence, like you said, and and a lot of it's nervous system and comfort and safety.
00:16:55
Speaker
And so what can make us feel like we don't trust ourselves or that we can't be trusted is when we are outside of that sense, that um safe space in our nervous system, our safe and social.
00:17:07
Speaker
um kind of state and so the way that we can build that trust is going outside that but showing ourselves that we can come back into that that we can bring ourselves back in there because the fear is that we can't that we will just be like you said we'll be just off the charts we'll be doing all these things and it's the story we've been told in so many places and spaces um you know as a mom of three kiddos you know the stories that we're asked to ingrain in our kids because it starts for us all when we're kids to control them to restrict them to get them to act in a certain way um
00:17:45
Speaker
Yeah. And so it's that it's actually like, and you can start with like what can feel less risky areas for yourself. um You know, some places and spaces might feel too big.
00:17:57
Speaker
I think we also build trust in connection and in relationship with ourselves. Yes. But with other people, that practice of, of not just kind of doing things and like doing what we say we're going to do like that is piece of it, but doing the things and trusting that we can take care of ourselves when we do get dysregulated or when those other pieces happen.
00:18:17
Speaker
But that only happens by getting dysregulated. or by going through those processes. So then the step I think behind that, because that can feel really scary and that can feel really risky as well, what can we put in place?
00:18:29
Speaker
And that's where our relationships and relating, whether it's with a therapist or a dietitian or a friend, having those kinds of things in place of kind of being held while you're figuring out kind of like if we use the kiddo analogy of kiddos learning to work, you walk, you know, they grab onto the furniture when they're starting.
00:18:45
Speaker
we have the capacity to trust ourselves. And it's, again, it's kind of that pulling away the things that are digging into them. And some of them are deeper and harder than others. And some of them quite surface level of what is, what has gotten in the way of like you trusting yourself.
Navigating Change and Daily Life with Values
00:19:00
Speaker
the I think a lot about what gets in the way, because I see lot of, you know, infinite information around how to do things. But what I'm really interested in is a person with a lot of stuff that gets in the way. It's,
00:19:15
Speaker
how the fuck do we do those things yeah it's not just how it's like how do i orient myself to be able to trust that the harebrained creative idea that I have that doesn't seem to fit any particular ah model that I've seen could work yeah etc so yeah do you have like what have those barriers been for you that you've Surmounted or surrendered to in your life.
00:19:41
Speaker
I think one thing i was thinking just when you were sharing that um Which is probably it's not actually answering your question But the thing and it was a phrase I would often share with clients but also ask myself is like what's the worst that can happen? um so like when we have those things that are feeling surmountable or things that do get in the way it's kind of like okay, oh the crazy hair brained scheme that may or may not work but like we're told the worst thing that can happen is it not working in our relationship with food we're told the worst thing that can happen is being fat we're told the worst thing can happen is being poor um but really the way i think um it's just my opinion the worst thing can happen is like not being ourselves and for me i think that that has been that practice of times of
00:20:24
Speaker
when I haven't been myself, I can look back at those times and they're the times where I feel so uncomfortable with maybe things I said or did. Way more uncomfortable than when I did the thing that I wasn't, you know, quote unquote supposed to. And so i think that real...
00:20:40
Speaker
connection to our bodies um and what it feels like when we make certain choices, what it feels like when we step forward with trust in ourselves, where it still will feel scary. Like we're alive, we have a nervous system.
00:20:54
Speaker
We're always going to feel, unless we're like, you know, disassociating, we're going to have a nervous system response. And what comes after that? Like um when we step we take action when we're trusting ourselves often while there is that like initial like oh this feels really scary there's a sense of whatever it is for different people like alignment connection for me it's a deep grounding like a rooting into the earth like a settling almost like yeah that kind of just like settling down um I've got somebody I I work with and we talk about this sometimes because it's says almost like an opposite feeling and for them it's like you know when you puff on a dandelion head and it expands and all of the seeds spread and it's that real expansion and that's her feeling of being connected to that values and their trust so the things I suppose that I've surmounted is really just the social social and cultural expectations and values of what it means to be firstly a human, secondly a woman um or a girl, you know, was a girl at one stage and now a woman, like a mother, all of those identity pieces. And it's surmounting that and choosing to be myself. What I'm noticing is that in every conversation I have with someone on the podcast, especially that people seem to peel off layers to reveal more of their true self over time.
00:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, i um I often get stuck on this How much can I change, especially if I feel like the things I want to do are over there and my habits are here versus is it about accepting truly ourself with a capital S and coming home to that? And maybe that doesn't look like the person you thought it was going to look like.
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think we choose. We don't change. o choose and don't yeah interesting which you know i think we use the word change because people understand it and it's just like sometimes we use those words that are just easy to like it's a shared there's a shared understanding of what we mean by that we don't have to go too deep um with things but often it's healing or it might be that you know unpacking the values um Sometimes it might be choosing to sever a relationship or not even sever, but like not to kind of lean into a relationship. It's often making a choice and deciding. And that's where I think values are so helpful because they give you a space to ground into.
00:23:14
Speaker
um that kind of ah space to access that sense of safety to make a choice from. But then they also are so magical because they give you a space to move towards as well at the same time. And so when we're in those moments of making a choice that we might call a change or whatever it might be,
00:23:31
Speaker
we're choosing ourselves and we're choosing our values time and time again, no matter what that is, what it looks like. um And that i that's what I truly believe cultivates a meaningful life over time and ah and a life that feels true.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, whether you call it change or whether you call it choice or whether you call it healing or whether you call it connection or whatever it might be, I think it's that remembering of who we already were. remembering putting the parts of the body back together bringing those back that's right yeah yeah it's got some gruesome imagery yeah i know it's like sticker one yeah arms like the frankenen yeah yeah yes yeah but more like just a coming home to yourself yeah that feels so cozy um So practically speaking, Laura, what do you what do you chew on each day? Like what is fill filling your days and filling your cup? i as I said, I'm a dietitian by trade, so I hold space for other people around their kind of like businesses and trying to
00:24:25
Speaker
support people to trust themselves and their values and use those as the foundation for how they do business in the world to create a different kind of of of place. um You know, some people might use different kind of lenses to engage with their business with them. So what I want to try and offer people is connection to their values as a way to move forward in business to kind of find a way to take action. I suppose when you're in those tension points that existing inside the systems we're part of having having these values here that makes us want to do certain things but then how do we kind of marry them up with what we're told we we should quote unquote do um to to to have a business to be quote unquote successful whatever that might look like so there's that piece of what i'm doing
00:25:09
Speaker
Um, I currently just working part time at the local environment center. So doing some fun things there in the garden. I work one day a week at the local school supporting the kiddos across sort of sustainability and garden things and planting some seeds figuratively and literally, hopefully in my local community, we're doing some really cool stuff around.
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah. Like that local community resilience. Um, and. When I get to those points of thinking like what can I do? How can I make a difference? That's what I kind of come back to like what's in my kind of patch and that is everything from yeah planting seeds in the garden that attract all the little birdies that we can hear in the background or big birdies as the warbly magpie might signify but then also within our community. So yeah, so we have like an amazing local group of humans who meet regularly. um We started as a group of about five or six of us who met on a cold day down at the
00:26:05
Speaker
local oval to share um produce and it's just grown from there and so we share produce we have a local community seed library we do um two times a year we do like a community potluck picnic um we have got we're collecting some compost additions from local businesses and we hope to kind of broaden that out um We, you know, collect boxes for donations for some local things this weekend. We've got the school quiz night. And so I've i've got a box on the bench in there full of goodies that people have kind of donated to go towards that.
00:26:37
Speaker
I really enjoy the role of hapless, inquisitive person who's like, but how? So, but how do you manage so many things and switch between all these different tasks? And but how do you reflect on your values and where you're headed? Like, what are the nuts and bolts of...
00:26:52
Speaker
of that behavior you know what I mean yeah so one of my core values that it all that all kind of all this there's a few but the one that I often come back to is one of my values I have values statements values action statements because they really help to for me to remember what I'm going after as opposed to just a word which can for me can feel a bit discombobulating like just this little word floating there like what does that even mean cheese Cheese is a core life value. Absolutely. It's like an ethic as well. Yeah. Yeah. It's everything. It's everything. It's life.
00:27:21
Speaker
um So one of my, my values is a regenerative use of resources for myself, um my community and and the world. And that connects into like my passion and work around sustainability, but it also reminds me that my time is a resource. And so when I'm thinking about those activities is like how,
00:27:42
Speaker
can I engage and connect to those while still having it be regenerative? um And so that's my touch point. So coming, but how do I do it all? I don't do it all. Cause that's such a like gross myth, but like, how do i move into those different spaces and have,
00:27:57
Speaker
I suppose energy time is just by like a real deep connection to what are my resources and capacity right now and how can I engage with those? And those activities or actions have been like slowly built over time. So I said before kiddos, so I've got three kiddos and um I've been at home with the kiddos, like doing my own business stuff and some, some little different things, but have been at home with the kiddos and they've been where my resource and capacity has been.
00:28:25
Speaker
um You know, i mentioned before I used to work working with people around their relationship with food and a lot of that work was holding space for people for their grief, for their unpacking, for all of that stuff. And when I had my kiddos, they're the humans that I'm giving that resource and capacity for space holding to the
Emotions and Decision-Making Beyond Intellect
00:28:44
Speaker
most of the time. So to be able to do both wasn't, for me, wasn't an option that still allowed me to grounding that value of a regenerative use of resourcing so yeah it's finding other kind of things so for me it's like holding my values in my heart I suppose or they're just there I don't know how i I don't know how I hold them Katie like they're not really a visual although I do have like a photographic memory but I don't like hold them usually um but it's just like a felt sense and it's now it's just like that thing I kind of come back to like touching in yep is that it is that
00:29:16
Speaker
how end And connection to my body, like that embodiment piece of like, how does that even feel? And knowing when things are feeling, also knowing what it feels like when it doesn't quite feel right. And so, okay, where's the opportunity to choose different or to move in and out, like through those seasons and rhythms of the year, but also of life. The felt sense, it's so tragic and hilarious that we, I think, deride the emotions and the felt senses and favor the intellectual and the mind space when...
00:29:46
Speaker
As I understand it, the emotional body is what has been honed over you know all of those tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of years of human history to guide us and to help us understand what's safe and what isn't.
00:30:02
Speaker
And then the kind of linguistic, those came much later. But we, as you're saying, you know you're not holding these these words or phrases in your mind's eye. It's more like a referencing your body, like a somatic checking in with yourself and your values and that to me seems like an older, wiser, deeper, more faithful intelligence perhaps.
00:30:22
Speaker
yeah I think that we create the, well, and culturally we're asked to create hierarchies, right? Mind over body, all those kinds of pieces as if they're different um things. And there's that remembering, right? Bringing it back together.
00:30:34
Speaker
Like there's always been for me like a little sense of that happening, but there was that work of choosing to connect and and choosing to, and again, it comes back to that trust, which we talked about, um like choosing that trust.
00:30:47
Speaker
It can feel safer and it can feel easier to choose what I think. and to intellectualize. I love good intellectualization of things um and keeping things all in my head um and hanging out in there. It's a fun place to be. Like it's that doing things and then looking at, well, what's the evidence, huh? When I trust my gut, whatever people want to call it, intuition gut, or just a felt sense of,
00:31:10
Speaker
what that is and and maybe it's a sense of nervous system safety, I'm not sure, like no neurologist or neuroscientist, but you know, there's that piece of just, yeah, I don't know. And I feel like everyone, for everyone, it can feel a bit different, like where it sits in their body and how it feels and what kind of sensations it leads to for them.
00:31:30
Speaker
And it's never a removal of a lot of other sensations. So like you still can get dysregulated. can still have your nervous system like, like your heart rates going up and all those things like, you know, sitting here with you. This is really safe. i'm I'm in my yard and things, but also I'm sharing parts of myself and people don't listen and people probably going to have thoughts about what I'm saying or how I'm saying things. And that's a thing. And so, yeah, I can feel like I'm a little bit sweaty and I'm a little bit like, you know, nervous system, but I'm,
00:31:57
Speaker
also at the same time is that sense of like well i just want to share what what what kind of comes out from that sense of like that felt sense of connection as opposed to create a story or a facade that might be like well i'll be really comfortable with that going out into the world yeah it sounds like also discernment in the the situations that you're happy to inhabit even though they might raise your heart rate and activate yeah Yeah, sympathetic nervous system.
00:32:27
Speaker
I'm obsessed with this idea of leadership, really authentic leadership. And I think for some reason, it's um an assumption that we have. If someone's speaking to you on a podcast, you know, they're in there in your ears, there's some level of of leadership in that, you know, we're having a conversation that's being shared. So it's important, right? And I feel like I'm quite disenchanted with people in positions of leadership or people with platforms not not owning up to the struggle and the the complexity of life, and especially when we're trying to do things differently, what that actually entails emotionally and the the confusion that can that can reign in our minds and our
Challenging Societal Norms and Redefining Success
00:33:09
Speaker
households. And far from sullying our authority, I feel like it generates such connection and such solidarity. And I i really want this podcast to be a place where people can...
00:33:22
Speaker
share that that stuff really authentically and i'm I'm really grateful to you for doing that because to me that's expansive and opening as opposed to um you know closing people down or you know shooting people by by omitting that information Yeah, I mean, and I think that culturally we're asked to create this idea that it's all great, like, you know, that kind of like facade of of things, but it's, it doesn't take you necessarily where you want to go. And it it creates that, yeah, that, like you said, that disconnect of people feeling like, well, yeah, there's that person's figured it out, and they've got it going on, and they're a great leader or whatever it might be. And,
00:33:59
Speaker
that there is all this kind of hidden and then it creates that for ourselves that idea that that's somehow shameful or wrong or that there's something like we're failing or doing something wrong um i'm a big um proponent for wrapping words around things you know sharing them wrapping words around them like if you're not really sure like um anyone that i've mentored in business will tell you that i i'm often sharing them when they're saying like i don't know what to do it's like we'll just start talking about it you know, I don't know how to, you know, currently like, you know, we're seeing a genocide in Khaza and people are running online businesses and sharing things and it's like, well, how do I share that when this is happening? It's like, well, you just talk about it. You say, I feel really uncomfortable sharing about this because this thing's happening and I don't want me sharing this to make you to, for people then to have this thought that I don't care.
00:34:46
Speaker
I do. And this is the, and naming what the reality is. What are we asked to act into? um to have our needs met and and yet just wrapping words around it. Like whenever I'm unsure or whenever, um because I like to talk about things anyway, as you can probably tell, it's shutting me up, that's the problem. um But like just wrapping words around it because somebody else is probably thinking it or feeling it.
00:35:09
Speaker
It's true whether we talk about it or not. And I think the wrapping the words around it can help us to move away from that kind of idea of shame or things that that come up with those pieces.
00:35:20
Speaker
really great attribute of a podcast guest is desire to talk. So I'm glad that you have that in you. um I noticed walking through your lovely home, three magnificent looking loaves of bread on your bench top.
00:35:34
Speaker
And a question that i always enjoyed asking people in the future setting podcast that I used to do with Jade Miles was how do you balance baking your own bread, i.e. living the life, the homesteading from scratch, grounded existence, how do you balance that with earning a crust, making a crust, earning an income?
00:35:53
Speaker
Because it seems like it can be, as someone said at a screening the other night, you can make a rat race out of the slow life. So i'd love to have a frank discussion about whatever you're happy to share in the financial realm. I know that you're so interested in business and how that is I see, you know, so key to the poly crisis, how we earn money, how we how we value things. So I'm wondering if we could maybe start with your own balancing act in that arena and then maybe we can talk more broadly about your mentoring of people in business and how that can be potentially a force for good. I have questions in that space, but...
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think it comes back to those old values. um Doing things differently through the same values will get you the same. You'll get to the same point. So to adopt those kind of, you know, quote unquote, slow living um or homesteading or whatever the term people might use it, like those kind of practices, which is just kind of those practices of meeting our needs with our own hands.
00:36:55
Speaker
um in some ways. If we act into those or we go after those through the same values of those kind of cultural ideas of having to do everything, having to do it perfectly, there's only one right way, like all of those supremacy culture values, characteristics will end up with the same kind of, will be at the same point.
00:37:13
Speaker
Firstly, it's that values, like having that as the point to come back to. And so there's been seasons of my life, like so I've been, you know, baking my own bread for probably about 11-ish years. But there's been seasons over that time where I've been like, that's just not going to work for this season. So I'm going to buy my bread for a while or whatever it might be. um And actually compassion, self-compassion is probably the key to it for me is so having my values, but my values not being another rule, another self-flagellation tool, because again, we're going to get the same
00:37:48
Speaker
result even if in that case even if we are living through our values we're living through our values through the lens of those other kind of cultural social values that ask ourselves to perform and act perfectly so one so how I balance it is yes having that grounding of my values but bringing a like a truckload of self-compassion um that's something that you know again through my work with humans around their relationship with food and and bodies it was something that I'd be talking about over and over and over and over again um compassion. So like the kind of three kind of tenants for me in those spaces have always been like curiosity, connection and compassion. So curiosity about what I could do differently, connection into my values and then yeah, compassion when I don't, compassion when I do a different choice or compassion when I buy my bread.
00:38:32
Speaker
Oh, so, so terrible. I bought bread. But when we start going down these kind of pathways of doing things differently, then it's kind of like, well, now the alternative is the thing I can't do, right? So it's like when we're in the kind of mainstream piece, we're wanting to move away from that.
00:38:46
Speaker
So we're kind of moving towards this thing. This is the thing I'm building up. And then when we're there, then it can feel like a step backwards again, all those kind of cultural narratives. So it's challenging those and having a lot of compassion.
00:38:57
Speaker
And then, yeah, for us, there is privilege. My husband actually really likes going out to work. Good for you, not me. I've probably worked full-time for like three years of my whole kind of life of working. i stumbled into this space of like working part-time and doing a business part-time and being like, why isn't everyone like working part-time? Why is everyone working full-time? Like I just couldn't kind of figure it out. What allowed me, I suppose, to make that work was...
00:39:25
Speaker
Partly growing up like with very little income but like really being able to get clear on what was my enough like what my needs like how do I meet my needs bare ass minimum um as I'd like to call it like what is the bare like what is my kind of bare kind of point and that doesn't mean I'm always living in that point but that actually it's okay if I have to live in that kind of range or zone for a short period of time if the kind of place I'm moving towards is kind of grounding in my values. So there were times, you know, as I said, like I'm a dietitian by trade. So, you know, in, in our cultural kind of standing or opportunities from around finance and things, there could be, you know, I could be doing all kinds of different things with that and, and measuring my success through those other kind of using those other barometers and, and be doing something completely different. Um, but,
00:40:15
Speaker
yeah like my soul would be sucked like I just it's just this the feeling of it in my body is even just thinking about it um I remember when we had made the choice to have kiddos and my husband said to me what do you think about going back to work full time in the lead up so then you get them maternity leave I was like well yeah I could but I would be so unhappy um and so like just yeah and And there's a lot of privilege in being able to make that choice. And I really want to acknowledge that because it's not available to everyone that that can be a thing, you know, for whatever reason, whether it's for people around their sense of safety um on their own kind of history and any kind of like, you know, a lot of people have trauma around finance and money and that kind of stuff. And depending on the identity you hold, having options and flexibility um aren't always available as well. So I just really want to acknowledge that um and that the privilege that I talk about, yes, there's that financial privilege of
00:41:09
Speaker
having professional well-paying jobs, but also it's that privilege of I'm a white, able-bodied woman who holds identities that are accepted throughout like all of those kind of spaces. So there's that piece. So how do I balance it?
00:41:23
Speaker
It's a constant kind of like tilting in and it's just that regrounding in what my enough is. And I think that's, that's been the key. Like, conceptualizing that and sometimes probably going too far with my bare ass minimum at times you know i'm i am i can be a bit frugal uh which is probably like you know a trauma response to growing up with a lot of not a lot of money but then allowing like when i lean into like making different choices is is reminding myself or trying to just have them grounded in my value so yeah we could go do all these things right but does that actually make me happier does that actually give me different things um or does it meet my needs or is it like yeah sprinkles on top and sometimes sprinkles on top are really yummy um and i go for sprinkles and sometimes no i don't don't want the sprinkles it it looks nice but it actually doesn't satisfy me in any way i don't feel content from it yeah
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, this idea of BAM, like the bare ass minimum is a good one and something that I'm constantly thinking about too, because yeah, my brain just sees the logic in, in smalling, you know, smalling our endeavors, smalling our money based requirements, because a you know, they're not what we think they are in so many cases, like what you're alluding to there, our primary needs can't really be met through the money economy, I don't think. I mean, there are basic needs that we currently have to buy, but true you know depth of connection, being in community, those kind of things are at heart a non-monetary event.
00:42:55
Speaker
So i I'm often wondering in you know in a business sense, do people think about their enoughness in business? Because it seems to me there's this underlying assumption of well, more money is always better because you're in business and the idea is to profit.
00:43:11
Speaker
Whether it's you're running your own business or a part of a bigger one, it's like, why don't we just say, why don't we set a ceiling on that so that we're not pursuing something to our own detriment that we don't even need? And I struggle to articulate this. I wish that I had a little Nate Hagens from the Great Simplification on my shoulder who can speak to the economics of this. But my understanding is that, you know, being involved in you know, profiting is a claim on our
Aligning Business With Personal Values
00:43:37
Speaker
Earth's resources. So I'm very cautious with this idea of needing to make more money because I do think that that comes from somewhere, you know, literally materially in our environment. So what are your, what's your relationship with limits and enoughness? You did mention you're really good at coming back to that bare ass minimum.
00:43:56
Speaker
Or maybe I can ask you that from a business mentor perspective, like, do you counsel people around setting setting a ceiling on their income or looking at what their business size needs to be other than just an infinite kind of growth machine?
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, anyone I talk to around the business mentoring space is always about enough, like figuring that out. And also about redefining success. So what are the things that actually make you feel successful? Or like what does your, you know, to use like a,
00:44:27
Speaker
common with like, what's your quote unquote rich life, like look like, like, what does that look and, and what does it feel like for me? It's like going have an app, but doing something that, you know, the, that quote unquote, you, you kind of shouldn't, or that you couldn't, if you were at a job, like maybe it's sitting out and having a cup of tea or getting out and pottering in the garden.
00:44:44
Speaker
through the day and doing those things and this the felt sense of doing that versus the felt sense of yeah making more money and there is a sense of safety and security because of our physiological needs have been commodified right and so we do need to cover some costs because we're all engaging in that kind of money monetary economy in some way um some people less and some people more than others and so that is a very real thing and what's the felt sense of that when you are at certain points so there's um so i encourage the people that i work with to to know their numbers to not be scared of money to not see money as
00:45:26
Speaker
money doesn't, to me, doesn't have a moral kind of piece. It's the values that we act into it in our relationship with money. um And that's where we'll either move towards our own values or away from them. And even that, like there's no, I don't think there's a big E ethical, like there's not some overarching ethical idea because then we're creating like one, like this is ethical, right? And everyone has to stick to this. If if we think that one behavior is just ethical, but it's about our own ethics and what what creates the kind of world we want to be part of and what respects resources of our ourselves and the environment and and things like that. Like as you were sharing, you know, before, like that comes from somewhere. So how do we engage, how do we relate?
00:46:07
Speaker
And that relating piece is often missed in business because it's like, it's very, um you know, and it kind of comes back to that whole head over kind of feelings thing. It's like that hierarchy of numbers and objective measures and things being more important and anyone who's kind of worked in any kind of research where qualitative you know research is more important than qualitative research when it comes to defining what success looks like we're asked to look for those quantifiable things and often we have a stronger felt sense of success from those those qualitative
00:46:40
Speaker
measures of success. So a couple of things that I encourage people to do is to, yes, have monetary goals if they feel, if that feels, you know, I don't have goals, I'm not a goal setter. So I also say to people, don't have a goal if you don't want to, but have like, you know, ideas of where you might want to go to, but take it that next step and actually encapsulate what does that mean for you and the life you can cultivate in your values so that the the goal or the thing you're working towards isn't the 10K months, although, you know, in the business world, it's probably like 100K months now. It's probably what they're supposed to be aiming for.
00:47:18
Speaker
It's like, what's that money in aid of for you and for your life? And so it's like, the thing I might want to do is have school holidays off with my kiddos or to be able to say no to things that,
00:47:29
Speaker
don't align with my values or to do harmful things in the world okay so what is my monetary like what allows me to then be able to act into that and so the money becomes a tool for us to create a values driven life as opposed to the money's the thing we're going for and to bring it like you know not full circle but like way back to that choice that conversation we're having around bodies and food and relationships and when i work with people around that is like culturally, we're we're told that the weight, the number is the thing to be going after.
00:48:01
Speaker
um And it's more like, well, what what's the kind of life i want to be living? What are the changes I want to make that or what is the thing I want to work towards that's in aid of making my life work? that felt sense of success but also like what's that innate of and often we are asked to disconnect it from a thing and it's like it's a number on a scale it's a number in a bank account it's a it's it's a this it's a house in this neighborhood it's a holiday to this place or whatever um but like yeah what does that mean to you and and what's kind of qualitative um in connection to your values how do you find that um And then I often talk to people when they're looking at ideas around money or financial pieces is to, I kind of like use sort of three spaces. So like your bare ass minimum. So what's like the bare ass minimum? I love that term. I use it all the time. But like, what's your bare ass minimum, like money wise, like to keep the lights on, to meet your physiological needs, to get things covered.
00:48:52
Speaker
then what's that next step of like moving things forward you know maybe taking extra steps or directions in say your business that you might want to add in outsourcing certain things if you don't really enjoy doing them like what's that kind of number and then the next number being your regenerative number like what's a number or like what is what do you want to aim for less about a number but like what is the kind of regenerative actions and practices you want to partake in and and and what what money might that lead to. And it's a really helpful process for two reasons. One is it gets people to think about money and finances in a different way and like what are they in aid of as opposed to just these um static things.
00:49:31
Speaker
Then also what it often means is people realize that a lot of those regenerative practices don't actually. The things that are really regenerative don't actually necessarily take a lot extra money. um It might be just the money they need to create the flexibility to be able to lean into those regenerative practices.
00:49:51
Speaker
um So yeah, so that's kind of where I come from with it. That's freaking awesome. I love a good framework and it feels like you've articulated or wrapped words to use your words around something that I have a lot of hunches and I don't really bother fleshing them out too often, but... um I do tend to have that childlike, but why attitude when I'm thinking about anything that I'm doing because i see i see a lot of people getting stuck on, as you said, that static number or definition, accepted unexamined definition of what a successful business or life looks like. It's like, yeah, but why?
00:50:28
Speaker
Like when I see businesses just growing and it's like the person who originally started a business because they loved remedial massage now has like a chain of remedial massage clinics and they're not on the tools anymore and they've totally divorced themselves from the the core reason and passion that they began with. And it's like, but why?
00:50:43
Speaker
But what have you, what have you really gained in that? And suppose you're speaking for myself. I always, i always come back to that. What is this in service of? What is this really enriching me? How is this really enriching me? And I think that's, that's a really beautiful three part.
00:50:57
Speaker
inquiry it's like how we speak about the unexamined life it's like the unexamined income the unexamined business like examine it and really ask how it's going to support you what what that actually looks and feels like as you say yeah and and where can you tether it to your values because a number like months you know you can't what like what value is that tethered to for it probably isn't. But earning this much money so that I can, for me, like, you know, or having that flexibility so that I can garden when the sun shines out and and do my other business tasks at another time. And yes, having that kind of, so the the thing that allows that to feel like success or the thing that I would be moving towards is, okay, well, I want enough financial resources
00:51:41
Speaker
safety and security so that that doesn't feel like a trade-off um or that that doesn't feel like a threat or a risk for me to say spend four hours gardening instead of like doing this or that.
00:51:53
Speaker
The other piece too, from like a business point of view is to, you can still use like numbers and things to look at. um A lot of the time in business, people are spending their time and energy on things that don't necessarily even move them towards other things. So if we want to be quantifiable, let's like, let's do that. Like, let's actually look at, okay, well, what What is that in aid of versus is it just something that you've been told you should be doing so that all businesses have to do this or should be doing this?
Reimagining Business and Societal Expectations
00:52:22
Speaker
You know, that idea that you should be on social media, you should have a podcast, you should do all these things. And it's like, OK, well, what kind of business are you moving towards and how does that actually take you there?
00:52:34
Speaker
And actually examining the that piece, because I think people can end up spending a lot of time, a lot of energy going after doing all these actions to say, increase revenue, increase at sort of bottom line that don't actually take us there.
00:52:48
Speaker
um And so, yeah, knowing your numbers, knowing your values, bringing that together to be like, well, what, where do, and knowing where you want to go for your business. And I suppose then making those choices that each of those decisions you're making are moving you towards that.
00:53:04
Speaker
and And, you know, if being like, you know, to social media, it's a, it's an example, it's an easy example to use because I have many people that I mentor that we've mentored through the process of moving off it because it's not regenerative for them. It doesn't take them where they want to go And often it doesn't actually lead to a change in their revenue. But then there's some people who businesses it does. So, um, it's actually that, yeah, that examining of like, is this actually true for me and my business and for my values, as opposed to just what I think I should do, what I'm told will eventually make me, um, thing. And like,
00:53:38
Speaker
and And who said that? isn and I think I ask people like, who said that? Like the person that's selling the course on how to do social media, the person who who said that. And yeah, another piece that can be sometimes helpful around business, which is like a complete tangent for what we're talking about, but it just popped into my head.
00:53:55
Speaker
is that commerce, exchanging goods and services, has been in existence for a very long time. But capitalism, the political and economic system that we do that in now, has only been around for like 400 or whatever, probably a little bit more now, but like years.
00:54:11
Speaker
And so... You can do business outside of the values of capitalism. um It will look different. It will feel scary. And it will look really different as far as like those kind of markers of success.
00:54:25
Speaker
um And business commerce has been done for eons. They're not the same thing. And they're not, I think, currently and particularly for people who are looking for those ways to divest from the systems we're embedded in the idea of doing business feels like well that's antithetical because business is capitalism business is extraction it's doing business through the values and the system of capitalism but business and commerce have been done for a long time and we can do it differently it'll look different though yes, I'll be the first to say you can't do business differently and if you want the same results that capitalism and the sisters were embedded in tells you. So if you want that, then yeah, that's probably what you're doing. But it's like, why do you want that? I suppose if your values are different, or i'd I'd just really be encouraging someone to examine that.
00:55:14
Speaker
But if you want things to be different, then you can't you can do it differently it will it but it will actually look different and all of the judgment and all of the questioning of yourself and all of those pieces will come with that and that'll be part of the work too i was just thinking it is such fertile ground for self self-awareness and self-reflection and i'm a big fan i mean even you don't call it a business per se but you know creative projects anything that you're you're bringing to life on your own terms but i'm wondering about if you engage with people who are really grappling with like status and status anxiety and I feel quite strongly that the status has a lot to fucking answer for in terms of our habits and our pursuits and I think the pursuit of status drives a lot of folks and for some reason I don't
00:56:01
Speaker
really have that as one of my key struggles I've got every single other one of but not that one so much but how do you work with people who really need to see themselves with a specific type of wristwatch or brand like type of car or certain number of followers on Facebook just for the sense that that number is defining them Yeah. I mean, in all honesty, I probably people don't stick around in my ecosystem very long if that's what they're after. Because yeah, I talk straight to that, that that is not, well, it's not kind of like, it's not me. It's not how I show up. I mean,
00:56:39
Speaker
The people who are interested in that probably aren't interested in the business owner and podcaster, me, who talks about their garden ah and their seeds and what's happening. um So like there's, and this is the real, like, not that I'm not open to holding space for people who have different values and ideas than me. And when we show up in our values, particularly in our business, when our marketing and how we share things is so deeply en entrenched our values, the people that will align with what we're sharing will have um values adjacent.
00:57:07
Speaker
they'll be connected in that way so that is kind of a cool piece of values based marketing so that's one element of it i think that at the end of day we're all trying to get our needs met and if i was to hold space for that person i'd be asking them like what what need does that meet for you because there's a need i talk about it like you know when i'm working with the kiddos at the school and the kiddos who do this or that it's like well They're just trying to get a need met and that's how they've been shown to meet that need.
00:57:33
Speaker
So culturally and socially, we've been shown that having a certain wristwatch or having a certain level of status meets a certain need. And so it's that getting to that piece, it's getting down to the root of it. and what what's the need for you.
00:57:46
Speaker
And then if we've done that values work, then we but then we bring them together. Okay, well, how do you meet that need while you're grounded in your values? And if the action is to buy the watch or whatever it might be, it's like, well, what I would be hoping to do is hold space for that person to really examine the values that they're acting into because I don't know, I could be wrong and this could be laden and it is laden with judgment. So I judge, I don't think that humans truly desire those things.
00:58:16
Speaker
What we desire is that need for maybe that is being connected to a ah feeling of of safety for people. or a feeling of being being valued i think sometimes with our needs we can create this hierarchy even sometimes like good old maslow with his bloody hierarchy of needs i've got i won't go into that because i got a lot to say about that katie but needs are like there's no hierarchy like
Meeting Non-Physiological Needs for Thriving
00:58:39
Speaker
people would say like well if you don't have your physiological means net you will die but you can be alive and not be alive like there's an amazing
00:58:48
Speaker
sad study from it's Romania where there was all these kiddos in an orphanage and all of their physiological needs were being met but they were never being held or touched or stimulated they lived in these little like cots in like a very sort of unsimulating room all the time and they were just fed And those kiddos weren't meeting any of the kind of developmental kind of milestones and things. And it's a reminder to me, and I often share it because it's reminder that, yes, you can have your physiological needs being met, but that doesn't mean that you're living or that you're surviving, um but you know that you're thriving. Because those all about, there's no hierarchy, like being loved and valued and seen and appreciated.
00:59:28
Speaker
is just as important to me, I think, that as being fed and as being um nourished in those other physiological ways. um Yes, obviously one way you will div diverse as the other but if you don't have all of those needs met as a human then you don't thrive and so for some people how they meet those needs has been connected to those cultural social values and so these those kind of behaviors or ways is just people getting their needs met and so it's like okay well let's get clear on what the needs are let's get clear on what your values are and what does action in grounding in your values look like to go after that need
01:00:03
Speaker
when you hold the idea of the kind of world you want to be part of, the kind of world you want to create, whether that's through your garden or through your business, what does acting grounded in your values, going in after a need and also cultivating that kind of world, what does that action look like?
01:00:19
Speaker
And I think if we do that in introspection, it isn't the wristwatch, it isn't the status, but maybe it is. I'm happy to be proved wrong.
01:00:29
Speaker
And what is an activity or an exercise that you could offer people to clarify some of these things which may live as just murky hunches?
01:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think the values piece like wrapping words around your values. So if you've done values exercises before, that's great. If you haven't done one for like a few years, I would I would dive back in and when you have the words like as often a values kind of exercise will have a word um is to go beyond that word to define that word for yourself and also to wrap words around the word um and be like, OK, well, what does it look like to act into that word? So because say for example justice that's one of my values um justice and fairness and one person's definition of justice might be that might might have like grounded be grounded in punishment that that is what justice looks like for them but for me um justice and fairness is spaces where everyone can be seen heard and known and that's like my and so that's my value statement my values action statement is cultivating spaces
01:01:31
Speaker
um where people are seen heard and known because that is the embodiment for me that's what it looks like to act into justice and fairness you would look at that action statement and not necessarily see justice and fairness and so that's why i really encourage people so have your words but then actually like wrap words around tool or and it doesn't have to be words because again we create a bit of a hierarchy that things can be words but talk it out dance it out draw it collage it whatever the way that you connect to yourself that feels aligned for you to create a concept of what it looks like for you to act into that value, um whether that's words or or some other way to
Community Engagement and Future Plans
01:02:08
Speaker
conceptualise it. So that would be what I would um give as an invitation.
01:02:12
Speaker
And the other piece would be that felt sense cultivating that felt sense and you can do that Moving forward, but you can also do it retrospectively Like we can all probably think and cringe about times when we didn't show up in our values or things that didn't feel aligned How did that feel for you?
01:02:27
Speaker
And then times when you maybe have shown up and it hasn't felt like the thing you thought you quote-unquote should do but it was just the thing you had to do like you didn't have that choice you were compelled in some kind of way and that is often when we're acting into our values and so what did that feel like how did it feel differently um and so yeah really connecting to that felt sense of connection to yourself but also to connect to yeah your values oh and how can people connect with you Well, I do have a podcast. It is more in the kind of businessy kind of space. um So if people are looking at that, a friend, like a local friend was like, I'll listen to your podcast. I don't have a business, but I'll listen. They listen. They're like, okay, you're just kind of giving life advice, but under the idea, under the guise of business. i was like, yeah, you got me.
01:03:13
Speaker
I see business as a gateway to like, it's just like one of those places, like, you know, chickens are kind of like a gateway to homesteading. Sometimes I think those homesteading behaviors, your business is just like a, it's a, it's a nodal, it's a point of intervention. And so for some people, it might be when they have kiddos, for some people, it might be a grief phase or moving or having a business whatever that creates this tension point.
01:03:33
Speaker
where there's opportunity to choose, to choose differently. So yes, dietitian values because dietitian is my background, but I think it resonates for most people. It's not dietitian specific. I just use a few dietitian examples as I have today.
01:03:45
Speaker
And I hang around on Instagram and the social kind of spaces under that so same kind of name. In the kind of more garden and um growing space where you can connect if you're local to the Gundaroo Growers,
01:03:57
Speaker
ah group We meet up once a month, so come hang out um if you're local, if you happen to be in Gundaroo, and that would be pretty cool, actually, if there was someone else in Gundaroo who listens. And I work at Canberra Environment Centre, so we're always doing fun things there, so that's another space to connect.
01:04:12
Speaker
um I run some different workshops and stuff through that space, but yeah. But I'm always up for connection and continuing the conversation. Yeah, well, thank you so much for there the such a rich conversation today in your part of the world, in this...
01:04:27
Speaker
very steamy deck i'm actually i'm feeling like i need to peel off a couple of layers what are you looking figuratively and uh yes always always needing to slough off some shit that i've accumulated what with with this incredibly burgeoning springtime that i'm feeling all around us at the moment what is something you're really looking forward to doing in the garden maybe this weekend or soon Oh, I've got some plants that I'm wanting to do a little um edible kind of windbreak slash um evergreen row of things. Anyway, down the front and um in the orchard space.
01:05:05
Speaker
And so, yes, I might actually pull my thumb out and do that this weekend. But mostly just pottering in the garden with a cuppa um or a cool drink and just actually enjoying it.
01:05:16
Speaker
That's what I look forward to most. Yes. Yes. Yes, and planting seeds, always planting seeds, figuratively and literally. um And this awesome quote that I often hold if I'm in those kind of moments of like, what do I do? Am I doing like enough or the right thing? or You know, those those cultural values pop up. It's we're planting seeds for a forest we may never get to spend time in.
01:05:36
Speaker
And that just reminds me to keep planting the seeds. It might not be that I am in the forest, but it's it's moving us towards something different.
Episode Conclusion and Teaser
01:05:44
Speaker
Well, thank you for just casually ending on such a profound note.
01:05:49
Speaker
And I've just so enjoyed spending time with you this morning. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. That was Laura Jean of Dietitian Values, whose links I've linked in the Linky Poo's section of the show notes.
01:06:01
Speaker
Next fortnight, I'm releasing another in-person interview from our road trip with a guy whose gardening videos really stole my heart during COVID and a few other million people's too. I think you'll know who I mean.
01:06:13
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to Riskilliance. Catch you soon.